Research Guides: POLS 038: Designing and Doing Political Science Research (SC): Sources for Scholarly Debate

Identifying scholarly debate

This page points you to specialized resources for identifying areas of scholarly debate and quickly getting an overview of the scholarship on a topic.

Select the shortcut for your school to access a library resource.

Annotated Bibliographies

Use these resources to find annotated bibliographies written by scholars with expertise on the topic. These bibliographies point you to major books, articles, and authors.

Oxford Bibliographies in Political Science
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Annotated bibliographies by top scholars of the key sources on a range of topics, including political science and international relations.

For example, you could search Oxford Bibliographies for backsliding to find the annotated bibliography "Illiberal Democracies and Democratic Backsliding."

Handbooks

Oxford Handbooks in Political Science
- This link opens in a new window
Great place to find the scholarly debate around a particular topic or question. If you find a handbook that looks relevant, look at the table of contents to pick a chapter (or several) to focus on.

For example, you could search Oxford Handbooks for populism and find the Oxford Handbook of Populism.

You'll get different results if you search for populist (instead of populism). Try and compare what you see.

Review Articles

Instead of making a single focused argument, review articles provide a high-level overview of the scholarly research on a topic. They tend to be fairly broad in scope. You can use review articles (like the ones published in Annual Reviews journals) to identify major scholars and works on a topic.

Annual Reviews
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A searchable collection of critical review articles capturing the current understanding of a topic, including what is well supported, what is controversial, and where further research is needed.

For example, you could search for review articles about climate change, limiting your results to articles published in the Annual Review of Political Science.
Web of Science
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
Great database for finding scholarly research about a topic, including review articles.

Use filters on the left to narrow your results to:
• Review Articles
• Web of Science Categories: choose Political Science