This page last updated on: Mon, Apr 10, 2006

ABZY News Links
Christian Science Monitor: World
Newspapers: US and Worldwide--refdesk.com
Washington Post: World News
Wikinews
World in Cartoons [part of World Press Review]
World News--WN Network
World News and Views (Professor Lim's CourseSite)
World Radio Network
Worldpress.org
Worldviews [weekly column in sfgate.com]

International institutions and organizations may be governmental (i.e., composed of states and their representatives) or non-governmental. International governmental organizations are known by the acronym, IGOs. Non-governmental organizations, typically referred to as NGOS, are non-state organizations. NGOs, although not part of any state, are increasingly being consulted by governments as well as international organizations like the United Nations, the latter of which have created associative or consultative status for NGOs. There are now tens of thousands of  non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the world, operating in most countries. These organizations are playing an increasingly important role in international and global politics (source: http://docs.lib.duke.edu/igo/guides/ngo/). For a detailed definition of NGOs by the World Bank, click here. Peter Willets, a prominent expert on NGOs, also provides a substantive discussion of NGOs in his useful online article, What is a Non-Governmental Organization?

International governmental organizations

The usual, but very important, suspects: International Monetary Fund, World Bank, United Nations, World Trade Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Union, Organization of American States (OAS), International Court of Justice, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Other important international institutions and organizations

Asia-Pacific International Cooperation (APEC)
Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
G-8 Information Centre [click here to read "G8 for Dummies"]
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
International Labor Organization (ILO)
International Organization for Migration (IOM)
League of Arab States
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

Meta-site: Northwestern University Library: gov info, maps, data: International Governmental Organizations (contains a comprehensive listing of international governmental organizations)

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

As noted above, there are tens of thousands of NGOs, so it would be impossible, or at least, unmanageable to provide a comprehensive listing here. Duke University Library, however, has a particularly extensive collection of links, so this is probably one of the best places to start.

For students who are still not clear, though, what an NGO is, let me just provide a few examples. One of the best known NGO today is Amnesty International, which is involved in monitoring and promoting human rights around the world. Another well-known NGO is CARE International, which is committed to poverty reduction and humanitarian assistance. As might be evident, NGOs are often defined in terms of a specific issues; thus, it is not surprising to find environmental NGOS, such as the Earth Watch Institute or Friends of the Earth. Other NGOs focus on development issues (Africa Economic Research Consortium), gender rights (Asssociation for Women in Development), disability rights (Disability Awareness in Action), humanitarian assistance (Medecins Sans Frontieres--Doctors without Borders), refugee rights (National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaign), and so on. In additon, some NGOs operate transnationally or globally, and have membership throughout the world, while other NGOs may operate primarily within the borders of a single country. Although, with advances in information technology, almost all NGOs communicate across borders.

Other meta-sites: OneWorld.net is a news and portal site, which provides links to over 1,500 organizations involved in sustainable development, social justice and human rights. Another good meta-site is the International Relations page on PolitInfo.com.

International relations (IR) deals primarily with relations between and among states, while foreign policy generally refers to the concrete policies that states develop and implement vis-a-vis each other. There is obviously a strong relationship between "international relations" and "foreign policy," although in the academic world, the two concepts are not necessarily the same. While this is not the place for in-depth discussion of the difference between international relations and foreign policy, suffice it to say that foreign policy studies tend to focus on the factors that lead policy-makers to make the decisions they make, or on the dynamics and processes that make certain policies successful or unsuccessful or possible in the first place. For this reason, studies of foreign policy typically examine the interrelationship among cognitive, institutional, cultural/national, and system level factors. IR is interested in the same things, but as a field of study, it is much broader. Click here for a basic introduction to theories of international relations and foreign policy (online article by Bill Newman, Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University). Another basic, but useful article on IR can be found on the Wikipedia site.

The sites listed here are limited primarily to sources designed to help students and ordinary citizens better understand IR and foreign policy, although I also list a few prominent journals. I have purposely not included technical or highly specialized sites, except in a few cases.

Foreign Policy in Focus [a good site for learning about a range of foreign policy issues]
Institute of Foreign Policy Analysis
International Relations Center [progressive site covering broad range of global issues]
Center for Defense Information [strong coverage on security-related issues]
Terrorism Research Center
Nautilus Institute [special coverage of nuclear proliferation, North Korea]
U.S. Department of State [direct or "primary" source of information about U.S. foreign policy]
Foreign Relations of the United States (Dept. of State)
The American Interest [a conservative perspective of U.S. foreign policy]
Foreign Affairs [website for leading magazine on foreign policy]
Foreign Policy [website for another leading magazine on foreign policy and global politics]
Project for a New American Century [home of neo-conservative thought on world affairs]
Project on Defense Alternatives
National Bureau of Asian Research [Research and analysis on Asia-Pacific issues]
Brookings Institution [liberal think tank; special sections on defense, global politics, foreign policy]
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace [commentary and analysis on a range of global issues]
InternationalAffairs.com

Meta-sites: One very good meta-site, listed above, is the International Relations pages on PolitInfo.com, which provides special links pages on Institutions in International Politics, International Issues (Human rights, Terrorism, Conflict Resolution, and Environmental Politics, Documents/International Law, Current Events, and more. Northwestern University also provides a comprehensive meta-site on IR, which includes the following categories: • E-Abstracts, Databases, Indexes & Journals, E-Books & Texts, E-Statistics, E-Dictionaries & Encyclopedias, E-Newspapers & Archives. Another more basic site is The WWW Virtual Libriary: International Affairs Resources.

(Selected) Foreign Policy and IR Journals and Magazines
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political
Bulletin of Atomic Scientist: Magazine of Global Security News and Analysis
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations
Harvard International Review
Human Rights Quarterly
International Organization
International Security
International Studies Quarterly
Journal of Peace Research
Journal of Public and International Affairs
Millennium Journal of International Studies
Orbis
SAIS Review
Terrorism and Political Violence
Washington Quarterly
World Politics
World Policy Journal

Meta-site (directory): Click here for a directory of social science journals (check sections on politics and international relations in particular)

International political economy (IPE) is a sub-field of international relations, which has traditionally focused on the economic (as opposed to political or military) aspects of inter-state relations. The main foci of interest have been international finance, trade, and economic development. The growing importance of globalization, however, has led many observers to question the assumption that only inter-state relations matter. While no one believes that states have become irrelevant, an increasing number of scholars agree that non-state or transnational actors now play equally prominent roles in shaping the world or global economy. It is for this reason that the term "global political economy" is sometimes used in place of "international political economy."

This section, like previous sections, includes only a handful of sites. The focus, too, is on those sites that are student-friendly.

Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy [the companion site to a PBS series by the same name; includes all original video segments and supplemental material]
Money Matters: An IMF exhibit [easy-to-understand discussion of the history of the international monetary system]
World Economic Forum [increasingly prominent organization that sponsors the annual economic summit in Davos]
Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy[useful academic site with access to many working papers]
Corporate Watch [progressive watchdog on transnational corporate activity]
Roubini Global Economics Monitor (formerly Asia Crisis Homepage)
Foreign Labor Statistics (US Department of Labor)
Directory of Transnational Corporations
Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice
WTO: Trade Statistics
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
UNCTAD: FDI Statistics
International Debt Crisis [small meta-site on international debt]
Society for International Development
Social, Economic and Political Change [this site examines the questions: "Why does society develop the way that it does?"  How did the various political systems develop, how do different customs and social systems come about? Some specific topics include: what is globalization and how is it happening, why did industrialization first occur in Europe, how far will democratization spread and in what forms]

(Selected) IPE and GPE Journals [see listing of IR journals above]
Competition and Change: The Journal of Global Business and Political Economy
Constitutional Political Economy
Global Economy Journal
Journal of Socio-economics
Journal of World Trade
Review of African Political Economy
Review of International Political Economy
Monthly Review
New Political Economy
World Development
World Economy

Meta-site (directory): Click here for a large directory of journals indexed in EconLit

Comparative politics is a huge field, covering as it does, the politics of every country and political entity on earth. Scholars in the field tend to concentrate on "big" topics such as democratization (and political development), state-society relations, identity and ethnic politics, social movements, institutional analysis, and economic development. In this respect, comparative politics is not necessarily different from other fields in political science and sociology. Comparative politics, however, is distinguished by its strong predispostion towards comparative analysis, and sharper focus on examining "big" topics in relation to specific countries or regions. Still, its an immense field. The resources listed below, therefore, are biased toward meta-sites and representative journals.

Background notes from the US Department of State
BBC country profiles page
CIA World Factbook
Country Studies: Library of Congress
Cultural Profiles Project (provides very brief overviews of life and customs in various countries)
Democracy@large
Economist Country Briefings
Human Development Reports: UNDP
Library of Congress Country Studies
National Endowment for Democracy
National Bureau of Asian Research
Political Database of the Americas

Meta-sites
Area Studies: PolyCy Guide to Internet Resources for Political Science
Comparative Politics/Foreign Government Research Guide (Emory University)
Comparative Politics Resources
Foreign Government Resources on the Web
Governments on the WWW
Political Science Resources: Area Studies
Profiles of Countries and Regions

(Sampling of) Comparative Politics Journals
African Studies Quarterly
Asian Survey
Comparative Politics
Comparative Political Studies
Development
Journal of Democracy
Latin American Perspectives
Pacific Affairs
Problems of Post-Communism
Third World Quarterly

Meta-site (directory): Click here for a directory of social science journals (for journals related to comparative politics, check sections on area studies, ethnic and migration studies, politics and international relations, and religion)

Click here a listing of some relevant books in the Cambridge Series in Comparative Politics