African Politics Research Guide
Leslie Gray - Political Science 146

Background Information

For an overview on the political, social and economic conditions in a particular African country, use the following resources.

Africa South of the Sahara: Ref DT351.A37 2004
Encyclopedia of Africa South of the Sahara: Ref DT351.E53 1997 (4 vols.)
CIA World Factbook: Available in the Library, or online.
CountryWatch: Detailed economic, political information and news for 191 countries. Country reviews include historical and political information, five years of hard data for key economic sectors, economic overviews, detailed maps, environmental situations, stock markets, investment climates, and taxation information.
Eldis Country Profiles: According to the Scout Report, this site is a "powerful one-stop tool for researchers and professionals in development studies and political science" The heart of this material is multiple documents providing country by country sectoral profiles of agriculture, environment, economics, gender, politics, education, and health. It also includes links to current news, maps, statistics, CIA and IMF country profiles, industrial and trade profiles, and human rights records. Eldis (Electronic Development and Environment Information System) is a European initiative hosted and supported by the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, England, with financial support from DANIDA, the Danish International Development Agency.

Go to OSCAR (the Library's catalog).
Click on Keyword search.
Enter your keywords in the box.
Too many or too few citations retrieved, try narrowing or broadening the keywords you use.
To checkout books from the Library, you must have a valid ACCESS card.
Or, if the books you want are not available at the Library, you can utilize LINK+.

The Library subscribes to a number of databases that will retrieve either citations/abstracts to or fulltext of journal articles on your topic.

Go to the Library's list of Electronic Databases.
Click on a letter, then the name of a database that you want to search.
Enter your search, which should look very much like the search you entered into OSCAR.
Most databases use the connector and, as well as the asterisk.
You will need to input your name and barcode number off the back of your ACCESS card to access any of these databases from off-campus.

Some good databases to search for political science topics are:

Academic Search Elite (click on "Peer Reviewed" before completing your search)
Social Sciences Fulltext (change search box from "all smart" to keyword or subject)
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

If your article is not available fulltext in the database you searched:

Go to the Library's list of Electronic and Print Journals, then type the title of your journal (not the title of the article) in the box. You could retrieve:
1. a list of other databases where your article is fulltext
2. or a statement that your journal is in the Library's print holdings
3. or a statement that the journal title is not available at the Library.
If the journal is available fulltext in another database, click on the name of the database.
If the journal is in the Library's print holdings, get the call number and come to the Library and photocopy the article.
If the Library does not have the journal title either electronically or in print, you can fill out a Bronco Express request form online and the article can be sent to your GroupWise email account.
Read the Bronco Express FAQ for more information.
You need a valid ACCESS card to place a Bronco Express request.
African Journals Online
Over 200 journal titles are indexed in this online database. Simple searches are possible. You retrieve abstracts for free and must pay for fulltext articles by credit card. The Library does not subscribe to this database.

Global Newsbank: Information on international issues and events taken from more than 1500 international sources, including translated broadcasts, news agency transmissions, newspapers, periodicals and government documents. 1996 to the present.
Index on Africa: This is a gateway site to information on Africa on the Internet, with over 2,000 links sorted by country, subject and news. It includes Africa Update, with daily news briefings from African news sources. It was created by The Norwegian Council for Africa (NCA) to raise awareness about Africa and African affairs. The site is searchable and provides access to several Africa specific search engines and OneWorld, a partnership of over 200 organizations.

African Studies Internet Resources: This page at Columbia University is now the "official" Virtual Library for African Studies. It is an ongoing collection of Internet accessed research materials on Africa, organized primarily by region and country.
Central Africa Project: Begun in 1996, this is a product of the International Crisis Group's (ICG) Central Africa Project which issues lengthy, scholarly reports analyzing political and ethnic conflict within and between the nations that straddle mid-Africa.
Africa Renewal (formerly Africa Recovery): This is the electronic version of the UN's quarterly periodical devoted to economic and social development issues in Africa. Most of the articles in back issues to 1996 are available right there on the web page. To get to these, click on English first and then choose Previous Issues (don't click on the FREE Back Issues - that is to order hard copy!). Unfortunately, you cannot keyword search the backfile, only browse issue-issue.

Citing an Internet Resource APA & MLA Style: Simplified guide to citing Internet resources done by SCU Librarian, Gail Gradowski.
Citations Style Guides: From the Seattle Central Community College Library, this site shows you how to cite using examples from Modern Language Association (MLA), Chicago (Turabian), American Psychological Association (APA), and American Anthropological Association (AAA) styles.

Still don't know where to start with your research, or need help with your search strategy, try asking a librarian either:

In person by coming to the Information Commons Desk and talking to the Reference Librarian on duty during open hours.
By phone: 408-554-4658 (this is the Information Commons Desk number)
Via email
Online

Created by Paula J. Popma 9/22/04