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The Department of Political Science at CSULA offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs to prepare students for professional careers in public service, law, international relations, and teaching, and for more effective civic participation.

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research and resource links

linksThis page provides a very smal and very selective sampling of links to other sites on the web that provide information useful to students of political science, world and comparative politics. I have divided this page into five sections: 1. world news and views, 2. international and non-governmental organizations, 3. international relations and foreign policy, 4. international and global political economy, and 5. comparative politics and area studies. In each of these areas, I have provided links to individual sites and to "meta-sites" (sites containing much larger and more comprehensive sets of links); some areas also contain sub-divisions.

Check here, too, for tips on doing research.

world news and views

international and non-governmental organizations

Introduction. 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

Here are few of the most "popular" sites for students of world politics (including international relations and international political economy):

Here are a few more international institutions and organizations. They are not arranged in any particular order--and remember, this list is only meant to be suggestive.

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

Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)

Introduction. There are 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 and foreign policy sites

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.

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

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



international and global political economy

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.

(Selected) IPE and GPE Journals [see listing of IR journals above]

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



comparative politics and area studies

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.

Meta-sites

(Sampling of) Comparative Politics Journals

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

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