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For information about individual countries, consult the guides created and maintained by the Area Studies librarians.
Some of the sources listed here include statistical information. For more sources of statistical information about foreign countries, consult the Sources for International Statistics guide.
Guides
- Guide to Country Information in International Governmental Organization Publications.
- Washington, DC : CIS, c1996.
- Z 7164 .G7 G829 1996g - Lehman
- A detailed annotated bibliography of IGO publications which contain country-specific information. It contains a title index and the country members for the IGOs.
- Guide to Official Publications of Foreign Countries. 2nd ed.
- Bethesda, Md. : CIS, 1997.
- Z 7164. G7 G83 1997g - Lehman
- R328 G9411 - Butler Reference
- A country-by-country annotated bibliography of official publications in 19 categories: guides; bibliographies & catalogs; sources of general information; government directories & organization manuals; statistical yearbooks; laws, regulations, and constitutions; legislative proceedings; statements of the head of government; economic affairs; central bank publications; development plans budget; census; health; labor; education; court reports; environment; human rights & status of women.
Directories
- Da Graça, John V.
- Heads of State and Government. 2nd ed.
- New York : St. Martin's Press ; Basingstoke : Macmillan, 2000.
- JF 37 .D3 2000g - Lehman
 Europa World Plus- Each country entry in Europa World Plus has current directory entries in these categories: Government and politics, Society and media, and Business and commerce.
- The Statesman's Year-book. Annual.
- New York : St. Martin's Press, 1864-
- JA 51 .St2 - Business, Butler, Lehman (Latest in Reference in all locations)
- The 192 country profiles cover every important area: Political parties and leaders. Population. Economics. Climate. Natural resources. Military capabilities. Education and legal systems. Culture and communications. Health and environment. International affairs. Plus expanded coverage of world events, biographies of key figures, and special profiles of regions, states, and cities. All updated monthly, and all accessible through an interactive, map-based interface.
- Truhart, Peter.
- Regents of Nations : Systematic Chronology of States and their Political Representatives in Past and Present : a Biographical Reference Book. 2nd rev. and enl. ed.
- Munchen : Saur, 2000-
- JF 37 .T78 2000g - Lehman
- Worldwide Government Directory. Annual.
- Washington, D.C. : Keesings Worldwide, 1981-
- JF 37 .L346 - Latest in Lehman
- Detailed directory information on the governmental leadership of all counties: official names, titles, and contact information for heads of states, top officials, state agencies, etc.
Find Books
Print publications from some foreign countries can be found in several Columbia libraries, particularly the Butler, Business, East Asian, Lehman, and Law libraries. There are also increasing numbers of official foreign government web sites, many of which provide online access to their publications.
- CLIO: Columbia Libraries Online Catalog
- CLIO is the online catalog for the Columbia and Barnard libraries. It includes over 4 million records for books, journal or newspaper titles (not articles), online resources, government documents, microforms, sound or video recordings, archival collections, etc.
- Pegasus: Columbia University Law School Library Online Catalog
- Pegasus includes legal and judicial materials from around the world. The Law Library collection is also especially strong in human rights materials.
- BorrowDirect
- A borrowing service offered by the university libraries of Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Yale. It is designed to allow students, faculty and staff to request (and receive in four days) books directly from each other's collections.
- CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online
- Provides full text access to working papers from university research institutes, occasional papers series from NGOs, foundation-funded research projects, and proceedings from conferences, from 1991 to the present.
- PARLIT Database
- An index to books and journal articles dealing with parliamentary law and practice, worldwide.
- Rand Abstracts
- Provides citations, abstracts and full-text Rand publications, from 1946 to the present.
- WorldCat
- An online catalog of the collections of 24,000 member libraries of the OCLC consortium, comprising more than 36 million records for books, serials, manuscript collections, audiovisual materials, computer files, and other media.
Find Journal Articles and News
- International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
- Provides access to citations and abstracts to over 2,600 scholarly journals in the social sciences, from 1951 to the present.
- JSTOR
- Provides full-text articles from more than 320 scholarly journals, from volume 1 but excluding the latest 3-5 years.
- PAIS International
- Provides access to citations and abstracts to over 460,000 American and international scholarly journal articles, from 1972 to the present.
- PARLIT Database
- An index to books and journal articles dealing with parliamentary law and practice, worldwide.
- World News Connection
- An index with links to full text translations of newspaper articles, conference proceedings, radio and television broadcasts, periodicals, non-classified technical reports and local media sources from around the world. Specializes in socioeconomic, political, scientific, technical, and environmental issues and events. Covers 1994 to the present.
- Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
- Provides access to citations and abstracts to over 1000 American and international scholarly journals, from 1975 to the present.
Background Information & Statistics
- BBC News: Country Profiles
- Full profiles provide an instant guide to history, politics and economic background of countries. They also include audio and video clips from the BBC archives.
- Countries and Their Cultures. 4 vols.
- New York : Macmillan Reference USA, 2001.
- GN 307 .C68 2001 - Lehman
- Country Indicators for Foreign Policy
- The CIFP database includes measures of domestic armed conflict, governance and political instability, militarization, religious and ethnic diversity, demographic stress, economic performance, human development, environmental stress, and international linkages, in the form of over one hundred performance indicators for 196 countries, spanning fifteen years (1985 to 2000) for most indicators. These indicators are drawn from a variety of open sources.
- Country Profiles of Environmental Burden of Disease
- These WHO country profiles provide an overview of summary information on selected parameters that describe the environmental health situation of a country, as well as a preliminary estimate of health impacts caused by environmental risks.
- Country Studies/Area Handbook Series
- The Country Studies Series presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world and examines the interrelationships of those systems and the ways they are shaped by cultural factors. At present, 101 countries and regions are covered, published between 1988 and 1998.
- Check CLIO under "[country name] a country study" for location of print versions.
- Country Profiles: "The profiles offer reasonably current country information independent of the existence of a recently published Country Study and will be updated annually or more frequently as events warrant."
- CountryWatch
- CountryWatch is a world leader in providing country specific geopolitical intelligence on each of the 192 countries of the world. The annual Country Reviews are typically over 100 pages long.
- DOLPHN (Data Online for Population, Health and Nutrition)
- DOLPHN is an online statistical data resource of selected demographic and health indicators gathered from various sources for several countries of the world. The DOLPHN system is designed to provide users with quick and easy access to frequently used statistics. DOLPHN was created in response to the numerous data requirements of USAID health staff and AIM Project data analysts to meet indicator-reporting needs. DOLPHN contains over 70 key health indicators obtained from 11 carefully selected and internationally recognized data sources. The various sources of the data use a variety of research methodologies including population-based surveys, estimates, and projections to derive the statistics.
- The Economist Intelligence Unit
- The Economist Intelligence Unit is a leading provider of country, industry and management analysis. Through its global network of analysts and economists, EIU continuously assesses and forecasts the political, economic and business climates of 200 countries.
- Eldis Regional and Country Profiles
- Links to hundreds of authoritative sites for developing countries, in the areas of: agriculture, environment, poverty, education, gender, health & population, governance, trade, economics, aid, microcredit, and security.
- The Europa World Year Book. Annual.
- London : Europa Publications Limited, c1959-
- JN 1 .Eu74 - Business, Butler, Lehman
- The online version is Europa World Plus
- Each country's chapter includes an introductory survey with history and recent political & economic events; a statistical survey; and a directory, information about the political system, government & parties, the press, banking, industry, transport, etc.
- Europa's regional volumes have more detailed information about each country: Africa South of the Sahara; Central and South Eastern Europe; Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia; The Far East and Australasia; The Middle East and North Africa; South America, Central America and the Caribbean; Western Europe.
- EuroStat Country Profiles
- An easy way to look at all major statistical indicators for the European Union (13, 15, 25, or 27 countries) or each individual country, and to do comparisons. The data generally goes back 10 years, and can be displayed as a table, graph, or on a map.
- FAO Country Profiles
- The Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations and its 183 members highlight information as one of the priority areas in fighting hunger and achieving food security. The FAO Country Profiles and Mapping Information System is a pioneering information retrieval tool which groups the organization's vast archive of information on its global activities in agriculture and development in a single area and catalogues it exclusively by country.
- Foreign Governments
- A comprehensive resource maintained by Northwestern University Library. It provides links to the official government web sites, down to department or ministry level.
- GeoHive
- GeoHive provides demographic and economic statistics for all countries, at both the national and subnational levels. The site is divided into four main parts. One dealing with the whole world and its regions, a second with the major regions, a third with all major countries separately and a fourth with rankings (the most, largest, longest, wealthiest, etc.).
- International Crisis Group: Reports by Country
- Not all countries are represented, just those which are involved or potentially involved in conflict situations.
- International Monetary Fund Country Information
- IMF operations — which involve surveillance, financial assistance, and technical assistance — have developed to meet the changing needs of its 184 member countries in an evolving world economy.
- Latin American Government Documents Archive, University of Texas at Austin
- The Latin American Government Documents Archive (LAGDA) seeks to preserve and facilitate access to a wide range of ministerial and presidential documents from 18 Latin American and Caribbean countries. The Archive contains copies of the Web sites of approximately 300 government ministries and presidencies. Capture of sites began on multiple dates in 2005 and 2006, and will continue with regularly scheduled captures. Content in the Archive includes not only the full-text versions of official documents, but also original video and audio recordings of key regional leaders.
- LexisNexis Statistical
- LexisNexis Statistical enables easy access to statistics produced by the U.S. government, major international intergovernmental organizations, professional and trade organizations, commercial publishers, independent research organizations, state government agencies, and universities.
- MSU Global Access, Michigan State University
- Provides information about the world - its regions and peoples and important international issues. You can search simultaneously by world region or country and by thematic area.
- NationMaster.com
- Allows users to generate graphs based on numerical data extracted from numerous sources. All sources are documented.
- OECD Country Reports
- Links only to documents with an individual country focus. Includes both member and non-member economies, but with more information for member countries, especially a statistical profile with over 100 indicators. For links to OECD publications which cover all countries, see SourceOECD, below.
- SourceOECD: provides full text access to all publications from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
- People in the Balance: Population and Natural Resources at the Turn of the Millenium
- The focus here is on population, water, land, forests, fisheries, CO2, and biodiversity, with sections on each. Data is also provided for each country, both in tabular form and CSV data sets.
- The ... Political Risk Yearbook. Annual. 8 vols.
- New York : Frost & Sullivan, Political Risk Services, 2009-
- Check CLIO for call number for each volume
- Provides political and investment risk for 106 countries.
- PreventionWeb: Countries & Regions
- For each country, PreventionWeb has collected information related to the prevention of natural disasters. This can include National Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction, other policies and plans, data and statistics, risk profiles, educational materials, disaster risk reduction organizations, maps, and other documents and publications.
- Social Security Programs Throughout the World: brief descriptions of programs for each country, from the U.S. Social Security Administration
- Social Security in Other Countries: links to each country's social security program, from the U.S. Social Security Administration
- Social Watch
- Social Watch is an international network informed by national citizens' groups aiming at following up the fulfillment of the internationally agreed commitments on poverty eradication and equality. It produces an annual report as well as individual country reports.
- The UC Atlas of Global Inequality
- The Atlas of Global Inequality explores aspects of inequality using online, downloadable maps and graphics. It includes sections on Health, Income Inequality, Economic Globalization, Gender Connections, and Inequality & Growth. The country pages provied useful data and graphs on these and other topics and provide the option to compare countries with each other.
- UNESCO Institute for Statistics Country Profiles
- Country profiles feature key statistics and indicators on education, science and technology, and culture and communication on a country-by-country or regional basis.
- UNdata
- UNdata provides a vast array of statistical data from numerous UN sources.
- World Bank:
- Countries and Regions
- Country Aggregate Reports
- This site provides information on World Bank lending activities by country. You can find both aggregate information and individual information on World Bank loans, credits, and grants provided to various countries.
- World Bank Data by Country
- Links to all information regarding the World Bank mission in a country, including the Country Assistance Strategy, project reports, Country Economic Memorandum, and other in-depth analysis.
- Choose from -- Country at a Glance tables: two pages of key indicators tracing the trends in social and economic development from the last three decades; Data Profile tables: data profiles available here are drawn from the World Development Indicators database. The profiles cover the 208 countries (184 World Bank members and 24 other economies with populations of more than 30,000) and 18 country groups reported on in the World Development Indicators; EdStats: short for Education Statistics, is a comprehensive education statistics database; GenderStats: a database of gender statistics, showing summary gender indicators, basic demographic data, population dynamics, labor force structure, and education and health statistics; HNPStats: short for Health, Nutrition, and Population Statistics offers country data sheets showing summary indicators for health status, health determinants, and health finance.
- World Health Organization Country Profiles
- Includes basic vital and health statistics, health expenditures, provision/coverage, health system organization and regulation, summary measures, country-specific conditions, and human resources.
Election Information
- ACE Electoral Knowledge Network
- The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network provides comprehensive and authoritative information on elections, promotes networking among election-related professionals and offers capacity development services.
ACE is a joint endeavor of eight partner organizations, all long-term supporters of the Administration and Cost of Elections Project and leaders in the provision of targeted technical assistance in elections management.
- African Elections Project
- The material on the site currently covers Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Malawi, and Niger. Within each country profile,
visitors can view the results of recent elections, take a look at relevant weblogs, learn about the various political parties in each country, and also view past news updates.
- Elections Around the World
- Presents a good background history of the politics and electoral history of each country, along with election statistics and a calendar of elections, 1996 to the present.
- Elections in Africa : a Data Handbook.
- New York : Oxford University Press, 1999.
- JQ 1879.A55 E44 1999 - Lehman, Barnard Reference
- Elections in Asia and the Pacific : a Data Handbook. 2 vols.
- Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.
- Vol. 1: Middle East, Central Asia, and South Asia
- Vol. 2: South East Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific
- J38 .E6 2001g - Lehman
- Elections in the Americas : a Data Handbook. 2 vols.
- New York : Oxford University Press, c2005.
- JF 1001 .E363 2005 - Lehman
- Handbook of Electoral System Choice.
- Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
- JF 1001 .H26 2004 - Lehman
- International Encyclopedia of Elections.
- Washington, D.C. : CQ Press, 2000.
- JF 1001 .I57 2000 - Lehman
- International Foundation for Election Systems
- The International Foundation for Election Systems provides professional advice and technical assistance in promoting democracy and serves as an information clearinghouse on democratic development. Its Election Guide provides international election dates, results, and information, from 1998 forward.
- International IDEA Voter Turnout Website , from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA)
- The International IDEA Voter Turnout Website contains the most comprehensive global collection of political participation statistics available. Regularly updated voter turnout figures for national presidential and parliamentary elections since 1945 are presented country by country, (click on the maps) using both the number of registered voters and voting age population as indicators. Where available, we also include the spoilt ballot rate for each election. Included also are the most recent indicators of literacy and human development, along with the type of electoral system currently used and whether voting is compulsory or not.
- LANIC Electoral Observatory
- Provides extensive coverage of presidential and legislative elections in Latin America; from the Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) at the University of Texas.
- Lijphart Elections Archive, University of California, San Diego
- A research collection of district level election results for approximately 350 national legislative elections in 26 countries. The objective of the Archive is to systematically collect election statistics in as much detail as possible, including, as a minimum, the results at the level of the individual election districts in which votes are converted into seats.
- Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - Elections
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ODIHR publishes a number of documents for any particular election observation mission, including:
* Needs assessment reports, which detail the type of mission to be deployed;
* Interim reports, which provide insights into the issues a mission deals with prior to election day;
* Preliminary statements, which are released the day after a mission and provide the ODIHR's preliminary conclusions about the conduct of an election; and
* Final reports, which are published after an in-depth analysis of the election observation and which also provide recommendations with respect to the electoral framework.
Political and Legal Systems
- Derbyshire, J. Denis.
- Encyclopedia of World Political Systems. 2 vols.
- Armonk, N.Y. : Sharpe Reference, c2000.
- JF 51 .D465 2000 - Lehman
- Global Legal Information Network
- The Global Legal Information Network (GLIN), provided by the Library of Congress, is a public database of official texts of laws, regulations, judicial decisions, and other complementary legal sources contributed by governmental agencies and international organizations. These GLIN members contribute the full texts of their published documents to the database in their original languages. Each document is accompanied by a summary in English and, in many cases in additional languages, plus subject terms selected from the multilingual index to GLIN. All summaries are available to the public, and public access to full texts is also available for most jurisdictions.
- International Constitutional Law
- A service of the University of Würzburg; it provides the full text of the constitutions for over 80 countries, in English translation, with brief constitutional, policital, and electoral history. For other countries, it provides brief information.
- Maddex, Robert L.
- Constitutions of the World. 2nd ed.
- Washington, D.C. : CQ Press, c2001.
- K 3165 .M33 2001 - Lehman
- PARLINE Database, from the Inter-Parliamentary Union
- Contains information about parliaments in over 190 countries, including structure, leader, percentage of women, term, sex, political group, and elections.
- Political Parties of the World. 6th ed.
- London : John Harper, 2005.
- JF 2051 .D39 2005g - Lehman
- Political Resources on the Net
- Listings of political sites available on the Internet sorted by country, with links to Parties, Organizations, Governments, Media and more from all around the world.
- World Encyclopedia of Parliaments and Legislatures. 2 vols.
- Washington, D.C. : Congressional Quarterly, c1998.
- JF 511 .W67 1998 - Lehman
- The entry for each country gives information about its political system and background, elections and parties, legislative process, selection of the executive branch, budget, etc. Includes a short bibliography.
- World Legal Information Institute
- Free, independent and non-profit access to worldwide law.
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