social science sites of the week

Syria- Referendum – Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d)Located at the University of Zurich.
This specialist centre focuses upon research relating to referendums worldwide.
It has news on the recent referendum in Syria. Choose the direct democracy database. Then select Syria (listed under Asia) for profiles and news of referendums held in the region.
Other useful features of the site, include working papers analysing specific national systems.

European Politics and Policy blog (EUROPP) launched
Launched this week, a new blog from the London School of Economics, LSE Public Policy Group (PPG). It aims to provide topical comment and discussion covering all aspects of European governance and decision making, both at the EU level and national level. It will include regular book reviews, and Brussels blog round ups.
For a listing of other major LSE supported blogs see here. Well known examples include British Politics and Policy and the Impact of the Social Sciences which includes coverage of topical issues relating to bibliometrics at the REF.

European Foreign Policy Scorecard
Published annually by European Council on Foreign Relations since 2010. It assesses Europe’s performance in pursuing its interests and promoting its values in the world. The 150 page report has separate chapters on policy towards China, Russia and USA. It includes analyses of the EU as a whole and the contribution of member states. The official EU policy website with its own policy documents can be found on Europa.

United Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics 2000 onwards free online
Covering more than 200 nations worldwide, this service offers a quick snapshot of over 100 major economic and social indicators.

Remember that access to the main UN series of data (United Nations sources) via their UNData website. Browse country files, see the full list of databases and get news on the latest updates.

The UN has also just created a web page where you can find out about the progress of its document digitisation programme.
In particular it is listing pre 1993 items which are being added to the UN ODS Official document system.

The American Mosque 2011 – Basic Characteristics of the American Mosque, Attitudes of Mosque Leaders The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is America’s largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization its website provides free access to news, reports and analysis of issues relating to race relations and Islamophobia in the USA. Its latest report provides statistical data on the number of mosques and the attitudes of the religious leaders (this includes a focus on issues relating to radicalization, attitudes in the wake of the 9/11). Other reports on the websites include surveys on attitudes towards and by American Muslims

US elections this week:
Time to take a look at coverage on the Huffington Post which has a number of useful features.
The election dashboard updates every 5 minutes with statistics about the main candidates. How many Facebook likes does Mitt Romney have? How many votes? Twitter followers? how much cash has his campaign raised?
The main US politics website also has news features and analysis. There is also an election 2012 blog.

on a different election.
French presidential election analysis from Sciences Po
For French language speakers, this is a great site which draws together the expertise of researchers at leading French universities. Key features include: Présidoscopie 2012 (discover votong intentions from the panel of 6,000 being interviewed by Le Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po (CEVIPOF), Le Monde, la Fondapol et la Fondation Jean Jaurès IPSOS/Logica Business Consulting)
TriElec reports and studies (combining the research expertise of de la FNSP, le Centre Emile Durkheim, le Centre d’études européennes, et PACTE).
Vislab has visualisations of French electoral data (currently historic).

US Government posters.
Online library from University of Iowa. Free Access to nearly 1500 posters produced mainly from 1970s-1990s (although some also in post 1945 period) many relating to public awareness campaigns from US government federal agencies.
They include HIV/AIDS campaign materials. Each entry has bibliographic and citation data.

Cause Papers database
A searchable catalogue of more than 14,000 cause papers relating to cases heard between 1300 and 1858 in the Church Courts of the diocese of York. It was created by The Borthwick Institute for Archives at The University of York Library and Archives.

These church cases have some interest for social scientists and social historians as they include materials relating to marriage, divorce. The database can be searched by keyword and scanned images of parts of the original documents viewed. Full copies can be purchased from the website.

Of course for historic court proceedings one of the best free sites is the Old Bailey proceedings 1674-1913 which cover criminal cases.

US Census bureau historical voting publications
Locate some interesting statistical data on US national and presidential elections.
Voting and Registration data has been collected biennially in theCurrent Population Survey (CPS) since 1964. Data includes: Reported Voting and Registration by Race, Hispanic Origin, Sex, and Age Groups: November 1964 to 2010.
Also really useful is the U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Clerk: The Clerk of the House collects and publishes the official vote counts for federal elections from the various states and territories. Data from 1920 onwards.

Coal Mining History Resource Centre.
Great starting point for those researching the economic history of coal mining in Britain. The literature section includes 1842 Royal Commission reports, which provide insight into working conditions in the mines and social life in mining communities. There is also a database of mining disasters from 1600- recording names, fatalities etc.
Other useful sites on this topic. Include the Digging up the past photographic archive compiled by enthusiast Bernard Ingram which has historic images of South Wales coalfields
The Durham Mining Museum – also has images of mines from this region. Plus a directory of information about local companies and statistics from the Colliery Year Book and Coal Trades Directory on accidents and output.
The Mining History Network has an excellent directory of links to university and other mining research organisations worldwide. It includes bibliographies of relevant texts to guide further reading.