Guides: International Relations: Databases & Article Indexes

General databases

Articles+
IBSS International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
Though its coverage is wider than databases such as WPSA and PAIS, IBSS is as useful as those in researching international relations topics. It provides bibliographic citations and subject indexing for the international journal article and book literature in anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology.

Google Scholar
Access Google Scholar through Penn Library to get Penn Text links to full-text.
EBSCO MegaFILE
General, multidisciplinary periodical database, covering all scholarly disciplines, with many general and popular magazines, and news sources. Includes bibliographic citations with indexing and abstracts for more than 16,000 periodicals.
Web of Science
Indexes journals in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Allows for cited reference searching. Search for specific articles by subject, author, journal, and/or author address, as well as for articles that cite a known author or work.
Covers 5,900 science, 1,700 social science, and 1,140 arts & humanities journals.
JSTOR
JSTOR makes available the back issues (the most recent five years are usually excluded) of the most important journals in various fields. Full-text searching of all articles in the database extends back to the first issues from the 18th century.

Subject Databases

For more in-depth searching, Penn Libraries provides access to variety of subject-specific databases. While any of these can prove useful, WPSA, PAIS, and IBSS (see General Databases) together provide the most extensive coverage of the international relations literature.

WPSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
67% of the more than 1500 monitored journals are published outside the United States, and there are nearly 500,000 records beginning in 1975. Some of the records have fulltext links and coverage includes all aspects of political science, as well as international relations and comparative politics.

PAIS Index
Indexing (1915-) of journal articles, books, government documents, statistical sources, grey literature, research reports, conference reports, publications of international agencies, etc., covers contemporary public affairs and policy issues worldwide related to a wide range of topics.

CIAO Columbia International Affairs Online
Covers theory and research in international affairs. Includes working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences. Working papers and conference proceedings are updated monthly. New journal issues and books are updated as available. Starting date is 1991.
United Nations Digital Library
The 2019 successor catalog to UNBISnet, it provides access to UN publications and documentation indexed by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjvld Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva. Also included are non-UN publications held in the collection of the library in New York. Coverage generally begins with 1979, but indexing for resolutions starts in 1946. UNBISnet also contains voting records of all adopted resolutions and an index to speeches. For a full introduction see the UNDL Research Guide below.
UN Digital Library Research Guide

AccessUN
Sometimes known as the Readex United Nations Index, AccessUN identifies documents included in the Penn Library's microprint/microfiche UN Documents and Publications collection, 1946-present.
EconLit
Covers accounting, consumer economics, monetary policy, labor, demographics, modeling, economic theory, and planning. Primarily English language, some foreign language publications included.
Historical Abstracts
Historical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada) from over 2,000 journals published throughout the world.

Harvard Kennedy School Library: Think Tank Search
"Think Tank Search is a custom Google search of over 670 think tank websites. For the purposes of this search, think tanks are defined as institutions affiliated with universities, governments, advocacy groups, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and businesses that generate public policy research, analysis, and activity."
JSTOR Security Studies
"...academic and policy research on international and national security problems and foreign policy issues in journals, books, and research reports. Use JSTOR's own Security Studies library guide to maximize the database's potential.
AULIMP - Air University Library Index to Military Periodicals
Bibliographic database for periodicals from military and other government sources, and thinktanks, commercial and academic publishers, 1989-present. Many of these periodicals will be available fulltext in JSTOR Security Studies.
Index to Legal Periodicals Current & Retrospective
Use ILP to identify law review articles, 1908-present : it's more efficient than plunging into HeinOnline fulltext. Also, use Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals to cover overseas law reviews missed by ILP.
All Penn Library Databases

Find a known article in the library's electronic & print collections

PennText Article Finder

Databases by Title and Subject

Browse the complete list of databases by title or subject. If you are accessing the page from off-campus, you will need to enter your PennKey and password.

If an article is not available at/through Penn Libraries

Use the Request Article icon on the left side of the page.

InterLibrary Loan
Use the Request Article link on the left side.