A Guide to
Research Sources

The following page has been designed to assist students enrolled in courses taught by Robert Legvold. The range of material now available on the Internet is immense. Below you will find only a hint of what exists, but it should give you a useful starting point in your own search for information.

What follows is grouped into two categories:

I. First, materials of general interest, organized by newspapers, general reference works, and organizations.

II. The second category lists materials particularly appropriate for specific courses.

Western Newspapers

Many major newspapers are now available free of charge through the internet. Most include search engines allowing you to locate articles within the last month, and several contain archives, permitting you to go back several years. They include the following:

Reference Works

Most of the following guides to periodical literature, social science abstracts, are available only to Columbia students with access to Columbia computer account. Items marked † do not require access to Columbia computers.

CIAONet (A Columbia guide to international affairs journals, complete listing of recent contents, and abstracts of articles.)
PAIS International (A guide to public affairs and political science articles)
ProQuest Direct (A particularly useful guide to newspaper and journal articles, often including full text.)
† European Information Network on International Relations and Area Studies (A somewhat unwieldy but extensive list of European organizations offering guides to international affairs articles, special conferences, data on security and arms control questions, and occasional papers)
Social Science Abstracts (A key guide to articles in social science journals)
Social Sciences Citation Index (Another useful guide to articles and books, which can be searched by subject, author, and/or title.)

Organizations

Major international affairs organizations often include on their Web pages, in addition to lists of their publications, abstracts or complete versions of special reports and occasional papers. They also often include links to other international relations-related sites as well as guides to general publications in international affairs. Some of the more useful include the following:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (This site includes indexes to the journal Foreign Policy and at least one full article from each issue.)
The Council on Foreign Relations (This site includes indexes to the journal Foreign Affairs and at least one full article from each issue.)
The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) (Most useful for the extensive links to international affairs institutes, international organizations, and foreign ministry sites)
The Federation of American Scientists (An invaluable set of links to sources dealing with military, nuclear, and arms control issues)

Resources for Specific Courses

Post-Soviet States | Comparative Foreign Policy | New Perspectives on the Cold War

Post-Soviet States

For students in 4882, the most useful sources will be those noted above, particularly, the Social Science Abstracts.

For those of you seeking current information from newspapers published in the post-Soviet states as well as from radio and television broadcasts in English translation, try the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) as provided on the World News Net. (To reach this site you must be able to log on to the Columbia computers.)

For current materials, including most of the key Russian newspers as well as newspapers from some of the other post-Soviet states, an invaluable source is ISI Emergent Markets. (Again, you must have access to the Columbia computers.)

The following sites provide much useful information on the new countries of the former Soviet Union.

Yahoo's "Current Russian Crisis" (As the title suggests, this site draws together western reporting on recent developments in Russia, particularly the unfolding economic troubles.)
OMRI (Archives for OMRI's earlier daily reporting on events in the new states of the former Soviet Union as well as Transition magazine.)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Daily news items from the entire region as well as more extensive reports)
Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (Harvard-based forum for younger academic specialists working on Russian foreign and security policy issues. Includes occasional paper series.)
Eurasia Research Center (Current news reporting from nearly all the post-Soviet states)
The following three sites provide extensive links to a wide range of information on Russia and the other post-Soviet states:
East Europe and Russia (Links to major news sources for all the post-Soviet states and Eastern Europe, including RFE/RL and the University of Pittsburg's REES)
Links to Russian and FSU Web Resources (The most extensive set of links for all imaginable kinds of information -- substantive as well as practical -- on the region.)
Bucknell's Russian Studies Program (Easily the most attractive of the sites listed on this page and, in addition, filled with information and links to a vast range of additional information on Russian politics, history, language and literature, and art history)

Comparative Foreign Policy Study

In addition to the sources listed in category one, you will find the bound volumes of major international journals up through approximately 1994 in a new library service called JSTOR. (You will only be able to read articles if you have access to the Columbia computers.)

U.S. Congressional Documents
U.S. Department of State (Documents, speeches, and reports)

New Perspectives on the Cold War
Harvard Project on Cold War Studies (This is an extremely useful and well-constructed site that not only provides information on this program but links to other major cold war history sites.)
Cold War International History Project (Excellent well-organized forums as well as the online version of the CWIHP Bulletin)
Last updated January 15, 1999