Resources, Useful Links, and Data Sources
Research Fellowship in Political Science / Sociology
Professors Frank Baumgartner and John McCarthy
The Pennsylvania State University, Fall 2002-Spring 2003
This page has links and resources for our Research Fellowship Program.
Click here to see the Spring 2003 syllabus.
Click here to see the Fall 2002 syllabus.
Click here to see a template showing how to
structure your term paper project.
A working copy of the codebook for our project of assembling data on associations over time.
- htm version (Good for viewing on the web)
- pdf version (Good for printing)
- A working copy of the dataset
of public affairs groups for 1995.
- A working copy of the training dataset of unions for 1995.
(Use this for training as you begin working on the project. It has been
stripped of the codes that you need to learn. Note: rename your files as you work
on them. Use this format: Your_3_initials_Unions_30ed_date.mdb. "Unions" obviously
refers to the section we're working on now; "30ed" refers to the fact that 1995 is the
30th edition of the Encyclopedia; putting the date in the file name allows us to know
which version of your data file this is. Don't forget to use the
suffix "mdb"; otherwise you file will not be recognized as an Access database.
Other useful links to related projects:
A copy of an interview
report from the 1917 cost of living survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. This information, and information from thousands of similar surveys,
was used to create the Cost of Living Index which we use to calculate the inflation
rate. Think of what kinds of errors go into calculating how much money people
spend on such a detailed list of items across a twelve month period.
The Policy Agendas Project (Frank
R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Co-Directors)
- Download a complete set of
congressional hearings data showing the number of hearings per year on each of 19 major topics
and 226 subtopics from 1947 to 1998. This might come in handy for your term paper projects, at
least as a start.
- Read the topic
codebook describing the topics and subtopics in the Agendas Project.
The Policy Advocacy Project (Baumgartner,
Berry, Hojnacki, Kimball, and Leech, Co-Directors)
The dataset from Debra Minkoff's study of Women's and civil rights social movement organizations
(see Minkoff, Debra. 1995. Organizing for Equality: The Evolution of Women’s and Racial-Ethnic
Organizations in America, 1955–1985. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.) This is a major
study of hundreds of challenging social movements, taken as a subset of the data from the Encyclopedia
of Associations. (NB: The following files must be downloaded then analyzed in SPSS or STATA; they
are not designed to be used over the web.)
- The codebook. (Note: this is a text file.)
- The data and list of names in SPSS format.
- The data and list of names in STATA format.
- The list of names in Excel format (easier to read on most
computers). Note: You can't analyze this; there is no data attached, but reading through it gives
an idea for the types of organizations included in the data set. The identification variable in the
first column provides the link to the complete dataset, which includes founding dates, membership, staff,
budget, and other information about each group.
Link directly to the Gale Encyclopedia of
Associations page, through LIAS. This can be helpful in getting familiar with some areas for your
term paper. Searches allow you to see how many groups are listed in the current on-line edition of the
Encyclopedia.
Link directly to the Library of Congress page, with
resources concerning current and past legislation, hearings, bills, and congressional actions.
Link through the Penn State Library page to see a full set of
back issues of the New York Times from
1851 to 1999, searchable by keyword. Use this to search for newspaper stories relevant to your
topic. Thanks to James Mandolfo for finding this resource. (You must be using a PSU computer to do
this.)