About NGO, IGO, and Think Tanks
In political science research the information gathered, analyzed, and published by think tanks, non-governmental, and intergovernmental organizations is often incredibly valuable and often more current than what is in books and scholarly journals. While it is important to understand the goals, funders, and policy objectives of these organizations, they usually do publish their information for free on the web. To find out more about the leanings of any particular organization, Wikipedia is often the quickest way to find out more about them. Use the links on this page to help you locate these organizations.
General International Relations and Policy Organizations
- Rand CorporationRand performs policy analysis with teams of researchers on a wide variety of policy issues both domestic and international. Use the Research tab at the top of the page to see their areas of concentration. They are non-partisan and non-profit.
International Public Opinion Sources
- AfrobarometerAfrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan survey research network that conducts public attitude surveys on democracy, governance, the economy, and society.
- Asian BarometerGathers public opinion in South and East Asia on issues such as political values, democracy, governance, human security, and economic reforms
- LatinobarometerLatinobarómetro is an annual public opinion survey that involves some 20,000 interviews in 18 Latin American countries, representing more than 600 million inhabitants.
- EuroBarometerEurobarometer is the polling instrument used by the European Commission, the European Parliament and other EU institutions and agencies to monitor regularly the state of public opinion in Europe on issues related to the European Union as well as attitudes on subjects of political or social nature.
- World Values SurveyDesigned to enable a crossnational comparison of values and norms on a wide variety of topics and to monitor changes in values and attitudes across the globe. WVS has had seven waves (1981-2022). You can download the full datasets for each wave or a longitudinal file covering all waves (click Data & Documentation on the left).
- International Social Survey ProgramThe ISSP is a cross-national survey program conducting annual surveys in a broad group of countries. The survey asks questions on a variety of topics. Individual years link to GESIS where full datasets can be downloaded. Also has links to its 50 member states, which often provide additional national public opinion.
- Global BarometerCollaborative survey project covering six regions: Africa (Afrobarometer), East and Southeast Asia (Asian Barometer), South Asia (South Asia Barometer), Central and South America (Latinobarómetro), the Middle East (Arab Barometer), and countries of former Soviet Union (Eurasia Barometer). Measures attitudes about politics, power, reform, democracy, etc. Two pooled waves (2005-2011 and 2011-2013) based on a common module of questions contained in the regional barometer surveys. Download the dataset or analyze online.
- Pew Research Global IndicatorsPew Research Center conducts public opinion surveys around the world on a broad array of subjects ranging from people's assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day. The Global Indicators Database contains data from over 600,000 interviews in 69 countries.
- World Public OpinionWorldPublicOpinion.org is an international collaborative project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the Univ of Maryland. Provides polling data and analysis from numerous sources.
- The USIA Surveys (from Roper)USIA was a US executive branch agency charged with supporting and communicating US foreign policy, interests, and values abroad. The Roper Center has a collection of nearly 1250 USIA datasets from the 1950s to the early 2000s covering opinion in more than 75 countries. Topics covered include USIA projects, like the Voice of America radio broadcast, attitudes about democracy, communism, the United States, the Soviet Union, NATO, nuclear weapons, and international trade and economic issues.
Search Across Multiple NGOs and IGOs
Use these links to search across multiple NGO, IGO, Think Tank and Research Organizations.
- NGO Custom Google SearchSearch across hundreds of known non-governmental organizations at once.
- IGO Custom Google SearchSearch across dozens of known intergovernmental organizations at once.
- Think Tank Custom SearchA Google Custom Search of more than 1200 think tanks and research centers.
- Policy Commons: Global Think Tanks This link opens in a new windowPolicy Commons contains publications from over 27,000 global policy organizations including think tanks, nonprofits, IGOs and NGOs. A critical resource for global development, environmental policy, trade, international politics and more.
- Columbia International Affairs Online - CIAO This link opens in a new windowA source for NGO, IGO, ThinkTank, research institute, and grey literature on politics, international affairs, security studies, global finance, diplomatic practice, humanitarian law, global governance, development studies, and environmental studies. Contains working papers, research reports, proceedings, and more. Coverage: 1991-
Refugees, Immigrant and Migrant Organizations
Environment and Sustainability Organizations
- Stockholm Environment InstituteAn international non-profit research and policy organization that tackles environment and development challenges.
