Library Guides: Political Science Library Guide: Find Articles

Intro: Why so many databases?

No two databases have the same contents, keyword indexes, and algorithms. Below you'll find a variety of general academic and specialized databases to find journal articles in the field of Political Science. Test and compare more than one to do a thorough information search!

Best Bets

Some of the most useful general academic databases for finding journal articles in Political Science are:

Library Search
Library Search is a discovery tool that pulls many Tulane library resources into one single search. Use filters to limit your search to Articles and/or Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles to access academic journal content.

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
Google Scholar searches academic publishers, professional societies and preprint archives. NOTE: off-campus users need to sign-in and authenticate with your Tulane user name and password to activate TU Links and check for holdings accessible via Tulane.
Social Science Premium Collection This link opens in a new window
This collection provides access to databases covering international literature in social sciences, including politics, public policy, sociology, social work, anthropology, criminology, linguistics, library science, and education. Databases include International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS), Sociological Abstracts, PAIS Index, Worldwide Political Science Abstracts, Proquest's Education and Criminology collections, and more. Together, they provide abstracts, indexing and full-text coverage of journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, and more.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Our broadest, most general full-text database that includes both popular and scholarly periodicals. It covers virtually all academic areas of study, including social sciences, sciences, and humanities.
Web of Science Core This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Interdisciplinary database includes: Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, and Social Sciences Citation Index, Journal Citation Reports. Includes citation searching (see how many times a paper has been cited). Coverage: 1976 - present. NOTE: Use your Web of Science/Endnote username and password or create a new username and password to access InCites, Journal Citation Reports, and/or EndNotes from Web of Science.

Law & Policy

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline is a key research platform for Legal Studies and Political Science. It provides more than 215 million pages of multidisciplinary periodicals, essential government documents, international resources, case law, and more. Sub-collections and databases within HeinOnline include: Law Journal Library, Criminal Justice & Criminology, Foreign & International Law Resources Database, Gun Regulation & Legislation in America, LGBTQ+ Rights, United Nations Law, and U.S. Congressional, Federal Agency, Presidential, Statutes, and Supreme Court documents.
Legal Source This link opens in a new window
Providing indexing and full-text coverage of the most respected scholarly law journals, Legal Source is an authoritative database for current issues, studies, thoughts and trends of the legal world. The resource includes more than 1,100 full-text journals (approximately 720 additional full text journals over Legal Collection), detailed indexing for legal journals, law reviews, yearbooks, institutes, statues, bar association publications and university publications, more than 420 law reviews and over 2.3 million records, including book reviews and case studies. It is an excellent resource for attorneys, educators, business people, law librarians, students, paralegals and others involved with the law
Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908-1981 This link opens in a new window
This retrospective database indexes over 750 legal periodicals published in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Annual surveys of the laws of a jurisdiction, annual surveys of the federal courts, yearbooks, annual institutes, and annual reviews of the work in a given field or on a given topic will also be covered.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Features more than 15,000 news, business and legal sources from LexisNexis—including U.S. Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1790—with an intuitive interface that offers quick discovery across all content types, personalization features such as Alerts and saved searches and a collaborative workspace with shared folders and annotated documents. NOTE: Before searching, please change the default previous 2 years to all available dates.

History & Economics

Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new window
Scholarship on the history of the world (excluding the US and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Includes world history, military history, women's history, history of education, and more.
America: History & Life This link opens in a new window
Scholarship on the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present day.
EconLit This link opens in a new window
Indexes and abstracts economic periodical literature. Citations and abstracts to economic research dating back to 1969 covering topics including accounting, capital markets, econometrics, economic forecasting, government regulations, labor economics, monetary theory, urban economics and much more.

Environmental & Urban Studies

Environment Complete This link opens in a new window
EBSCO’s Environment Complete database offers coverage in the areas of agriculture, ecosystem ecology, energy, and affiliated areas of study. The resource includes more than 1,200 full-text journals and monographs, nearly 4 million records, indexing for more than 2,000 domestic and international journals dating back more than 100 years and more than 180 full-text monographs. Offering full text and indexing for these journals, books and monographs, it is an invaluable resource for students and scholars across all environmental disciplines.
Urban Studies Abstracts This link opens in a new window
The bibliographic records in Urban Studies Abstracts cover urban affairs, community development, urban history, and other areas of key relevance to the discipline of urban studies.

International Studies

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) This link opens in a new window
BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine), a German database, is one of the world's most voluminous search engines for academic resources like journal articles, dissertations and theses, and research reports. It is especially strong in international and open access content.
Africa-Wide Information This link opens in a new window
Offers unique and extensive coverage of all facets of Africa and African studies. Includes content from South African Studies, African Studies, and African HealthLine, which focuses on all aspects of health relating to Africa and other developing nations.
HAPI Online This link opens in a new window
Your source for authoritative, worldwide information about Central and South America, Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean basin, the US-Mexico border region, and Hispanics/Latinos in the US. Contains bibliographic citations to articles, book reviews (through 2001), documents, original literary works, and other materials appearing in more than 500 key social science and humanities journals published throughout the world.
Index Islamicus This link opens in a new window
A bibliography of books, articles and reviews on Islam and the Muslim world.
Middle Eastern & Central Asian Studies This link opens in a new window
Research, policy, and scholarly discourse on the countries and peoples of the region, including North Africa. Coverage includes humanities and the social sciences.

Getting Full Text

Some databases don't include the full-text of articles. When there's no full-text, click on the TU Link button: . This will search through the library's full-text holdings in other databases and give you a link to the full-text of the article. If there is no online access, there's a link to the library catalog to see if we have the full-text in print.

If you can't get full-text access through the library catalog, register to use Tulane Libraries' Interlibrary Loan service: ILLiad.

Once you're registered, submit an article request:

You'll receive a PDF of the article by email within 3 business days!