POL 343: Global Political Economy: Library Research Guide

 This research guide is intended to help you get started with your POL 343: Global Political Economy course assignment research. 

If you need help, please contact Baharak Yousefi, Librarian for History, International Studies, Graduate Liberal Studies, Political Science at or byousefi@sfu.ca or Ask a librarian

Getting Started

Background Information

Do you need some basic definitions or background information?  Try these subject-related resources:

  • Encyclopedia of International Relations and Global Politics.  [print]
  • International Relations: The Key Concepts. [print]
  • Dictionary of International Economics Terms.  Available in print: [print]
  • The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World.  [print or online]
  • Encyclopedia of Political Economy (2 vols.)  [print]
  • Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy (3 vols.) [print]
  • International Relations: A Concise Companion
  • The Princeton Encyclopedia of the World Economy (2 vols.) [print]

 Or check out our Online Reference Sources page for links to general encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, etc.

Journal Article Indexes or Databases

See Databases in Political Science for a complete list of subject-related journal article databases online.  Some recommended databases for course-related research topics include:

Other general databases that might also be of interest:

  • Academic Search Premier: A large, multidisciplinary database that can be a good starting point for most research topics.  It has articles from both popular and scholarly journals.  Can you distinguish between the two?  See What is a Scholarly Journal? for help.
  • JSTOR: Contains the backfiles of journals in the fields of Economics and Political Science.
  • Google Scholar: Allows you to search for scholarly publications in a wide variety of subject areas via Google.  *Tip: Make sure to connect through the library website's Journal articles & databases page (instead of through the web) for access to additional content available to SFU users.

Facts and Data

For additional facts and statistics to support your research, try some of these recommended resources:

  • ELDIS Gateway to Development Information: Covers debt relief, finance policy, globalization and poverty.
  • Complete World Development Reports Online: The World Bank's major analytical publication covering such topics as conflict and development, finance and labour.
  • undata: A compilation of United Nations and agency statistics, covering economic, social, financial and development topics.
  • UNCTAD Handbook of Statistics: Comprehensive collection of data relevant for the analysis of world trade, investment and development.
  • Europa World: Provides information on a variety of international organizations and detailed information on every country in the world. 

Citing and Writing

Use the SFU Department of Political Science Guidelines for Writing Essays and Research Papers and the SFU Student Learning Commons Writing for University to guide you as you write your research paper.

You may also want to peruse the following books:

  • The Political Science Student Writer's Manual. [print]
  • Social Sciences Research: Research, Writing and Presentation Strategies for Students [print]
  • Academic Writing: An Introduction. [print]

The Student Learning Commons offers students a wide range of academic writing, learning, and study strategies services including free one-on-one consultations and workshops.

You need to correctly cite all of the books, journal articles and websites that you used in your research.  Start with the SFU Library's Citation & style guides.  A couple of other guides that you may want to look at are the Citing Sources (Duke University Libraries).

Citing your sources and creating the reference list is time consuming.  Take notes throughout your research and make sure to mark the page number(s) of passages you plan to paraphrase or directly quote in your research paper.

Consider using citation or reference management tools to collect your journal article, book, or other document citations together in one place, and help you create properly formatted bibliographies in almost any style — in  seconds. Citation management tools help you keep track of your sources while you work and store your references for future use and reuse.

Learning how to properly credit others when you use their ideas is a difficult, but important, part of research.  Start with the SFU Library's interactive tutorial Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism to test yourself and to learn more about plagiarism.  Also read the SFU Library's Plagiarism Guide for further discussion of this critical topic and for links to other plagiarism guides.