Major Sources
These are some of the most frequently used sources by students searching for comparative political quantitative evidence.
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WDI: World Development Indicators*This is a good place to start your search*
1000+ economic, social, environmental, and governance time series indicators (1960-) across 200 countries and 18 country groups.
WDI Indicators by Topic - Not sure what indicator you are looking for? Use this link to explore the WDI's featured indicators by topic.
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Europa World PlusCombines the Europa World Year Book and the nine-volume Europa Regional Surveys of the World series. Provides up-to-date political and economic information for more than 250 countries and territories.
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CQ Political Handbook of the World(Searches through citations and the full text)
Provides brief country and political system information from standard sources such as Freedom House, Pippa Norris’ “democracy type” adapted from Freedom House rankings, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA). Also includes maps. Note: You can also search across all of the CQ Press reference resources here. -
UNData(Searches through citations and the full text)
A single gateway to the UN's 24 statistical databases and 60+ million records). -
CNTS Data Archive (Cross-National Time Series)Statistical data, including time series data, for over 200 countries. Variables include government expenditure, trade, infrastructure and media, domestic conflict event data, elections, legislative process, numerous political measures and international status indicators. Covers 1815 - current.
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Millennium Development Goals IndicatorsThis site presents the official data, definitions, methodologies and sources for more than 60 indicators to measure progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, as of 2015.
Important Data Guides for Political Science Students
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Comparative Political DataGould Library's directory of comparative political data sources.
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Gould Library Data GuideGeneral strategies for data searching, management, data across many disciplines.
Search Strategies for Finding Statistics and Data
- Refer to the search strategies from the Data, Datasets, and Statistics Library Research Guide.
- This Data Reference Worksheet is designed to help you brainstorm search strategies.
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Data Reference Worksheet (PDF version)A worksheet for brainstorming places to look for data.
