Library Guides: State and Local Politics: Reports & Analysis

Intro

In addition to peer-reviewed journal articles and scholarly books written by scholars in university contexts, organizations like think tanks, NGOs, advocacy groups, and nonprofits also publish important research in the field of political science.

Use the resources below to discover high-quality research reports. Remember to check the About page of the publishing organization--or Google them for more information--to critically evaluate the political, financial, or ideological motivations that may be driving their research.

State Politics Think Tanks

These organizations publish regular reports and analyses in the area of state politics:

National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)
NCSL provides fact- and evidence-based (nonpartisan) research and other resources to support the policymaking process across U.S. state legislatures. Use the search box on the homepage to find research reports and news focused on state politics.
Pew Center on the States
Policy analysis of state governments, including state by state comparisons, from Pew Research Center.
CSG Center of Innovation
The Council of State Government's (CSG) Center for Innovation provides policy-makers in-depth analysis of data and policy best practice to facilitate better understanding of existing and developing issues and assess available and potential solutions.

American Enterprise Institute This link opens in a new window
This database brings American Enterprise Institute's (AEI) collection of scholarship to HeinOnline's fully searchable image-based format. Researchers can search by Policy Area, a subject identifier assigned by AEI to each of its publications, which organizes their works into the following areas: economics, foreign and defense policy, society and culture, health care, politics and public opinion, poverty studies, and education; additional Policy Areas within each of these main categories further organize publications into more specific areas of scope. Browse titles in AEI by policy area or use the facet to limit search results. The database is updated regularly with new content, and archived documents.

Think Tank Databases

Cast a wider search net by using these databases:

Think Tank Search
A Google Custom Search of more than 1,200 think tanks and research centers, offered by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Open Research Reports from JSTOR
More than 39,000 research reports from over 140 policy institutes around the world are freely accessible to everyone on JSTOR. The open research reports are discoverable alongside journals, books, and primary sources. Use the "Research Report" content filter to limit your results.

Lobbying Research Groups

Open Secrets
Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, OpenSecrets is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. Its mission is to track the flow of money in American politics and provide the data and analysis to strengthen democracy.
How Do They Lobby?
How Do They Lobby? allows you to understand how different interest groups lobby and give testimony across seventeen states. Using this portal, you can search and visualize CHORUS (Dataset on Policy Choice and Organizational Representation in the United States), the first comprehensive dataset of lobbying and testimony positions in state legislatures. This portal was created by the Brown Climate and Development Lab.