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UIUC Library

PS356 - Comparative Political Economy: The Politics of Foreign Aid

For assistance, contact  Lynne Rudasill - rudasill@illinois.edu

Office hours:   Monday, 11-12 - 100 Main Library (244-1868), Thursday, 4-5 - 306 International Studies Bldg. (265-6879), Other times by Appointment

Welcome!  This site is provided to assist you in exploring research resources on your topic.  Our library is one of the largest in the United States and it can be very intimidating.  The World Wide Web is also at your disposal with thousands of websites and resources.  We will try to make things a little easier for you, but you have to ask questions  The processes involved in research are those of discovery and location.  We provide a wide variety of tools to help you discover the materials that exist on your topics.  Once you have discovered the works that exist in the area, we can help you to locate the texts you need to learn more about the topic.  Sometimes this is a real quick, one-step experience, other times it involves many phases and adventures with the information landscape.

First, a few very basic suggestions:

Easy Search

Search for books and articles related to your topic. Consider using terms such as foreign aid, development assistance, USAID and others.

Find Articles, Books, Journals and Web Pages

Keyword Search
What am I Searching?
 in 

Select More Options to search by title, author, or keyword in a broad selection of sources.

Self-Guided Search

Maybe you want to focus your searching to those resources that apply to the specific area of political science, or even foreign aid.  In addition to the Easy Search above and the general resources listed in the left navigation bar, we have more suggestions for you below.

Lexis-Nexis Statistical Universe  

This resource provides access to a variety of statistical resources, including images of specific tables.  It includes information from states, the federal government, and many international organizations.  If you choose "Find a Table" only you are searching a subset of the database so for a more complete look at things, choose "Find a Publication."  For more information on using the database go to the "How Do I?" link at the top right or contact us.

CIAO - Columbia International Affairs Online

Full text articles, working papers, policy briefs, case studies, conference papers and books on International affairs from a wide variety of think tanks.  This database does not have the easiest interface to use, but it has a huge number of interesting articles.  To use most effectively, click on the advanced search on the top right of the page then look at all of the drop-down opportunities for searching.  Working papers and policy briefs are not the same as scholarly journals, but provide a large amount of information in policy studies.  Click on "working papers" or "policy briefs" on the left to browse the think tanks contributing their materials.  If you don't know whether the think tank is left or right leaning, come to the reference area of the Education and Social Science Library and look it up in the Left Guide (Q.320.51 L522) and the Right Guide (Q. 320.5202573 R449199).

PAIS International - Public Affairs International Service

Want information about public affairs that goes back as far as 1915? This is the database for you.  PAIS includes indexing for magazines, scholarly journals, books, book reviews, book chapters, government documents, websites and more.  It is all about public and social policy and it is available through one of the best search interfaces available.  In addition to jumping in and searching by keywords, you can go to the thesaurus of terms and discover the subject headings that will lead you to great information.   If you look up the term "foreign aid" you will find out other terms to use instead including "agricultural assistance," "economic assistance," "food relief," and more to help you target your searching.  If you go to the page of databases, you can choose to search PAIS and Worldwide Political Science Abstracts at the same time.

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Another database with a great search interface.  This provides access to articles in the areas of political science, international relations, law, public administration, public policy, and political economy.  It indexes over 1,500 titles and in some cases includes full-text linking and lists of references attached to the abstract. 

America History and Life / Historical Abstracts

The first title covers the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. It indexes 1,700 journals from 1964. The database also includes citations and links to book and media reviews. It includes abstracts in English of articles published in more than 40 languages.

The second title covers the history of the world (excluding the United States and Canada) from 1450 to the present, including world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more. The database provides indexing of more than 1,700 academic historical journals in over 40 languages back to 1955.  These two databases also offer simultaneous searches.

GPO Access

The Government Printing Office of the United States provides access to the publications of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government.  The U.S. government information system at your fingertips.  You can also contact the Government Documents Library of the University Library for more help accessing and understanding what you find here.

EconLit

One of the premier databases in economics, this database is found on the EBSCO interface.  An essential site to explore for international political economy resources.  It provides full-text access to the articles indexed there.  Remember to look at the possible ways to limit your search.

World Development Indicators

This resource allows you to develop your own datasets related to economic issues.  First choose a country or region, then choose a dataseries, and then choose a time period to create charts that are useful in the financial arena.  A very helpful tutorial is available for this resource.

SourceOECD

Identifies statistics, papers and reports published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Including a user guide, this is a very rich database.

World Bank

Cause of the globalization riots in Seattle, or best hope for the developing world?  This site  provides data and research information, analysis on global trends, and a variety of projects promulgated by this organization.

Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations site that relates to these goals and the fight against poverty worldwide.

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