International Relations, International Security and Comparative Politics: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources

Citation

Bogstad, J.M. (2009), "International Relations, International Security and Comparative Politics: A Guide to Reference and Information Sources", Collection Building, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 39-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/01604950910928547

A useful and ambitious volume addressing the information resources with a very broad view of international politics, this work is briefly decoded in an introduction that describes its organization, generalities and exclusions. The body of the work consists of a number of annotated bibliographic items, alphabetized within each section by author, each between 100 and 300 words in length (although a few are one or two lines). In his introduction the editor emphasizes the broad international nature by explaining that he addresses Anglophone resources, from 1990‐2006, omitting works on individual countries or on American foreign and domestic policy, and limits citations of Internet resources to those which serve as indexes to other sources. Of course, this means that some annotations are barely adequate, such as the eight‐volume Cambridge History of Africa, which is treated in about 200 words. There are a number of series entries like this one, whose value is primarily to call attention to the existence of the work rather than to explain it in useful detail. Kahl also details items dropped from the work in the interests of space, especially demographic and population studies, development, human rights, law of the sea and space law, political economy, and underrepresented groups. Since the work is already long, these exclusions are understandable and acknowledge an intention to add these in other venues (the Web, journal articles, etc.).

All sections include biographies, bibliographical studies and directories, dictionaries and encyclopedias, guides and handbooks, and Internet indexing sources. Most sections also include document sources, indexes and yearbooks and, where appropriate, regional studies, atlases and statistical sources.

This work addresses specifically international topics; therefore, there are compilations focused on regions rather than on individual countries. So, for example, five of the fourteen sections are: African Politics; American and Caribbean Politics; Asian, Australasian, and Oceania Politics; European and European Union Politics; Middle Eastern Politics.

The first section focuses on reference materials which generally address international politics, while Chapters 6‐10 go into more detail in the areas of elections, public opinion and polling; international law and treaties; international organizations; international political philosophy and theory; and international security. While interesting in its own right, the political philosophy and theory section seems out of character, as it refers to abstracts, while the other sections deal with more concrete and quotidian areas of research. Another anomaly is Women and Politics, a section added probably in recognition of the questions that have preoccupied us for the last thirty years in the US, but this begs the question of race and politics.

Like most bibliographies of reference sources, this work attempts to make diverse and complicated areas of knowledge, in this case, the world political arena, more accessible by creating parallel structures among the different subject areas. Thus the user will know where to look for certain kinds of works and have a reasonable expectation of retrieving at least a few sources, even though it is difficult to understand why some types of works which would normally be within a section also have their own section.

The work can, of necessity directed by it expansiveness, serve as a starting point in each of the areas addressed and will likely be most useful with the help of a librarian to outline its inclusions and exclusions rather than as an example of comprehensive knowledge of issues in international relations and international politics or any kind of acquisitions checklist. It succeeds in being comprehensible where it cannot attempt to be comprehensive.