Subject and Class Guides: Political Science: Find Websites

Websites

Federal

CIA Library
Access publications on the history of the intelligence community, the Cold War, and declassified collections on various intelligence practices, people, and culture, including the Nazi War Crimes. Also view unclassified country maps and information about governments around the world.
Congress.gov
Tools to quickly and easily discover everything you might want to know about the laws and legislators of the United States. Learn abotu the legislative process and follow a bill through the process in real time.
Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports
Congress needs access to the best available information to make their decisions. The Congressional Research Service conducts research and analysis for Congress on a broad range of issues of national policy.

Research, Public Opinion, & Fact Checking

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
Current issues that affect fiscal policy from this nonprofit, bipartisan organization. Access news reports, data, blog posts, and research tools. Check out the "budget stimulator" tool which lets users decisions based on actual proposals.
FactCheck.org
Nonpartisan and unbiased politics fact-checking from a reputable nonprofit project.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. Access news and publications including investigative reports and statistics about human rights around the world.
PolitiFact
Nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize-winning site that researches and rates political claims for truth and falsehood.
Public Agenda
Nonpartisan, nonprofit public engagement organization which performs public opinion research regarding tough public policy issues in hopes of yielding solutions to these problems.
Urban Institute
The Urban Institute gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues — to foster sound public policy and effective government.
RAND: Research and Public Policy Analysis
Conducts research on more than 1,000 topics in a typical year such as health, education, national security, international affairs, law and business, the environment, and more.

State & Local

Statescape: Resources
Legislative information about a state, Statescape's Resources page offers links to each state's legislative process, their calendar of legislative sessions, governor information, budget timetable, state newspapers, and much more.
Center for State & Local Government Excellence
Non-partisan, non-profit organization working to find solutions to public policy issues and inform the public about them. Great place to locate updated information on public sector compensation, pensions, and health care benefits.
The Council of State Governments Knowledge Center
Nonpartisan organization serving all three branches of state elected and appointed officials. Focus on different policy areas such as Occupational Licensure, Research Informed Governing, Elections, Interstate Compacts, etc.
Freedom n the 50 States
Uses an interactive map to rank the states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. Includes an analysis of what led to these findings and policy recommendations for improvement.
National Association of Counties
Learn about the structure of county government, find links to legislation and policy issues and discover creative, innovative ways county's have met individual challenges (and where users can get ideas for their own urban planning and programming).
National Conference of State Legislatures
A bipartisan organization, NCSL provides research and technical assistance in regards to state issues for policymakers.
National Governor's Association
Represents the governors of our nation's 55 states, territories and commonwealths, providing information about key issues of the states, including federal regulation and other concerns about the state-federal relationship.
National League of Cities
Provides information to support governance and policy in member municipalities. Find a concise, descriptive overview of municipal government, featuring sections on city structures, powers, officials, finances, and factoids.
PEW Center on the States
Comparative data about key policy and economic issues within the states. Of particular importance in the Projects menu area is the Stateline selection: the special reports found here offer extremely valuable resources to help users keep abreast of state policy issues.
Stateline
Current (and archival back to 1999) policy and political news from all 50 states. Search by state or issue. The research and analysis option on the main menu is very useful, presenting publications that examine state and federal issues.
The United States Conference of Mayors
Find information on cities and their elected officials, including a directory and biographies, data, and analysis on common issues.

State and District Laws & Legal Documents

Access State and District Laws & Legal Documents from the following Internet sources:

Plural Open Data & Democracy Tools (formerly Open States)
Open Data & Democracy Tools include: Search & Track Legislation (bill tracker), Find Your Legislators, and bulk state legislator data and state bill & vote data available for download and via API. Plural describes itself as a policy-tracking platform that uses artificial intelligence to make policy creation more transparent, responsive, and inclusive. In 2021, it adopted the defunct Sunlight Foundation's legacy Open States tools as their Open Data & Democracy Tools.
Library of Congress: Law Beginner's Guides
From the Law Library of Congress, click on Law: Beginner's Guides to see a list of guides on legal topics like Indian law, animal law, disability law, federal statutes, federal regulations, and many more.
Legal Information Institute
From Cornell University's Law School. The Legal Resources section has links for more information about federal or state law resources or legal topics like criminal, employment, or family law.

International

European Union
Visit this site to learn how the EU works and explore what it does in its range of activities from agriculture to science and technology. Find official documents, studies, statistics and opinion polls, and resources.

Finding Reliable Websites

How do you know what information online is trustworthy? Do what fact checkers do, and use Lateral Reading.

When you come across an unfamiliar online source:

Open a new tab in your browser.

Search the name of the unfamiliar source.

Check what trustworthy sites say about it.

If the source seems untrustworthy, don't waste your time on it. Find a better source.

from Lateral Reading Poster developed by Civic Online Reasoning & Stanford History Education Group