POLS 172, SPRING 2000POLS 172, SPRING 2000
IDEAS FOR SOURCES ON PAPER TOPICS
3/22/00
Use this page to help
get started on your paper. Check back again to get more info as I continue to
update it!
General Help:
Go to the library, in person and on the internet. The library's homepage is:
http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/
Click on "Finding Articles," and you'll find a wealth of info. Click on "Research Aids" (under quick links) and you can get 3 pages of reference tools useful for international relations. Also under quick links, or via research databases, is a wonderful tool for searching media outlets-Lexus-Nexus Universe.
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe
This allows you to find and print full text articles from major newspapers and magazines worldwide.
The main index for finding more scholarly articles in Political Science is PAIS International (found under Research databases).
I'll add more on research databases later.
Paper Topics, in order:1. Should NAFTA be expanded to include Chile or other Latin American countries?
The White House page: http://www.whitehouse.gov/
United Mine Workers homepage: http://www.umwa.org/homepage.shtml
http://www.umwa.org/history/hist1.shtml
United Auto Workers homepage: http://www.uaw.org/
Look for environmental textbooks, such as the State of the World 199x series (this one is from World Watch, an environmental org.). See also websites such as:
Has link to IPCC and lots of other useful data: http://www.usgcrp.gov/
This is the national weather service site: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/home.html
The American petroleum institute's page, a critical view on the issue: http://www.api.org/globalclimate/
A dated but useful CNN page: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/global.warming/
A detailed UN page, with info on the Kyoto protocol: http://www.unfccc.de/
I didn't check, but look at the White House or other pages for current US policy proposals.
3. Is rising global population a problem, and if so, what should be done about it?
The magazine Atlantic Monthly has had several extensive articles on this issue in the past 4-5 years. For the view that population growth is good, see books and articles by Julian Simon (no relation); for the opposing view, see works by Paul Erlich. There are zillions of articles on both sides by lots of authors. See the UN on the web for more and better data.
4. Is ballistic missile defense something the US should invest in?
For the con view, see the Center for defense information.: http://www.cdi.org/
For pro views, see the pages of members of Congress (mainly republican) who support missile defense (George W is backing this too, so you might look on his web page).
For an intro to the issue see the readable scientific journals like Science or Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. There is a good book on nuclear abolition that contains interviews with leading people on both sides of the issue: Jonathan Schell, The Gift of Time (see also his shorter article length version of this in the Nation, sometime in 1998). You might also look at a textbook by David Barash, The Arms Race and Nuclear War.
5. Should the US continue normal trading policies with China, and allow China to join the WTO?
The world trade organization homepage: http://www.wto.org/
http://www.usia.gov/topical/econ/wto99/
See the same union pages as with NAFTA (#1) above. Also, there are zillions of professional organizations and corporate pages on this which you'll find by doing a general search on the internet.
There are endless books on this issue. A good book for background is Deborah Gerner, One Land, Two Peoples (Westview press).
7. Should the United Nations be granted a rapid reaction military force, under the control of the security council?
Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali proposed this, and you should be able to find an article with his proposal.
United Nations homepage, and subsequent links to peacekeeping missions:http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/peacekpg/
8. Should Great Britain join the Euro?
Try reading British news sources online (or search using Lexis-Nexis). This is hotly debated. Look for articles shortly after 1/1/99, when the Euro came into being.
9. Should the WTO be strengthened, reformed, or replaced?
The world trade organization homepage:
http://www.usia.gov/topical/econ/wto99/
For a variety of views, see Union homepages mentioned above. For far left views, see Znet:
10. Under what conditions should the United States pursue humanitarian interventions in places like Kosovo and East Timor?
There have been several articles on this issue in the past few years in the Atlantic Monthly, International Security, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. You'll also find a lot of books on the general subject of intervention.
On East Timor, you can look at an activist page, East Timor Action Network: http://etan.org/
11. Should US immigration laws be tightened to reduce immigration or relaxed to increase immigration?
Homepage of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (US Govn't agency): http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/
An established "good government" organization in favor of less defense spending is the Center for Defense Information: http://www.cdi.org/
Data on US expenditures can be found in the annual budget documents, though an easier to read version is located on the web at SIRPRI: http://www.sipri.se/
The international security network has a ton of useful links, including SIPRI: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/index.htm
A whole section of web-based articles from the New York Times is available at:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/iraq-index.html
Also, look for activist groups involved with this issue:
see the Nonviolence web: http://www.nonviolence.org/
Pax Christi USA: http://www.nonviolence.org/pcusa/
14. What should the US or other countries do about the Russian intervention in Chechnya?
Nothing here yet. Try Lexis-Nexus for news coverage.15. Should US sanctions against Cuba be continued or ended?
Cuban American National Foundation (an anti Castro group): http://www.canfnet.org/
NATO homepage: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~msimon/www.nato.int
See also the major foreign policy journals, International Security, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and maybe Current History.
See media coverage surrounding this issue during last October/November (1999); especially the New York Times, which did a special section on the issue and ran numerous articles.
18. Should the US ratify the convention to ban land mines?
Pages of the International Campaign to ban Land Mines
http://www.agora.stm.it/politic/c-landmines.htm
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/mines/1999
