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- Margaret Schaus, Reference Librarian and Bibliographer (HC)
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PolS 161 : Election '08 and Globalization (HC)
Finding Background Information:
Election Guide 2008 (New York Times)
The candidates' views on 11 broad areas are compared. Often uses excerpts from speeches and campaign statements.
Elections 2008 (University of Michigan Library)
Extensive resource page with a section devoted to individual policy issues.
FactCheck (University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center)
Checks the accuracy of politicians' statements. Evaluation includes citations to news and analysis articles.
Policy Papers and Think Tanks
Columbia International Affairs Online
In addition to providing full-text journal articles, case studies, scholarly papers, and conference proceedings, CIAO also includes policy reports from think tanks. The focus is on theory and research in international affairs. Covers 1991 to the present.
PolicyFile
Provider: Chadwyck-Healey
Provides online access to abstracts and full-text reports on public policy issues from think tanks, university research programs, research organizations and publishers.Covers a wide range of social and economic topics
Think Tanks and Policy Center (Columbia University)
Guide to think tanks with a list of books about these non-profit research organizations, links to major think tanks, and related web resources.
Think Tanks Directory (Harvard University)
Links to major organizations along with a search box for the web sites of all the groups listed.
Resources by Topic
Issue 1: Immigration
Immigration Debate: Can Politicians Find a Way to Curb Illegal Immigration?
A report from CQ Researcher published in February 2008. Includes think tanks ("Contacts"), sources for more information ("Bibliography") and a variety of background information sections.
Immigration: Reports and Factsheets (Pew Hispanic Center)
Here you can find reports written by the Pew Hispanic Center researchers specifically on immigration policy issues. There are many more related reports available in other sections of the web site.
Issue 2: Free Trade
Encyclopedia of globalization
Publisher: New York : Routledge, c2007.
See the article "North American Free Trade Agreement" as well as related articles including "Economic Globalization" and "Free Trade."
NAFTA Resources (Latin American Network Information Center)
The University of Texas at Austin maintains this page of resources which includes academic sites, trade groups and data, documents,and additional resources.
NAFTA Revisited: How to Proceed
A brief commentary from two economists about how the next president should rethink NAFTA. Published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Issue 3: Global Financial Crisis
Beige Book
More formally entitled the Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions. This report is published 8 times a year by the Federal Reserve Banks.
A Brief Guide to Fixing Finance
Two economists at the Brookings Institution offered this explanation on September 22, 2008.
Financial Crisis: Did Lax Regulation Cause a Credit Meltdown?
A report from CQ Researcher published in May 2008. Includes think tanks ("Contacts"), sources for more information ("Bibliography") and a variety of background information sections.
Issue 4: Responses to Global Warming
Global Warming
This section of the Brookings Institution web site is devoted to research and analysis concerning global warming.
Global Warming
The Union of Concerned Scientists presents policy information as well as scientific reports on this web site.
International encyclopedia of environmental politics
Publisher: London ; Routledge, 2002.
Provides worldwide coverage of the politics of environmentalism. See the article "Global Warming." Note that all the words in bold direct you to related articles in the volume.
Issue 5: Energy Independence
Dan W. Reicher, Testifying before the Senate Joint Economic Committee on Energy Efficiency, July 30, 2008
Dan Reicher is an executive at Google and oversees the company's efforts at energy initiatives.
Energy Nationalism: Do Petrostates Threaten Global Energy Security?
A report from CQ Global Researcher published in July 2007. Provides an international perspective on energy issues.
Making Energy Efficiency a National Priority
The Energy Future Coalition issued this statement for the next President, highlighting the reasons and means for energy efficiency.
Locating Books:
Use the Tripod Catalog to look for relevant books owned by Haverford, Bryn Mawr, and Swarthmore.
free trade political aspects [Subject Search]
global warming [Subject Search]
The following searches are a sampling of possibilities. To find materials on a topic, try doing a keyword search in the Tripod Catalog to find relevant materials and then using the subject headings assigned to those titles to find more material.
energy independen* [keyword search]free trade political aspects [Subject Search]
global warming [Subject Search]
Tripod - For locating books, journals, and other materials held in the Tri-College libraries. Deliveries within the Trico usually arrive in one or two days. Use the "Request" button. You can mark and then email or print records for multiple items.
WorldCat - An important place to look for many materials not owned by the Tri-College Libraries. This combined library catalog contains more than 62 million records describing items owned by libraries around the world. Many of these items are available to you though interlibrary loan.
Finding Journal Articles :
Journal articles and similar periodical publications provide current information on policy issues. The following indexes are key sources for finding periodical literature.
Good Starting Points
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
Provides citations and full-text magazine and journal articles in a wide variety of disciplines, both scholarly and popular in scope. Useful for finding reactions to very recent events.
PAIS international
Provider: CSA
Provides abstracts of journal articles, books, government documents, statistical compilations, committee reports, intergovernmental, and private organizations reports. Areas covered include political, economic, social and public policy issues.
Worldwide political science abstracts
Provider: CSA
Provides citations and abstracts of journals in political science and related fields including international relations, law, and public administration/policy.
Discipline-specific Indexes
These indexes are particularly good for accessing the scholarly literature of specific disciplines, i.e., articles written by economists, scientists, sociologists, etc.
For economics, use EconLit.
For the environment, use Web of Science
For Latin American Studies, use HAPI (Hispanic American Periodical Index)
For law, use Lexis-Nexis Academic (choose "Legal" from the main menu on the left)
For social issues, use Sociological Abstracts.
Finding Newspaper Articles:
Access world news
Provider: NewsBank
Access World News provides the full-text of articles published in many newspapers including The Philadelphia Inquirer since 1981 and the Philadelphia Daily News since 1978. It also contains articles from many other regional U.S. newspapers as well as papers from other countries. It is a particularly useful source of information about public policy issues on the state level.
LexisNexis academic
Provider: LN
Full-text of thousands of newspapers, magazines, news transcripts, reference works, and legal materials. Includes the New York Times (1980 to the present). Check different metropolitan newspapers according to your research topic. For example, look at the Washington Post for foreign policy aspects of your topic. The Los Angeles Times is important for coverage of immigration and free trade issues.