Guides and databases: Political Science and Public Policy: Databases

Key databases for journal articles

ASSIA Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts
ASSIA covers the literature of health, social services, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, race relations and education. The database abstracts and indexes over 500 journals and periodicals from 19 countries, including the UK and US
IBSS: International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (ProQuest)
Index of literature in the social sciences and related subjects.
SCOPUS
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to Scopus. Multi-disciplinary database containing references to journal articles, conference proceedings, trade publications, book series and web resources. Please use IE 8 or higher, Google Chrome or Firefox browsers.
Social Policy and Practice
See the LibrarySkills@UCL guide to Ovid. This database can be accessed by no more than 4 users at a time. Abstracts of evidence-based social science research for policy-makers, practitioners, educators and students working within economic and social development, social administration, social services, and care management. Incorporates ChildData.
Social Science Database (ProQuest)
Offering over 1000 titles with the majority full-text. This database covers core disciplines across the social sciences including sociology, social work, anthropology, politics and features journals from over 50 countries.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts (WPSA)
Indexing and abstracting over 1,500 serials, books and working papers. WPSA covers the international literature of political science and international relations, along with complementary fields including international law and public administration/policy.

Key databases for legal sources & official publications

Lexis+ UK
Access for UCL students and staff only. Formerly LexisLibrary. The UK’s largest legal research database, containing unique content such as Halsbury’s Laws of England, Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia and Atkins’s Court Forms, specialist practitioner texts and a collection of enriched Case law. Includes Lexis+ UK International. Accessibility statement for Lexis+.
UK Parliamentary Papers (ProQuest)
Full text of all papers issued by the House of Commons from 1715-present (with supplementary material back to 1688), House of Lords and Public Petitions to Parliament. These are the working documents of government for all areas of social, political, economic, and foreign policy. Fully searchable digitized images of original documents. Accessibility statement for UK Parliamentary Papers (ProQuest).
Westlaw UK
Access for UCL students and staff only. Links to Westlaw International and Westlaw US have now been added to the 'Browse by Topic' menu. Users need to register with their name and UCL email address on initial login. Information will be processed by Westlaw in accordance with their privacy policy. Primary/secondary law and current awareness service for UK legal, regulatory and academic markets.

Key databases for data & statistics

ICPSR
You need to create an account in order to download data. ICPSR acquires, preserves, enhances, and distributes original social science research data for research and instruction.
ICRG Researchers' Dataset Table 3B (Political Risk)
The ICRG Researcher's Dataset - Table 3B provides annual averages of the 12 components of ICRG's Political Risk Ratings (Table 3B), as published in the International Country Risk Guide since 1984. Average ratings are provided for all countries covered by ICRG from 1984 through the last full calendar year.
OECD iLibrary
Index of publications from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Formerly SourceOECD.
Political Data Yearbook (ECPR)
Political Data Yearbook captures election results, national referenda, changes in government, and institutional reforms for a range of countries, within and beyond the EU in an interactive database
Statista
Statista is an online portal for statistics consolidating statistical data on over 80,000 topics from more than 22,500 sources and covering over 170 different industries. UCL users do not have access to the Company database or the Global Consumer Survey. The Research AI assistant can provide useful insights into Statista data, but be aware of the limitations of using generative AI for your academic work.
UK Data Service
The UK Data Service is a comprehensive resource funded by the ESRC to support researchers, teachers and policymakers who depend on high-quality social and economic data. Registration is required if you wish to download, order or analyse data online, where this is possible. Use your UCL username and password.

Key databases for newspaper archives

Economist Historical Archive, 1843-2020
Cross-search with other Gale/Cengage primary sources in Gale Primary Sources. The Economist Historical Archive delivers a complete searchable copy of every issue of The Economist from 1843 to 2020. The Economist presents the world's political, business, scientific, technological and cultural developments and the connections between them.
Financial Times (FT.com)
Access for UCL students and staff only. UCL username and password required. Registration is required on first visit to enable off-site and ePaper access. UCL users also have access to the app
Financial Times Historical Archive, 1888-2021
Cross-search with other Gale/Cengage primary sources in Gale Primary Sources. The Financial Times Historical Archive delivers the complete searchable run of the worlds most authoritative daily business newspaper. Every item ever printed in the paper, from 1888-2021, can be searched and browsed article by article and page by page.
Gale OneFile News
Gale OneFile: News provides access to more than 2,300 major world newspapers, and includes thousands of images, radio and TV broadcasts and transcripts.
Gale Primary Sources
Cross search many of Gale Cengage's databases in one platform
Nexis
Access for UCL students and staff only. Database of news and company information (formerly provided as LexisNexis 'Executive').
ProQuest News & Newspapers
Searches ProQuest Newsstream and Historical Newspapers databases

Library Databases

Library databases A-Z
Browse or search our databases by title, or use the Subject drop down box at the top to narrow down to databases in your subject area.

What is a database?

Newspapers

The Library provides online access to many historic and current newspapers from around the world. You can access them by:

Searching by individual title in Explore.
Searching across collections using Newspaper collection databases.

Newspaper collections at UCL
Details on the many online newspapers to which UCL subscribes, and how UCL staff and students can find and access them.

Data and statistics

Guide to data and statistics
Includes resource lists mainly in the social sciences, alongside support material and FAQs, but also pointers to finding data more generally. Also, there’s further information and guidance about analysing, visualising, referencing and managing data, as well as text and data mining.