Research Guides: PLSC 3343/3349: Politics and Latin America: Overview

Background Information and Books

Political Handbook of the World
Publication Date: Published annually
Facts and analysis on each country's government, political and economic history, foreign relations, political parties, and current issues. This is a must-use resource when studying a country's politics, and is particularly strong for understanding political parties.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics
Publication Date: 2021
Including topics related to political institutions, processes, and parties; social movements; political economy; racial and gender politics; and Latin America's international relations.

Library Search - Advanced This link opens in a new window
Books can give better context and scope to your research than articles. In your search, put the name of the country or "Latin America" and "politics and government" as a subject in the drop menu. Limit the material type to books.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History This link opens in a new window
Peer-reviewed, historiographically-informed encyclopedic articles on Latin American history
Europa World This link opens in a new window
Contemporary data & coverage of political & economic info world-wide
Oxford Bibliographies: Latin American Studies This link opens in a new window
Overviews & annotated bibliographies about Latin American studies

Freedom House
Find country reports on how free the media is and whether the country has free and fair elections, right to assembly, and individual rights.

Find Newspaper and Magazine Articles

Political News and Opinion
Links to major newspapers.
Foreign Affairs (1922-present)
News and analysis on global issues and policy, from the Council on Foreign Relations.
Foreign Policy (1990-present)
American news publication focused on global affairs, current events, and domestic and international policy
The Economist (1986 - present)
Financial Times (2001 - 1 month ago)
Financial Times (current access)
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See info on creating an account for first time users.

Find Journal Articles and Reports

Scholarly articles

Political Science Complete (and Military Collection)
Start here for articles for most political science topics.

PAIS This link opens in a new window
Public Affairs Information Service covers public & social policies, international relations, & world politics

Current History (1914-present)
Scholarly journal dedicated to explaining global events and trends

Reports

World Bank: Open Knowledge Repository
A collection of studies and documents from the World Bank. Click Collections to browse by resource type. Look for Country Strategy Documents and Economic and Sector Work Studies. Click Topics to browse or search for your topic.

OECD iLibrary This link opens in a new window
Browse by country to find economic surveys. Read online only. Not every country is represented in this resource.

U.S. State Department: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
U.S. Dept of State annual reports to Congress on the status of internationally recognized human rights practices per country. Online archive from 1999-present.
Inter-American Developmental Bank: Publications
Reports on economic topics for Latin America and specific countries

Find Data

Country Politics and Economy: Statistics and Data
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Find all recommended data sources for country research.
CEPALSTAT
Statistics and data published by the Economic Commission for Latin America, a subdivision of the UN. Look for the country profiles.
World Bank Data
Access almost any country's financial and economic standings. This is an easy tool to find basic economic indicators quickly.
World Bank: Worldwide Governance Indicators
Find country percentile rankings on accountability, political stability, government effectives, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption.
Inter-American Development Bank: Data
Data on Latin America. Choose the dataset, view in Open Data, and then Visualize in order to view the data online.

Sage Data This link opens in a new window
Use World Bank data, World Development Indicators dataset to find a range of data over time of a country's economy, education, and more. You can also compare countries.

World Bank Development Indicators

Indicators are specific measurements that offer clues as to whether a phenomenon is present or absent. This list is of commonly used indicators, but there are many more than this that may be useful to you depending on your research question.

Industrialization, Economic Policy and Debt dataset

Industry (including construction), value added by % GDP or by annual % growth
Manufacturing, value added % GDP or by annual % growth
Other comparable indicators for value added are agriculture and service

Urbanization, Environment dataset

Urban population, total, % growth, % of total population

Education, Education dataset

Literacy rate
Educational attainment, at least secondary, Master's, or doctorate (in Gender Statistics, Education dataset)

Inequality, Poverty dataset

GINI index
Income share held by highest or lowest %

Wealth from extractive industries, Environment dataset

Total natural resources rents (% of GDP)
Other more specific indicators for rents are oil, coal, natural gas, mineral, forest

Foreign aid, Economic Policy and Debt dataset

Net official aid received
Net official development assistance and official aid received

World Bank Metadata Glossary
Look up indicators by name for a full definition and how it is measured.

Research Librarian

Megan Heuer

Contact:

mheuer@smu.edu
(214) 768-1856

Subjects: Economics, Government, International & Area Studies, Journalism, Political Science, Public Policy & International Affairs, Writing & Reasoning

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