MIDA Research Resources

The Department of Political Science at Western Michigan University provides the following research resource links for students in the Master of International Development Administration program.

  • Western Michigan University Libraries - The University Libraries' home page contains links to the catalog, WestCat, as well as links to online resources such as databases and journals. Use WestCat to find a particular book (using the author/title/keyword search) or to find books on a subject (using the guided keyword search). The political science gateway should be particularly helpful for students in the Department of Political Science. The librarians at the reference desk are there to assist you with any questions you may have regarding the use of the research tools, or to give you suggestions if you feel you are groping in the dark.
  • Eldis - One of the leading sources of development-related documents on the Web, indexed and organized by subject.
  • International affairs resources - Part of the WWW Virtual Library, this Internet directory is a guide to resources on the Web, providing annotated links to directories and a further series of links to a variety of development-related sites.
  • ProQuest Statistical Insight
  • World development indicators

Development organization sites

Facts and figures on developing countries

Indexes to books and journal articles

  • Social Sciences Citation Index - This unique source is an index to all authors cited in a work in the social sciences and, in reverse, to all works citing a particular author showing who has cited that author and how the author's ideas have been used. (Access through WMU Libraries’ subscription.)

Journals

News sources

Resource guides

  • Foreign government resources on the Web - This site, from the University of Michigan Documents Center, provides links to websites of governments and to data, directory and news sites that deal with the rest of the world.

USAID

  • The Development Experience Clearinghouse - Search for project documents of USAID funded projects and order them online or, in the case of some more recent documents, download them for free.
  • USAID results and data - Search for more general information regarding USAID funded projects and the results of data gathered.

Miscellaneous

  • DAC Evaluation Abstracts - Project evaluations indexed on this site represent a large number of organizations.
  • Developmentvalues.net - A site devoted to topics in development ethics.
  • IDS - The Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, is a leading British center for research and teaching on international development.
  • SAIS - The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.