Librarian
Data Guides from Elsewhere
The following are excellent guides to core political science data sources.
LibKey Nomad
Major Sources
These are major sources of comparative political data, so they are good places to start your search.
- WDI: World Development Indicators This link opens in a new window
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1000+ economic, social, environmental, and governance time series indicators (1960-current) across 200 countries and 18 country groups. Go to this library guide for additional help using WDI, including video tutorials. - CNTS Data Archive (Cross-National Time Series) This link opens in a new window
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From Arthur S. Banks, to quantify variables covered in Stateman's Yearbook. Over 200 indicators spanning 200 countries, some dating to 1815. Variables cover trade, conflict, infrastructure, expenditure, more. - Sage Data This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
Creates interactive statistical tables, charts and maps from over 4.3 billion licensed and public domain datasets on many areas of research, from traffic to international trade. - IFS: International Financial Statistics This link opens in a new window
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Finance and economics, government statistics, and trade time series data for many world economies dating to 1948. Best used alongside corresponding print books in the library's collection. - UNData This link opens in a new window
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A single gateway to the UN's 24 statistical databases and 60+ million records. - OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
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All the publications and many of the datasets published by the OECD. Carleton access point. - ICPSR: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and the full text)
A repository of social science datasets for secondary research. Members of the Carleton community may search the catalog, read data documentation and download datasets after creating a personal "MyData" account with their Carleton email address.
- Harvard Dataverse
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An open repository hosted at Harvard in which authors can deposit their replication datasets. Includes datasets from important journals and research projects, such as American Journal of Political Science and survey organizations like Gallup.
State-level data
- Correlates of State PolicyOver 700 state-level variables for the U.S., particularly focused on policies and programs.
Compendia to Statistics and Data
Statistical compendia are organized collections of statistics. These are often organized by subject and country, enabling you to see at a glance what statistics are available and the original source. From there, you can often track down the data behind the tables.
- Sage Data This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and abstracts)
Creates interactive statistical tables, charts and maps from over 4.3 billion licensed and public domain datasets on many areas of research, from traffic to international trade. - Statista This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations and the full text)
A vast statistics portal integrating data and facts onto a single platform, categorized into market sectors. - ProQuest Statistical Abstracts of the World This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and some full text)
Search the statistical abstracts of 40 countries at one time. Statistical abstracts provide a point of entry to the vast array of data available about countries.
- Nationmaster
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This is a free web, ad-supported site with comparative national statistics. Very useful for brainstorming variables and determining sources.
Search Strategies for Finding 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.
- Data Reference Worksheet (PDF version)A worksheet for brainstorming places to look for data.
- Data Reference Worksheet (Google Doc Version)This link will prompt you to create your own copy of the Data Reference Worksheet.
