Research Guides: Political Theory: Overview

Find Articles

Philosopher's Index This link opens in a new window
Start here for articles on philosophy, including political philosophy and social philosophy.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is helpful in finding older scholarship not represented in Political Science Complete. Be sure to use the subject filter on the left side for political science or philosophy.
Political Science Complete This link opens in a new window
Start here for scholarly articles in political theory.

Library Search
This is your best bet for interdisciplinary topics. Look for subject filters like politics, political thought, political philosophy, or political ethics to help focus your search results.

Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Fulltext scholarly journals covering various topics
Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Religion, Reform, and Society This link opens in a new window
Primary sources on religious and philosophical movements in the 19th century.

Sometimes it's helpful to search a major journal to focus your results rather than only searching across large databases.

Political Theory
This is a major journal for this field. Look for the search icon to perform a keyword search.
Contemporary Political Theory
This is another major journal, only available in a business database, so be sure to search this in addition to searching across other databases.
Journal of Political Philosophy

Books can offer scope and context to your research. You might also find books written by specific thinkers.

Library Search
Look for subject filters like politics, political thought, political philosophy, or political ethics to help focus your search results. Use the Library Catalog filter when searching for primary source texts, as they tend to be found in books.
Library Search for Political Science -- Philosophy
This is a Library Search on the subject of political science and philosophy. Add your own keywords to the search to narrow the results.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Find articles written by experts on concepts, theories, and thinkers in philosophy. This is the best place to start for understanding on ideas from philosophy.

Oxford Bibliographies: Philosophy This link opens in a new window
Combines the best features of an annotated bibliography and a high-level encyclopedia to provide overviews and authoritative sources about philosophy.
Oxford Bibliographies: Political Science This link opens in a new window
Get background info and specialized bibliographies for political science topics.
Oxford Studies in the Enlightenment This link opens in a new window
Multidisciplinary coverage of the Enlightenment

The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory
Publication Date: 2006
Chapters by political theorists look at the state of the field, where it has been in the recent past, and where it is likely to go in future. A handbook has articles that summarize the research and thought on specific topics, and give you citations to associated major scholarship.
Encyclopedia of Political Theory
Publication Date: 2010
Examines the ideas of the major political theorists from before Plato to our own times; the main schools of political thought; the concepts and issues that have captured the imagination and attention of political theorists; and some of the main institutions and practices inspired by political thought.