LibGuides: Politics and International Studies: Subject databases & Open Access resources

Library

Subject databases

Subject databases are specialist online resources that you can use to:

find literature in journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, PhD theses
access documents, data, images, film and broadcast material in digital archives
search online newspaper content and reference works

There are many databases covering different research topics and disciplines. Below are some which are particularly useful for politics and international studies students.

The full list of resources for politics and international studies is available on the recommended databases page.

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS) This link opens in a new window
Use to find international journal articles, books and chapters. Cross-disciplinary in scope with political science as one of four main subject areas, IBSS is recommended for all assignments and dissertation research
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Contains academic journals, books, and primary sources, primarily in the humanities and social sciences
Politics Trove This link opens in a new window
ebooks from Oxford University Press. Titles are in Library Search but you can use this link to browse the collection.
Public Information Online This link opens in a new window
Provides access to UK parliamentary papers from the Westminster Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly, National Assembly for Wales and Scottish Government
OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
The online library of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) featuring its books, papers and statistics and is the gateway to OECD's analysis and data.
UK Data Service This link opens in a new window
Repository of government data, census material, longitudinal studies, qualitative data

Open access resources

A selection of free, open-access resources relevant to politics and international studies:

Location-specific resources

Brexit Witness Archive
Interview transcripts of the key players in the Brexit process: the campaigners, politicians, civil servants and officials who were involved speak in detail on the record about their experience.
Britain and Europe
Archive of primary research material covering all aspects of the debate around Britain and the European Union
British Election Study
Study of UK political attitudes and behaviour since 1964. Surveys have taken place immediately after every general election, providing data to help researchers understand changing patterns of party support and election outcomes. They also take place between elections

British Political Speech This link opens in a new window
An archive of British political speech and place for the discussion, analysis, and critical appreciation of political rhetoric. It includes texts of speeches given by Conservative, Labour and Liberal/Liberal Democrat Party leaders going back to 1895.

Cabinet Papers 1915-1996
More than half a million papers from British cabinet papers dated 1915 to 1996. The site also includes teaching aids and interactive maps and images. Part of the National Archives, the official archive for England, Wales and the central UK government
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network archive. Primarily a resource of the United States Federal government proceedings but includes an archive of televised UK Prime Minister's Questions
CAIN: Northern Ireland Conflict, Politics, & Society
Election Analysis Reports
Analysis from scholars following major elections or referenda, published 10 days after the election or poll. Designed to be short and accessible. Has section on UK elections and the EU Referendum
Gateway to Research
Developed by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to enable users to search and analyse information about publicly funded research
Grunwick Remembered
Filmed (and unedited) interviews with participants in the 1976-1978 Grunwick dispute - a strike of predominantly South Asian women workers for trade union recognition, which involved mass picketing, confrontations with the police and the national mobilisation of the labour movement
Margaret Thatcher Foundation
Documents relating to Margaret Thatcher and world events during the Thatcher period
Modern Records Centre on Politics and Protest
Parliamentary Search
Key platform for UK parliamentary information. Includes: debates, parliamentary questions (oral and written), statements (oral and written), urgent questions and private notice questions, business statements and questions, members’ oral contributions from both Chambers, Westminster Hall and Lords grand committee, bills, acts and church measures, laid papers including laid statutory instruments, command papers, House of Commons papers and House of Lords papers, select committee reports, House of Commons select committee evidence, early day motions
Politicsresources.net
Links to political resources with focus on UK data and documents
Race, Ethnicity, and Migration in Modern Britain
Digitised sources on race, ethnicity and migration in Britain from the late 19th century onwards. Includes sections on 'Jewish East London', 'Britain's ports, 1910s-1930s', 'European refugees and fascism, 1933-1945', 'The British Commonwealth and the Second World War', 'West Indian migration, 1948-1958', 'The 1958 riots', 'Enoch Powell and the 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech', 'The National Front and the anti-fascist response in the 1970s' and 'Race, policing and the 1980s riots'
Race Today
Magazine archive chronicling the lives of Britain’s black community during the 1970s and 1980s. First launched in 1973, it combined radical journalism with campaigning zeal to shine a light on the issues affecting Britain’s black communities, as well as providing insight and commentary on politics in Britain and abroad.
Tony Blair Archive
National Archives version of documents from the Office of the Prime Minster and from Number 10 relating to Tony Blair's premiership
UKPOL.CO.UK
Political Speech Archive – Over 9,800 speeches on British Politics

ESRC Research Catalogue
Research projects and outputs funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The site also provides Resources for PhD students to help students learn research skills, how to collaborate with others and how to achieve the maximum impact from their research through an Impact toolkit
SciELO
Bibliographical database of open access scholarly journals relating to Latin America, Portugal and Spain.
UK in a Changing Europe
Research into the complex and ever changing relationship between the UK and the European Union

AfricaBib
Index to articles on a wide range of topics relating to countries in Africa
African Education Research Database
The online African Education Research Database (AERD) aims to raise the visibility of African research. It is a curated collection of research with implications for educational policy and practice undertaken in the past decade by scholars based in sub-Saharan Africa. The AERD includes peer-reviewed articles, chapters, PhD theses and working papers.

African Journal Archive This link opens in a new window
African journal literature originating from a wide base of publishers and societies on the African continent.

African Journals Online
A platform of African-published scholarly journals, working to increase global & continental online access, awareness, quality & use of African-published, peer-reviewed research
AfricArXiv
A community-led digital archive for African research, working towards building an African-owned open scholarly repository
Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD)
A database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders
China Africa Research Initiative
China Africa Research Initiative regularly collates data on China-Africa FDI, trade, contracts, agricultural investment, foreign aid, and Chinese workers in Africa. The data are presented in a straight-forward, easy-to-use manner to help inform policy makers, reporters, and academics.
Digital Innovation South Africa
Online scholarly resource focusing on the socio-political history of South Africa, particularly the struggle for freedom during the period from 1950 to the first democratic elections in 1994
Official Gazettes and Civil Society Documentation
A collection of official gazettes and other key historical government documentation from countries where the integrity of the public record is known to be at risk, including 10 African and Persian Gulf countries
Open Data for Africa data portal
Statistical data and indicators relating to African Countries. The Portal provides multiple customised tools to gather indicators, analyse them, and export them into multiple formats. With the Data Portal, you can visualise Socio-Economic indicators over a period of time, gain access to presentation-ready graphics and perform comprehensive analysis on a Country and Regional level.
The Rwanda Documents Project
Primary source materials from international and national agencies, governments, and courts that relate to the political and social history of Rwanda from 1990 to the present
Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu
Arabic nineteenth-century manuscripts relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu, providing documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies. From the Bibliothèque Commémorative Mama Haidara in Timbuktu, Mali
Slave Voyages
Project providing databases with details of Transatlantic and Intra-American slave voyages
South African History Online
South African History Online (SAHO) was established in 1998 and registered in June 2000 as a not for profit Section 21 organisation. SAHO has over two decades become the largest and most comprehensive online website on South African and African history and culture.

Asian Online Journals (AOJ)
Open access journals that aim to reach a large number of audiences worldwide with original and current research work. Includes the Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies and the Asian Journal of Education and e-Learning.
China Africa Research Initiative
China Africa Research Initiative regularly collates data on China-Africa FDI, trade, contracts, agricultural investment, foreign aid, and Chinese workers in Africa. The data are presented in a straight-forward, easy-to-use manner to help inform policy makers, reporters, and academics.
Digital Archive for Chinese Studies
Internet resources relevant for Chinese studies, with special emphasis on social and political discourse
Official Gazettes and Civil Society Documentation
National Archives of Japan Digital Archive
NBR National Bureau of Asian Research
American based policy think tank for Asian scholarship and research. Much of the content is open access
National Digital Library of India
Qatar Digital Library
The Qatar Digital Library (QDL) vast archive featuring the cultural and historical heritage of the Gulf and wider region with material up to 1999. It includes archives, maps, manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs and much more, complete with contextualised explanatory notes and links, in both English and Arabic
Woman, Life, Freedom Movement of Iran
Preserves material on the Woman, Life, Freedom movement of Iran, which emerged in the wake of the 2022 police killing of Mahsa Jîna Amini. Her arrest by the morality police, on alleged grounds of non-compliance with the compulsory Hijab Law, caused mass protest.

American Presidency Project
Documents related to the study of the American Presidency
C-SPAN
Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network archive of televised proceedings of the United States House of Representatives and Senate other public affairs programming. Also includes an archive of the UK Prime Minister's Questions
Election Analysis Reports
Analysis from scholars following major elections or referenda, published 10 days after the election or poll. Designed to be short and accessible. Has section on recent US presidential elections.
Foreign Relations of the United States
Historical documents made available by the US Dept of State Office of the Historian. Presents the official documentary historical record of major US foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity of US administrations between 1945 and 2000

Chile Solidarity
Archive material relating to the Chile Solidarity Campaign and reception of Chilean refugees in Britain. A selection of just over 200 items are showcased in this digital collection
Mempaz - Memories from the margins
Bringing Memories in from the Margins: Inclusive Transitional Justice and Creative Memory Processes for Reconciliation in Colombia.
SciELO
Bibliographical database of open access scholarly journals relating to Latin America, Portugal and Spain.

BREAD (Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development)
A non-profit organization dedicated to encourage research and scholarship in development economics whose main activities are conferences and a working paper series
Eldis
Eldis provides free access to relevant, up-to-date and diverse research on international development issues. The database includes over 50,000 summaries and provides free links to full-text research and policy documents from over 8,000 publishers.
Wilson Centre Digital Archive
Online resource providing access to once-secret documents from governments and organisations all over the world
The World Factbook
The World Factbook provides basic intelligence on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, environment, communications, transportation, military, terrorism, and transnational issues for 266 world entities

Migration and Slavery

Chile Solidarity
Archive material relating to the Chile Solidarity Campaign and reception of Chilean refugees in Britain. A selection of just over 200 items are showcased in this digital collection
Forced Migration Review
Refugee, internal displacement and statelessness issues
Grunwick Remembered
Filmed (and unedited) interviews with participants in the 1976-1978 Grunwick dispute - a strike of predominantly South Asian women workers for trade union recognition, which involved mass picketing, confrontations with the police and the national mobilisation of the labour movement
Moving people changing places
Race, Ethnicity, and Migration in Modern Britain
Digitised sources on race, ethnicity and migration in Britain from the late 19th century onwards. Includes sections on 'Jewish East London', 'Britain's ports, 1910s-1930s', 'European refugees and fascism, 1933-1945', 'The British Commonwealth and the Second World War', 'West Indian migration, 1948-1958', 'The 1958 riots', 'Enoch Powell and the 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech', 'The National Front and the anti-fascist response in the 1970s' and 'Race, policing and the 1980s riots'
Race Today
Magazine archive chronicling the lives of Britain’s black community during the 1970s and 1980s. First launched in 1973, it combined radical journalism with campaigning zeal to shine a light on the issues affecting Britain’s black communities, as well as providing insight and commentary on politics in Britain and abroad.
Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu
Arabic nineteenth-century manuscripts relating to slavery and manumission in Timbuktu, providing documentation on Africans in slavery in Muslim societies. From the Bibliothèque Commémorative Mama Haidara in Timbuktu, Mali
Slave Voyages
Project providing databases with details of Transatlantic and Intra-American slave voyages

Genocide

Genocide Visual History Archive
Online portal from USC Shoah Foundation with over 53,000 video testimonies of survivors and witnesses of genocide
Genocide Archive Rwanda
Digital collection of items related to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, pre-genocide history and post-genocide reconstruction processes
Testifying to the Truth: Eyewitnesses to the Holocaust
Eyewitness accounts to Nazi atrocities, translated into English, from the Weiner Holocaust Library.

Social protest movements

Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD)
A database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders
Joseph A. Labadie Collection of Radical Posters
Images of posters covering social protest movements such as Anarchism, Civil Liberties, Colonialism, Communism, Ecology, Labour, Pacifism, Sexual Freedom, Socialism, Women, and Youth/Student Protest
Rosa Park Papers
Documents on many aspects of Rosa Parks's private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans
Grunwick Remembered
Filmed (and unedited) interviews with participants in the 1976-1978 Grunwick dispute - a strike of predominantly South Asian women workers for trade union recognition, which involved mass picketing, confrontations with the police and the national mobilisation of the labour movement

Political philosophy

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
Original papers made available online from the International Institute of Social History

International affairs

Statewatch
Statewatch produces and promotes critical research, policy analysis and investigative journalism to inform debates, movements and campaigns on civil liberties, human rights and democratic standards.
WWW Virtual Library: International Affairs Resources
Over 2000 annotated links in 34 international affairs categories

Gender & Sexuality

Black Women Radicals Database (BWRD)
A database of historical and transnational Black women activists and leaders
Gender Responsive Resilience and Intersectionality in Policy and Practice (GRRIPP) -Lexicon
A 4-year global collaboration and knowledge-exchange project, implemented by a collective of universities. It aims to bring together theory, policy, and practice to promote a gender-responsive approach to disaster management and development. It has developed a lexicon which contains presents concepts and ideas in English and other languages that have emerged from different feminist, decolonial practices and experiences.
HOWL History of Women’s Liberation
Collection of memories and stories of feminists involved in women’s liberation movement in the UK. Features of the site include a timeline, link to archive collections and other resources. The site is developing oral histories and photographic archives
LGBTQ histories
British Library website charting the struggles for love, identity and legislative change faced by LGBTQ communities in the UK
Liberating histories - feminist periodicals guide
Highlights feminist magazine titles written by and for women. Includes periodicals coverages of Mukhti (A collectively-run British Asian feminist magazine), Outwrite, Red Rag, Scarlet Women, Spare Rib and Shocking Pink.
Modern Records Centre on Feminism and the Role of Women
Sisterhood and after
British Library archive of feminist voices
Woman, Life, Freedom Movement of Iran
Preserves material on the Woman, Life, Freedom movement of Iran, which emerged in the wake of the 2022 police killing of Mahsa Jîna Amini. Her arrest by the morality police, on alleged grounds of non-compliance with the compulsory Hijab Law, caused mass protest.
Women's History
International Institute of Social History, including the WWW Virtual Library of Women's History
The Women's Library @ LSE
Material from England's main library and museum resource on women and the women's movement
Women's Rights Collection
LSE digital library collection containing suffrage newspapers, journals, pamphlets, leaflets and annual reports of different suffrage groups covering the women’s suffrage campaign

Data sources

Below is a list of freely available data sources relevant to politics and international studies. The library also subscribes to paid-for data sources, such as the UK Data Service, Mass Observation, OECDiLibrary and Statistica, available in the A-Z databases list for politics and international studies. For a list of qualitative, or quantitative data sources, or if you need help with finding data, please see Finding Research Data.

Brexit Witness Archive
Interview transcripts of the key players in the Brexit process: the campaigners, politicians, civil servants and officials who were involved speak in detail on the record about their experience
BREAD data from developing countries
Resource to help locate data from developing countries
Britain and Europe
Archive of primary research material covering all aspects of the debate around Britain and the European Union
British Election Study Data
British election survey data collected in elections from 1964 to the current
CIRI Human Rights Dataset
Standards-based quantitative information on government respect for a wide range of internationally-recognised human rights for countries of all regime-types and from all regions of the world. The data set contains measures of government human rights practices, not human rights policies or overall human rights conditions (which may be affected by non-state actors).
data.bris
University of Bristol Research Data Repository
Data.gov
U.S. Government open data, providing access to hundred of thousands of datasets from state and federal agencies
Data.gov.uk
The UK government's data and statistical service
DataCite Commons
Aggregates dataset records from multiple sources and allows searching of general repositories via a single interface
Data Portals.org
A comprehensive List of open data portals from around the world
Eurostat
Data from the statistical office of the European Union
figshare
An online open access repository of research outputs, including figures, datasets, images, and videos
General Social Survey
Nationally representative survey of adults in the United States conducted since 1972. The GSS collects data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends in opinions, attitudes and behaviours.
Google dataset search
Discover data sets hosted in thousands of repositories across the web. Filter results based on the type of dataset you want (e.g., tables, images, text), or whether the dataset is available for free from the provider
Harvard Dataverse Research data from across research fields, from Harvard University and beyond
Henry A. Murray Research Archive Repository for quantitative and qualitative research data at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, comprising over 100 terabytes of data, audio, and video.
HSRC Research Data Service The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) research data in support of evidence based human and social development in South Africa and the broader region
ICPSR - Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research Mixed methods and qualitative research studies available for download from an international consortium of more than 750 academic institutions and research organizations. a data archive of more than 250,000 files of research in the social and behavioural sciences. It hosts 21 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) This link opens in a new window Microdata for social and economic research containing census and survey data from around the world
Mass-Observing COVID-19 database
Material collected by Mass Observation during the COVID-19 pandemic, including diaries and writing created during the pandemic by people living in the UK
Mass Observation Project Directives
Copies of Mass Observation Project Directives questions available for download. Responses are available on the Mass Observation Project in the A-Z databases list up to 2009: https://bristol.libguides.com/az/databases. Post 2009 responses can be obtained by emailing moa@sussex.ac.uk
Mintel Academic and Market Sizes
Market research data collated by analysts at Mintel including trends, statistics, information on brands and companies, demographic data on a range of sectors
National Statistical Offices
UN central repository of country profiles of statistical systems. The country profiles include, among others, a brief history of the country's statistical system, legal basis, the statistical programme and much more

OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
The online library of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) featuring its books, papers and statistics and is the gateway to OECD's analysis and data.

Open Data for Africa
statistical data and indicators relating to African Countries, providing multiple customized tools to gather indicators, analyse them, and export them into multiple formats
Open Data Inception
2600+ Open Data Portals Around the World
Open Data Network
An initiative designed to foster data-centred collaboration between governments and the private sector, where you can search across tens of thousands of datasets
Qualitative Data Repository
A dedicated archive for storing and sharing digital data (and accompanying documentation) generated or collected through qualitative and multi-method research in the social sciences and related disciplines
Qualitative Election Study of Britain
A resource for scholars, researchers and students interested in qualitative electoral research
re3data
A registry of research data repositories. Browse by data type, country, subject
Sage Research Methods Datasets
Downloadable datasets sourced from government and academic sources with step-by-step guides that walk you through quantitative and qualitative data analysis
UN Data
Economic, social and environment indicators for all countries from the United Nations Statistics division.
World Bank Data Catalogue
World Bank's development data
World Data Atlas Economic, social and demographic indicators for all countries and regions, selected from over 200 public datasets

News sources

British Cartoon Archive This link opens in a new window
National collection of socio-political cartoons from British newspapers and magazines, plus comic strips, newspaper cuttings, books and magazines.
Conversation, the This link opens in a new window
An independent source of news and views, sourced from the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public.
European Union Newsroom This link opens in a new window
Official news website of the institutions of the European Union. It provides online access to the latest official press material released by all EU institutions
Onlinenewspapers.com This link opens in a new window
Links to thousands of national and local newspapers around the world.
PoliticsHome This link opens in a new window
British political journalism across the political spectrum

Full Fact
Independent fact-checking organisation, focused on assessing claims from UK politicians and the media.
Wikipedia list of online newspaper archives
List of newspaper archives which are available online, organised by country. Some are freely available
World Politics Review
In-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs. See the 'Free Resources' tab for Daily Review, Insights & Podcasts.

Ebooks

Hathi Trust Digital Library
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitised from libraries around the world
Internet Archive
Includes digitised versions of many out-of-copyright works, as well as archived versions of websites.
Project Gutenburg
An online collection of collection of digitised books, mostly out-of-copyright works dating from before 1924

Quick links

Recommended databases for Politics and International Studies

A complete list of databases recommended for students of politics and international studies.

Help with databases

For guidance on using databases you can book onto one of our library training workshops or contact your Subject Librarian for 1:1 help.

Please email me at Catherine.Downs@bristol.ac.uk