social science sites of the week
Russia Votes
Last week Russia held parliamentary elections. A good starting point for academic information is the Russia Votes website. This site is maintained by the Centre for the Study of Public Policy University of Aberdeen, which specialises in studies of post soviet regions.
It has explanations of the electoral process, presidential election results 1996-2008For the Duma explanations of the system, plus some useful voting behaviour studies of the electorate from 1933-2011.
Other good starting points are the Central Election Commission official website which has an English language section with legislation, regulations and some results.
The Itar-Tass Russian News Agency also has news and commentary about political events. However do note this is a state funded agency which will impact on the stance of the news presented.
Further basic information on Russian elections and the electoral system can also be found on the IFES website election guide and the OSCE which has conducted observation of past elections. A number of think tanks and human rights bodies have had concerns about the elections. NDI has reported on the harassment of civil rights organisation GOLOS. It also has other papers and reports.
Human Rights Watch has also commented on harassment. Chatham House has podcasts and comment on the predicted results on its website.
In terms of other russian resources.
COCOREES Searchable catalogue of East European and Slavonic book and journal holdings in major Uk Libraries.
REENIC: Russian and East European Network Information Center
Maintained by the University of Texas. Extensive regional and subject directories of academic resources with helpful comment on content.
REESWEB: Russian and East European Studies Server
Maintained by the University of Pittsburgh. Interdisciplinary. Search by keyword or browse to find websites (organisations, journals indexes etc.) Annotations on content provided.
Stalin Digital Archive
Available in beta version (until June 2012). This means service seems to have some disruption as documents are loaded. Currently, the SDA contains approximately 3% of the total documents eventually expected to be included. Registration required.
the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) and Yale University Press, the Stalin Digital Archive (SDA) aim to provide access to primary source materials from Stalin’s personal papers. Highlights include: foreign policy with Germany before World War II; communications during the Great Purges; relations with Western intellectuals and leaders; and private notations on many Soviet leaders.
Opis 1: documents written by Stalin from 1889-1952;
Opis 2: documents written by Stalin from 1911-1944;
Opis 3: over 300 books from Stalin’s personal library with his marginal notes;
Opis 4: Stalin’s biographical materials;
Opis 11: Stalin’s correspondence as well as 188 maps with Stalin’s hand-written markings. This Opis covers a period from 1917 to 1952.
The Annals of Communism series contains 25 volumes of scholarly commentary, annotation, and interpretation of documents from state and party archives selected by teams of Western and Russian editors. These volumes span the history of Soviet and international communism.
British Social Attitudes survey released
Major social attitudes study released on the net by National Centre for Social Research. Conducted annually since 1983. This year’s report covers the following themes: Political engagement, Devolution, Private education, School choice, Higher education, Environment, Transport, Housing, NHS, Childhood, Child poverty, Religion full text online . Earlier results (summaries) from 2009 can also be viewed.
We gov project
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. It aims to develop a toolset that will allow the European Parliament and politicians in Europe to take full advantage of a wide range of social networking sites (including Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, see presentations from the first workshop results of first evaluation
Mercer Quality of Living Index.
Where is the best city to live? Consult this ranking of quality of life and personal safety for the top 50 cities worldwide, summaries available free of charge online.
70th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.
See the US National Archives document from Roosevelt on the day of infamy speech Draft speeches. Msnbc photo blog has visual images from above in 1941 and 2011 Reuters video (via YouTube ) has interviews with some survivors. Nara also has some digitised photographs of the salvage operations
eResearch Australasia 2011 Conference papers
eResearch Australasia 2011 was held 6-11 November at the Sebel & Citigate Albert Park in Melbourne, Australia.
The papers can now be downloaded as a pdf document Topics covered include open access repositories and research in Australia, data, research infrastructure, escience. It covers both the physical and social sciences.
Business research team from Manchester Business School of John Rylands Library University of Manchester have just launched a new guide to citing references using the Harvard System
Intended for students it is clear written with sections on commonly requested categories including intext citations, making reference lists for e-resoruces. The library website has other useful general guides as well as guides for researchers and guides to the school’s business databases. Another site with many excellent citing and referencing guides is the Purdue online writing lab (OWL) which has sections for APA and MLA.
Novapolity.com:new voices in the Politics of Today
A new website featuring articles on American politics by students and recent graduates of political science, government. Subjects range from backroom deals on Capitol Hill to the inner workings of the White House and commentary on Obama’s policy.website has details on how to submit articles.
Political Insights Yahoo labs
Has developed a new tool which examines the proportion of times a search query resulted in a click-through on a political blog of a particular leaning. It used 155 blogs covering May 2010-January 2011. Look at the results and the methodology on the website.
