Social Sciences

Area Studies

Mit Offenen Karten (ARTE)

  • Understanding geopolitics through maps. Episodes from the series can be watched on YouTube

Portals to the World (Library of Congress)

  • Service by the Library of Congress (LOC). TCollections of annotated website links for every nation as selected by LOC experts. Links are to both government sites as well as outside servers and ordered by category.

Country Studies Series (Library of Congress)

  • Description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world.

Auswärtiges Amt (Bundesrepublik Deutschland)

  • General information on countries, supplemented by links to further German institutions (mostly public sector) such as DAAD, Goethe Insitut, embassies or development organizations. Affiliard with the german governmen is also Germany Trade and Invest, a database with concise economy related studies of national and transnational economies.

CIA World Factbook (US Government)

  • Facts on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.

The US department of State (US Government)

  • Frequently updated country profiles of independent states, some dependencies, and areas of special sovereignty. 

Länder Informations Portal (Bundesrepublik Deutschland)

  • Country studies on over 70 countries with a focus on issues related to international development programs.

Economy Intelligence Unit (EIU)

  • The Economist Intelligence Unit provides a constant flow of analysis and forecasts on more than 200 countries and six key industries.  VPN client necessary

History, Sociology, Political Science

HANDBOOKS & ENCYCLOPEDIAS & SURVEYS

Online Lexika der Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung

  • Encyclopedias: Handwörterbuch Politik, Politiklexikon, Islam: Alltag, Geschichte und Kultur.
  • Website also has a comprehensive section on International Politics with dossiers, e.g on China, India, Migration or Globalization

Oxford Online Handbooks on Politics and Social Sciences

  • e.g. Dictionary of Contemporary World History, Dictionary of Economics, Dictionary of Geography, Dictionary of Social Sciences, Oxford Companion to Politics of the World ...

Springer E-Books

  • Its section Humanities, Social Sciences and Law contains many handbooks, such as the Handbook of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations, Handbook of Sociological Theory.  

Oxford Reference Online (History Section)

  • Handbooks on e.g. Australian, Canadian, or Black British history.

Political Resources on the Net

  • Index of political sites available on the Internet sorted by country, with links to Parties, Organizations, Governments, Media and more from all around the globe.

Guide to Law Online (Library of Congress)

  • Information concerning the laws and political institutions of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Each country section also has a "Legal Guide" section which collects in-depth reports and a "general Resources" section with links to country reports, UN reports on the human rights situation, the world food programme etc.

Empire Online

  • Research database with scholarly essays, timelines, biographies and rare historical documents related to the British Empire. 

European Voyages of Exploration:

  • Introduction to the history of early Spanish and Portugese colonialism

University of Washington: Portal to History Sources

  • Links to useful databases and resources such as encyclopedias for researching history

 

FACTS & DATA

The International Crisis Group

  • Independent, non-partisan, source of analysis and advice to governments, and intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations, European Union and World Bank, on the prevention and resolution of deadly conflict.

The Worldbank: Data & Research

  • Access to research reports and statistics sponsored by the World Bank

The Country Indicator for Foreign Policy (CIFP)

  • Represents an on-going effort to identify and assemble statistical information conveying the key features of the political, economic, social and cultural environments of countries around the world. Maintained by Carleton University (Canada).

The International Data Base (IDB)

  • Database contains statistical tables of demographic and socio-economic data for 227 countries and areas of the world. Output is displayed in charts and graphs, but can also be modified individually for use in spreadsheets etc. Maintained by the US Census Bureau.

 

RESEARCH

IREON - Fachportal Internationale Beziehungen und Länderkunde.

  • Research of scholarly articles, websites and bibliographic references to political, social, cultural and economic topics.

Full text reporitories and bibliographies

  • JSTOR, Periodicals Index Online, Periodicals Archive Online or the databases contained in the EBSCO Host also contain journals from the social sciences.

Migration

UNHCR - UN Refugee Agency

  • Comprehensive and up to date source for information on forced migration.

Forced Migration Online

  • Forced Migration Online (FMO) is a cooperative project of several university centres for the study of migration and provides access to online resources dealing with the situation of forced migrants worldwide. Contains a digital library with access to full text articles on the topic.

    ILM Database (International Labor Organization)

  • The ILO International Labour Migration Database was developed to make statistical information on international labour migration widely available.

 

Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge

  • (Official) information and research reports on the situation of migrants and refugrees in Germany. The agency publishes the yearly "Migrationsbericht" and maintains the Integrationsportal which is a excellent portal to government and non-government agencies and programs concerned with all aspects of integration.

Human Rights & Development

Human Rights Internet (HRI)

  • Database with more than 10.000 addresses to human rights organizations which can be searched by name, organization type, issues, etc.

The Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung

  • Up to date information on the present social and economic situation in a country, reports on development programs and information on German relations to these countries.

Amnesty International

  • Up-to-date information (reports, news releases) on human rights issues in each country from 1996 to date.

Human Rights Watch

  • Reports on human rights issues in each country and an overview of human rights developments in Jamaica from 1989 onwards.

The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

  • Reports on human rights situation of countries worldwide. Submitted annually to Congress by the US Department of State.

 

Anti-Slavery International

  • Anti-Slavery International works at local, national and international levels to eliminate all forms of slavery around the world.

 

Indigenous People

Survival International

  • One of the oldest transnational organizations supporting tribal people worldwide.