There is no shortage of general material on comparative politics although little of it is gathered or presented under that title. The resources presented here fall into two caterogies.
--basic collections of data, websites, and other resources
--places to get up to the minute news on a variety of topics of interest to students of comparative politics
The British Political Studies Association probably has the most complete listing of material that would be of interest to students, including links organized by country and type of issue.
The American Political Science Asociation only created its web site in 1996 and, so far, mostly provides information and other services for its members. Plans are under way to expand its offerings to include links to resources of interest to political science.
The CIA Factbook is an annual compendium of facts and figures on most countries and other geopolitical units. This site was recently broken into by a hacker who changed the name to the Central Stupidity Agency home page. Not to worry. This computer is not linked in any way to the CIA's systems with classified material..
The Virtual Library is an internet-wide resource akin to a cyberspace card catalog. The main political science version is maintained at the University of Connecticut. The general home page for the virtual library is at the world wide web home page.
The University of Michigan Document Center is one of the most extensive sources of information about and links to political science resources on the Internet.
There is also a reasonably complete listing of world leaders since 1945.
Looksmart is a new service maintained by Reader's Digest that lists Internet sites by subject and is easier to use than the earlier favorite, Yahoo. Of more use in international relations than comparative politics
Political Resources on the Net is another good source of basic material on individual countries which also has links to sites with lists of current leaders and recent election results.
Larry Schankman has a remarkable homepage with material on all parts of political science. It is one of the view that combines academic and "activist" sites, and is a wonderful place to start any search. However, it does have some significant gaps in its coverage.
The Political Science List of Lists is, as its name suggests, a list of listserves in political science. Most provide either news on an individual countries or an opportunity for interested people around the world, inside academe and out, to discuss a given topic. All subscriptions are free, and there are instructions on how to subscribe at the end of the list which is updated regularly.
The Internet is also a a good place to get all the news you want--and then some. Most major newspapers and news wires can be found somewhere on the Internet, though you have to pay to get some of them either directly or by subscribing to America OnLine, Compuserve, or one of the other commercial services.
The Washington Post is not the best source of foreign news in the US, but its web site is. Its own articles plus those from the Associated Press are archived for about two weeks. Also, the site has links to other sources of information on countries and issues.
Nando is a general news service which scans many press services and provides headline reports of the day's events.
Newslink is one of the better websites offering basic news feeds. So, too, is omnivore
CNN maintains a web page that does a reasonably good job on breaking news worldwide and has a first rate archive of all CNN and some wire service stories. So, too, do the New York Times and Washington Post.
Mediainfo has a list of all (or so they claim) newspapers, magazines, and television and radio stations available through the Internet. Because the number of such outlets literally grows daily, it is a good idea to check this site periodically, especially if you are looking for information on a country or topic that does not yet receive much coverage on the Net.
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