The Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, New Jersey, deals with the study of contemporary political systems and state politics with a pragmatic approach, linking politics to everyday life. Eagleton’s faculty, centers and programs cover a broad range of topics mainly focusing on (US-centered) state legislatures, public opinion polling and survey research, minorities and immigrants, campaigns, elections and political parties, as well as on electronic government and New Jersey politics. The Institute’s website gives all the necessary academic and general information about the Institute’s activities and programs, along with some current news events. Reports and research projects can be retrieved and downloaded in pdf version, as well as press releases, publication abstracts, and latest info on ongoing researches. Usually a specific page is dedicated to each project, research or activity of the Eagleton Institute. The Institute also hosts some thematic research centers focusing on issues like women in politics and political participation, each of them directly linked and providing online materials as articles and research reports, mainly in pdf format. Navigation in this website is extremely simple thanks to an effective ease-of-use and a clear content categorization, so that no navigational aid or search feature is needed to locate information and materials.
Eagleton Institute of Politics
New Jersey and U.S. politics at Rutgers University
European Research Institute
A UK Centre of Excellence for European Studies
The European Research Institute (ERI) is a National Centre of Excellence related to the University of Birmingham. It brings together expertise from two research centres (the Institute for German Studies – IGS- and the Centre for Russian and East European Studies – CREES), and the department of Political Science and International Studies. Its staff and students are mainly devoted to European Studies and relates issues such as identity and citizenship, politics and society of the Soviet Union and its successor states, European security, German politics, economics of transitions, etc. The Institute website is completely open and free and provides a considerable amount of info about the Institute (activities, programs, projects, staff and study opportunities). It is perfectly integrated with those of IGS and CREES as structure and contents. Nevertheless, only a limited number of working papers, focused on the Institute’s research interests and provided with the related abstract, is available in pdf or word format. Instead, users can find a rich section with external links organized by topics. For some items printer-friendly versions are provided while for other records only annotations are retrievable. Updating process is mainly limited to the Institute’s activity in relation to new research reports or upcoming events. Material is organized into clear categories and navigation paths. Simple navigational tools are also provided.
European University Institute
A European institution for advanced academic training
The European University Institute (EUI), created in 1972 and supported by EU member states, is a community of researchers and professors with a pronounced focus on European issues and on relations between Europe and the rest of the world. Four PhD and post-doc-level research departments (PS, Economics, Law and History) plus various research centres provide advanced academic training and research at the highest level. The EUI website (renewed in 2005 and partially still in progress) provides rich and updated information about EUI activities and initiatives (meetings, conferences, lectures), research projects and academic organization and services. Working papers published by EUI departments are available electronically, as well as the Jean Monnet lecture speeches and papers and the Robert Schuman Centre publications. Also some highly specialized archives such as “Voice of Europe” – an oral history of European Integration – or The Historical Archives of the European Union (opened in 1998) are freely accessible in their metadata structure and abstracts. EUI Review, its quarterly newsletter, is also available online. Free access to the institute’s online library is also possible, although non-EUI members can only access a limited number of services.
Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques
A French center of excellence for higher education
The Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques and Sciences-Po Paris has become one the most renowned PS schools in Europe. The website of the Sciences-Po Foundation offers access to a large variety of research material, including annotated bibliographies and monthly updated lists of scientific articles, recent publications reviews, etc. The Foundation’s website mainly aims at presenting the Institute’s different teaching, publishing and research activities with detailed presentation pages and numerous links to the referred pages or research centers. The site is also a useful gateway to a wide network of research institutions. Downloading and material retrieval are possible in the Library section but on a limited basis, being many services available only through an intranet system. Webpage saving is possible and few information or documents of other nature are available in pdf or doc format to be downloaded. Navigation, browsing and search are easy and well developed, also thanks to a double version of the site: a slightly different English version is in fact provided, in addition to the official one which is in French.
Hauser Global Law School Program
Research and learning tools for the study of international law
Tightly integrated with the the New York University School of Law, the Hauser Global Law School Program is a Law Faculty oriented to the global aspects of law and rights and featuring a special teaching activity. According to this mission this school supports a large number of seminars, fora, colloquia, annual conferences and lectures by inviting distinguished speakers from the worlds of the judiciary, practice, and academia. Its website gives access to detailed information of the Hauser activities and special events. Four working paper series are provided completely free of charge and easily downloadable in pdf or html format, covering topics dealing with global law, international economic regulations, human rights and global justice, and related topics. Available many research tools as well. An entire section is devoted to Globalex, an electronic legal publication by the Hauser School dedicated to international and foreign law research with a database for locating particular subjects within global journals and indexes. Guides to other online global law resources, and European and global law book review programs are also provided, always for free. For students the Hauser’s website also offers e-learning services, providing a large amount of teaching material, syllabi and courses descriptions. High level of usability and frequent updating rate.
Institution for Social and Policy Studies
A Yale institute devoted to interdisciplinary studies
Created in 1968 at Yale University, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) aims at enhancing interdisciplinary inquiry in the social sciences and fostering research into important public policy arenas. Its activities include numerous interdisciplinary faculty seminars, research publications, interdisciplinary postdoctoral and undergraduate programs. Through its website users are allowed to freely retrieve detailed info on the center’s staff and its research interests, as well as documentation and news on seminar series and other upcoming events, sometimes offered as a brochure downloadable in pdf format. Connections to related journals giving publications for purchase, a list of working papers and bibliographical references are also provided. These online records are retrievable for free by all users, but many others are available only off-line by ordering and purchasing or by contacting ISPS staff. The ISPS also launches initiatives designed to encourage field experimentation in the social sciences. Its material is organized through simple categories, which are easily retrievable only by browsing.
Political science at IU Bloomington
The Political Science Department's site of Indiana University
The Indiana University Political Science Department provides courses on a variety of topics in American politics, comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and public policy. The department is one of the oldest political science departments in the nation, and it is consistently recognized as one of the outstanding departments in the country. Besides general information, the website provides resources and services that are available through the department, a laboratory and an archive of political science data, which provides support and access to a vast array of statistical data sets and applications. Thanks to its memberships in the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research and the Roper Center, the Department archives and makes accessible a wealth of information ranging from social surveys and election studies to polling data and demographics. The site content provides basic information on academic and research activities, current news and events such as the Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Most pages offer plenty of full-text research papers freely downloadable and direct links to The Digital Library of the Commons, an international repository of free research reports on property rights.
School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy
Keele University's SPIRE activities and programs
The site provides information about the School, its teaching and research activities. Main research areas include Modern Political Theory and European Politics, as well as more specific topics as sustainability, political parties, Southeast Europe and the Eurasian Studies Network. The School is also home to a University Research Centre engaged in active research on the Remaking of Europe. For each research project’s and centers’ webpages, SPIRE online provides a large amount of up-to-date information and full text material – such as working papers and research reports – available for downloading in Word and pdf formats. References and information on publications are also offered. A local search engine covers the whole SPIRE web pages, with keyword options and a choice between long or short results. In general, this website provides a simple design and a friendly approach for users of any level of expertise.
The Kennedy School of Government
Activities and research material related to the Kennedy School
The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) encompasses 15 research centers and institutes, and its website introduces to teaching degrees and executive programs, to new initiatives as well as to research centers, to many research projects and programs. The KSG website provides a considerable number of records and research material, including many full-text documents. Each KSG research center or structure provides online its working papers and other types of publications, and most of these materials are available for free download. Thanks to free access to full-texts and to rich-in-content electronic resources, together with specific search engines for each site’s section, users can easily locate and retrieve different kinds of materials. Contents are provided in a wide range of formats, from the usual text and pdf files to multimedia audio/video/radio formats, almost all freely accessible by any user. Some records or parts of the website are accessible only through a KSG login or by a pay-per-download option. The relevant amount of records provided by this website is organized in clear categories and through a consistent architecture, so that navigation results quite easy. The internal linking structure is highly developed and integrated with the Harvard University, its library and its research centers.
The Political Science Department at MIT
An outstanding academic research network
The MIT Political Science Department’s emphasis on comparative research is reflected in the many affiliations maintained by its faculty members with centers and major research programs at MIT, Harvard, and elsewhere around the world. The MIT Political Science Department’s website provides a dense but well organized quantity of information and records, with several sections, areas and related project’s websites regularly updated. Full-text material is mainly classified by people and research projects with a plenty of papers, journal articles and books’ tables of content and excerpts freely retrievable in pdf format. Other material, such as proceedings, can also be reached throughout the seminar series, workshops and working groups web-pages. Content is easily located and retrieved, while a large number of links spread throughout the site are mostly related to various MIT initiatives, as the Voting Technology Project, a large online collection of electoral data.
