This guide cannot - and does not aim to - provide an exhaustive list of websites for researching politics and international relations. To identify and access more sites of potential value, the resource listings in the specialist portals below are a good place to start.
International Encyclopedia of Political Science by With entries from leading international scholars from around the world, the International Encyclopedia of Political Science provides a definitive, comprehensive picture of all aspects of political life, recognizing its theoretical foundations and including empirical findings from across the globe. The eight volumes examine all the main subdisciplines of political science and include coverage of comparative politics, epistemology, political economy, political sociology, and international relations. Entries are arranged in alphabetical order, and a list of entries by subject area appears in the front of each volume for ease of use. The Encyclopedia contains a detailed index as well as extensive bibliographical references. Approximately 80 entries on the use of both qualitative and quantitative research methods in political science are provided. The process of democratization will remain a vital topic during the 21st century, and the encyclopedia contains extensive coverage of the evolution of democracy as well as other political systems. Readers will find theoretical and empirical background on other important issues such as global security, the relationship between religion and the state, and political issues related to gender and race/ethnicity. The International Encyclopedia of Political Science provides an essential, authoritative guide to the state of political science at the start of the 21st century and for decades to come, making it an invaluable resource for a global readership, including researchers, students, citizens, and policy makers.
Representative Government in Modern Europe by The fourth edition of Representative Government in Modern Europe continues the tradition of previous editions by uniting the theoretical analysis of representative government and its application to the real world of politics. The unique focus of this book, as always, is on the core features of representative government as they manifest themselves across the whole of modern Europe. The book identifies and discusses broad themes and patterns in the politics of modern Europe, and examines these in the context of the whole of modern Europe--not, as some other books do, only with regard to a handful of often atypical countries. Europe has been transformed since the first edition by the dramatic democratization of many of the former Communist states of central and eastern Europe. Thus the fourth edition has also been transformed -- country coverage has been extended to include all of the eight post-communist states that are now members of the EU and discussion of politics in these countries has been integrated into the main body of text and tables. being in May 2004 and the discussion reflects the ways in which thinking about representative government has changed as a result of these dramatic developments.
Parliamentary Roles in Modern Legislatures by This book gathers the most influential authors on role research and legislative studies to examine the different roles that MPs are playing in modern-day legislatures. It provides a comprehensive and critical overview of current research on legislative roles, summarises previous research, presents a large variety of methodological approaches and also explores the latest developing approaches to role theory. The concept of political roles has become increasingly relevant for understanding contemporary political systems. Parliamentary, legislative and representative roles are professional roles that provide a way of connecting the individual legislator to their institution that can also explain a legislator's attitude and behaviour. Drawing upon case studies with as much as 40 years of data that include Germany, the Netherlands, UK, Austria, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand and the European Parliament, this book examines the link between representative roles, different institutional settings and parliamentary behaviour. It argues that the roles MPs play depend of who they think they should represent; between their voters, their party, the people of their country and also themselves, conflicts of loyalty can occur. This book provides a framework to analyse MPs' choices by searching both the reasons for their views about representation, and the consequences of those views in parliament. Parliamentary Roles in Modern Legislatureswill be of strong interest to students and scholars of government, legislative studies, political parties, comparative politics, political sociology and deliberative democracy.
The 2012 French Election by 