Introduction to the POLS 495: Comparative Foreign Policy Research Guide
This guide is designed to orient you to relevant resources in order to locate and evaluate credible information sources for your foreign policy simulation and policy brief assignment. The resources on this guide are designed to help you become familiar with resources that can provide you with information related to the topics of climate change (COP21); the UN Security Council and the conflict in Syria; as well as nuclear weapons negotiations with Iran.
Contents will include the following types of information resources to help you locate relevant information for the aforementioned assignment:
- Databases and specific journals for scholarly journal articles and law review articles.
- Databases and web links for newspaper articles
- Government documents for current policy, past policy leading up to the current climate, and more.
- Interest groups and how members of Congress vote
- Data & statistics
- Think Tanks & NGOs
Search the Catalog: Books, Articles, & Government Documents
Search for a multitude of sources using our catalog WorldCat Discovery, which can be located at the main library webpage.
WorldCat Discovery contains books, scholarly journal articles, government publications, and more. This is a good place to start looking for books, which will help provide you with background information. As well, it's a good place to start off when you're searching for other sources as well, though you'll notice you will get many more results in WorldCat than you do with a database. That being said, as you progress, you might want to go directly to a database for scholarly journal articles.
Search the following subject headings (these are classifications -- more detailed than keywords and essentially like searching a hashtag) to retrieve information relevant to your topics and comparative foreign policy:
| Climate Change Subject Terms | Iranian Nuclear Negotiations Subject Terms | UN Security Council + Syria Conflict Subject Terms | Foreign Policy Subject Terms (Terms for all Groups) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice | Nuclear weapons Iran | United Nations. Security Council. | United States foreign relations |
| Climate Change | Nuclear arms control Iran | Human Rights. | International relations. |
| Global warming law and legislation. | Nuclear nonproliferation International cooperation. | Syria History Civil War, 2011- | Diplomacy. |
| Climatic changes Government policy. | Nuclear nonproliferation government policy. | Political violence Syria History 21st century. | Diplomatic relations. |
Your Topics
Links to some of the websites related to your topics.
Subject Librarian
Lidiya Grote
Social Sciences Teaching and Faculty Outreach Librarian
Ekstrom Library