LibGuides: * Political Science & International Relations: International

World Governments

Governments on the WWW Links to governmental institutions, political parties and party alliances for many countries.
Links to World Statistics Click on "International Statistical Links" to retrieve an A-Z country list with national statistical bureau links attached.
NationMaster View statistics and profiles of individual countries including their maps and flags, use correlation reports and scatterplots to find relationships between variables, and refer to fully integrated encyclopedia with over one million articles.
United Nations

Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS) This link opens in a new window Identifies articles, books and conference papers on Latin America.
Covers anthropology, art, economics, geography, government and politics, history, international relations, literature, music, philosophy and sociology.
World Factbook This link opens in a new window Data on many countries in the world including gross domestic product, economic aid, growth rate, maps, etc.
PolicyFile This link opens in a new window Research publications from U.S. and international think tanks, university research programs, research organizations and publishers
Includes demographic, business and census data with abstracts and updated weekly. Profile provides users with web links to contributing organization's home page, email address, scholar biographies and full text.

European Union

Finding background info on a country

BBC Country Profiles Country profiles from BBC News. Freely available website.
Country Profiles (Library of Congress) These profiles offer brief, summarized information on a country’s historical background, geography, society, economy, transportation and telecommunications, government and politics, and national security.
FAO Country Profiles Country Profiles from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Foreign Affairs Online A collection of several thousand links to sites useful in International Relations, International Law, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Organized into 11 broad categories, such as international law, international relations, NGOs & IGOs, and human rights.
globalEDGE A global business knowledge web-portal that connects international business professionals worldwide to a wealth of information, insights, and learning resources on global business issues. Maintained by Michigan State University.
Nations of the World (Law Library of Congress) Part of the Guide to Law Online, for each nation there is info about the constitution, executive, judicial, legislative as well as legal guides. Links to general sources on each country are also included.
World Bank Country Profiles Country profiles prepared by World Bank staff are available for 157 nations. Freely available website.

World Factbook This link opens in a new window Data on many countries in the world including gross domestic product, economic aid, growth rate, maps, etc.

OFFSTATS Database Free statistics from official sources on the web arranged by country, region or subject.
Worldbank Open Data (Data Catalog) Data catalog is a listing of available World Bank datasets, including databases, pre-formatted tables, reports, and other resources.

Resources - International

ACLED (Armed Conflict Location and Events Dataset) (1997–) ACLED is the most comprehensive public collection of political violence data for developing states. Data can be downloaded on this site by country in excel and GIS formats.

Brazil: records of the U.S. State Department, 1960-1963 This link opens in a new window
This collection of U.S. Department of State records focuses on Brazil in the early 1960s. The collection covers the period following the resignation from the presidency of Janio Quadros in 1961 and the succession of Vice President Joao Goulart, whose years in office were marked by high inflation, economic stagnation, and the increasing influence of radical political elements.

Center for Security Studies (formerly ISN) News, research and other publications, e-learning opportunities and more in the areas of international relations, area studies, international business, security and military studies, comparative studies, and human rights.

Colección Revolución, 1910-1921 This link opens in a new window

Conflict Site v. 3 1989-2008 A georeferenced extention to the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflicts Dataset that provides coordinates for the actual location of the armed conflicts in the dataset and the list of countries in which the conflicts were located. Every conflict-year in the dataset is assigned a circular conflict zone, based on a center point given in latitude and longitude coordinates and a radius indicator measuring the distance from the center point to the most distant point in the conflict zone. Data in Excel.
Correlates of War data Datasets covering COW country codes; inter-state, intra-state, non-state, and extra-state war; militarized interstate disputes; national material capabilities; alliances; contiguity; territorial change; IGOs; and bilateral trade.
Coup D'état Project The CDP’s objective is to compile, for 165 countries in the post WWII era, a more comprehensive listing, documentation, and categorization of coups. Data in Excel.
Coups in Dictatorships, 1970-2010 Data on both attempted and successful coups in dictatorships from 1970-2010. Data in Stata format.
Coups in the World, 1950-Present Provides a list of coups by country and by country-year. Data is in txt format and updated through 2015.
Expanded Armed Conflict Data Dataset by Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, University of Essex, which expands the Uppsala Armed Conflict Data by UCDP/PRIO. Adds information about the non-state actors involved in civil conflict and information about the external dimensions conflicts, including external support and extraterritorial features.
INSCR data (systemicpeace.org) cross-national time-series conflict datasets, including data on forcibly displaced populations, major episodes of political violence, ethnic and revolutionary war, genocide, high casualty terrorist bombings, coups d'etat, and state fragility/legitimacy indices. Dates vary, but mostly 1950s-present. Data downloadable in SPSS or Excel.
International Crisis Behavior Dataset Investigates the sources, processes, and outcomes of all military-security crises since the end of World War I, covering 470 crises and 1036 crisis actors. There is a system-level dataset covering the crises and another covering the actors. Includes scores of variables covering onset; actor attributes, behavior, and crisis management; superpower activity; involvement by international organizations; mediation and outcome; and more. Also includes text summaries of each crisis. Data in .csv.
International Peace Institute Publicly available database of total uniformed personnel contributions of each contributing country by month, by type (troop, police, or expert/observer) and by mission, from November 1990 to the present. Also has data on gender and assessed contributions.
Issue Correlates of War Datasets currently include territorial claims, river claims, maritime claims, and regime claims. Supplementary datasets include colonial history, historical state names, and multilateral treaties of pacific settlement.
Paul Huth's Dataverse Replication data from Paul Huth's publications, including his 1996 book Standing Your Ground and his 2003 book with Todd Allee The Democratic Peace and Territorial Conflict in the Twentieth Century.
Peace Accords Matrix The PAM database is a unique source of qualitative and quantitative longitudinal data on the implementation of 34 Comprehensive Peace Agreements (CPAs) negotiated in civil wars between 1989 and 2012.
PRIO data A spatio-temporal grid structure allowing for consistent comparisons in studying conflict. Dataset consists of shapefiles and data in .csv or Stata format.

Revolution in Mexico, the 1917 Constitution, and Its Aftermath: Records of the U.S. State Department This link opens in a new window

Social Conflict in Africa Database (SCAD) SCAD includes protests, riots, strikes, inter-communal conflict, government violence against civilians, and other forms of social conflict on over 10,300 social conflict events from 1990 to 2012.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public.

Terrorism Research Analysis Center (TRAC) This link opens in a new window Comprehensive resource for the study of political violence including articles on topics such as chatter control, terrorism ideology, articles that examine types of targets (from Infrastructure to Tourism), and terrorism tactics from armed assault to cyberterrorism. Searchable by either region or by group. Optimized for Internet Explorer or Google Chrome.

UCDP Conflict Datasets The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) offers a number of datasets on organised violence and peacemaking. Most famous is the UCDP/PRIO Armed Conflict Dataset (1946-2014), but they also have datasets on conflict termination, non-state conflicts, one-sided violence, peace agreements, and battle-related deaths, among others. You can download full datasets or generate your own datasets or tabular reports using various filters.
UCDP Georeferenced Event Dataset, 1989-2014 Covers individual events of organized lethal violence (state-based, one-sided, and non-state conflict) in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. These events are geo-coded down to the level of individual villages, with temporal durations disaggregated to single, individual days. Data in multiple formats (.csv, Excel, SQL, R). Also includes a "conflict polygons" dataset showing the geographical spread of conflict.
United States Institute of Peace

World War I and Revolution in Russia, 1914-1918 This link opens in a new window

ARABTERM (UN United Nations Multilingual Terminology Database of the Arabic Translation Service) contains over 42,000 terms related to the UN, their missions, international agreements, and international relations in general. The database also includes the names of many individuals and organizations involved with the UN. Users may search for terms, or browse the site alphabetically.
European Free Trade Association
Free Trade of the Americas Agreement (FTAA)
Lex Mercatoria Information on international commercial law
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
Organization of American States Trade Agreements List of multilateral and bilateral trade agreements by country.
U.S. Court of International Trade Provides rules and forms (including the new draft rules), information about the court and the judges, and slip opinions from 1999 to present.
U.S. Trade Agreements (USTR)
U.S. Treaties in Force (TIF) Treaties in Force is published annually by the Department of State to provide information on treaties and other international agreements to which the United States has become a party and which are carried on the records of the Department of State as of January 1st in its most recent publication year.
UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) Database Contains the text of the agreement, analysis, cases, and scholarly materials that account for two-thirds of all world trade.
UN Treaty Collection
WorldTradeLaw.net. Provides access to instruments and agreements related to the GATT, WTO, and NAFTA.
World Trade Organization (WTO)

ProQuest Congressional This link opens in a new window Best source for CRS reports, hearings, Congressional committee reports, and more on sanctions, embargoes, etc. Try searching for "international sanctions" or "embargoes" with a country name or within a certain date range.
Also includes full text of the Congressional Record, legislative histories, committee information, member biographies, legislative news, the U.S. code, court decisions and the Congressional Information Service (CIS) index.

SIPRI Arms Embargoes Database Database of multilateral arms embargoes implemented by international organizations.
UN Targeted Sanctions UN targeted sanctions regimes over the past twenty years, providing analyzes their effectiveness in terms of the different purposes of targeted sanctions.
EU Sanctions Information on EU sanctions as implemented under the Common Foreign & Security Policy (CFSP).
UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office Sanctions List Sanctions implemented by the UK against various countries and groups.
US Department of the Treasury Enforces economic and trade sanctions based on US foreign policy and national security goals against targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers" and others.
Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, US State Dept. A list of export embargoes of arms and defense items to sanctioned countries with a link to official Federal Register notices of embargoes.
U.S. Nonproliferation Sanctions, US State Dept. List of nonproliferation sanctions maintained by the Dept. of State.
U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which regulate the export and reexport of commercial items.

Useful Websites - International Affairs

Chatham House Reports & Papers (UK) Publications from the UK's premier IR thinktank.
Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) Collects and organizes data from archived sources to track policy outcomes across countries.
Council on Foreign Relations
Foreign Affairs Online Provides resources on International Relations, International Law, and U.S. Foreign Policy. Maintained by Robert J. Beck, International Relations prof, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Foreign Policy Association National, nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental, educational organization - provides resources, lists of events, and publications, as well as links.
Foreign Relations of the U.S. 1861-1960 Searchable digital collection of major U.S. foreign policy decisions, 1861-1960.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945-1980
International Relations Data Site (Univ. North Texas) Data sources on processes of international conflict and cooperation, as well as data covering international economic, environmental, political, and social data
IssueLab Database offering free access to thousands of case studies, evaluations, white papers, and issue briefs addressing some of the world's most pressing social problems.
National Security Archive More than 63,000 declassified documents regarding critical U.S. policy decisions
U.S. Bilateral Relations Fact Sheets (formerly Background Notes) U.S. relations factsheets by country
U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee
U.S. Office of the Historian - Foreign Relations Historical reference information on aspects of the United States’ relations with the countries of the world.
U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Virtual Library: International Affairs Website containing over 2,000 annotated links to information sources on international relations. Maintained by Wayne A. Selcher, Dept. of Political Science, Elizabethtown College.

IGOs & NGOs

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become increasingly influential in world affairs. They often impact the social, economic and political activities of communities and the country as a whole. NGOs address a host of issues, including, but not limited to, women’s rights, environmental protection, human rights, economic development, political rights, or health care. In numerous countries, NGOs have led the way in democratization, in battling diseases and illnesses, in promoting and enforcing human rights, and in increasing standards of living. International governmental organizations (IGOs) (e.g. UN, EU, OAS, etc.) work closely with NGOs.

Definition and structure of NGOs (Peter Willetts, City University, London)
Directory of Development Organizations (OECD) A listing of 70,000 development organizations
The European Commission and Civil Society
Google IGO Search Engine Searches across hundreds of IGO websites.
Google NGO Search Engine A specialized Google search engine designed to search across NGO organizations.
IGO Search via the Union of International Associations allows you to search the publicly available information at more than 3,000 international organizations.
Integrated Civil Society Organizations System (UN) A list of general profiles for civil society organizations, including address, contacts, activities and meeting participation listed by region, field of activity or organization type.
NGO Branch, Office for United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
The NGO Café Part of the Global Development Research Center, The NGO Café is "a platform for NGOs to discuss, debate and disseminate information on their work, strategies and results."
Registry of Civil Society Organizations Within the Organizaton of American States (OAS)
Worldwide NGO Directory (WANGO) Searchable database of NGO's (or browse by region).