Political factors relate to government controls and influences over the economy or industry. Government factors may be legislation or economic policies. The political environment can affect an industry through a range of factors, including:
- Trade control, imports/exports, tariffs
- Conflicts
- Taxes on corporations increase/decrease
- Fiscal policies
- Regulations/deregulation
- Copyright, patents, trademarks, intellectual property
- Government increases/decreases funding or support for certain industries
- Government friendly or unfriendly toward potential trading countries, partners, trading blocs
- Political stability or instability
To find information on the political environment, investigate the following sources.
Business Source Complete (Contains the Political Risk Yearbook" and PESTLE analysis reports.)
- Business Source Complete provides coverage in business disciplines including marketing, management, management information systems, production and operations management, accounting, finance and economics. It includes full text for more than 3600 journals, including 1900 peer-reviewed titles. Also included are full-text case studies, company and industry profiles, country reports, executive and analyst interviews, market research reports and SWOT analyses.
- Search tip: Look for the Browse menu on the right side of the page and select [Country Reports]. Enter the name of a country in the All Countries search box. The results list may include:
- Country Reviews from CountryWatch (which include social and environmental overviews)
- Country Profiles from MarketLine (which include In-depth PESTLE Insights)
- Country Risk Reports from Business Monitor International (BMI).
Factiva
- Factiva.com, from Dow Jones, includes access to a wide range of information from newspapers, newswires, industry publications, websites, company reports, and more. The broad range of content provides both local insight and global perspective on business issues and current events – especially with regard to research requiring current information on companies, industries, and financial markets.
Statista
- Statista is a portal for quantitative data, statistics and related information. Use the search box to find information of interest, or choose from dropdowns providing access to information about industries, digital markets, consumer markets, and topics such as media, business, and society. Statistics, charts and/or graphs may be downloaded in the following formats: Excel, PNG Graphics, PowerPoint and PDF.
- Search tip: Click on [Reports] in the top navigation bar, then select [Country Reports]. Search for a country or region. Results will usually include Country Reports and Dossiers.
Hein Online
- HeinOnline provides a searchable format and full-image access to a large and growing collection of legal journals from the time of their inception to a few years before present.
CQ Almanac
- The CQ Almanac Online Edition brings together over sixty years of authoritative congressional reporting in one, easy-to-use resource. Included are original narrative accounts of every major piece of legislation that lawmakers considered during a congressional session. Arranged thematically, CQ Almanac organizes, distills, and cross-indexes for permanent reference the full year in Congress and in national politics. Its clear and concise language makes the Almanac an essential resource for scholars, journalists, interested citizens, and students of the U.S. legislative system.
Politics in America
- This definitive guide to the members of the 114th Congress includes not just their biographies and voting records but also detailed descriptions and histories of the districts they represent.
Legislative Insight
- Congress produces a variety of publications as a bill moves through the legislative process on its way to becoming a law. A compilation of these full text primary source publications produces a legislative history that is valuable to a wide variety of researchers. Legislative histories enable users to trace the development of a public law from its early consideration to its enactment, including development that spans more than one Congress.
CQ Press
- The CQ Press database combines many of CQ's most well- known government and political titles into a single searchable database. It includes such titles as the Political Handbook of the world, Elections A to Z, the Federal Regulatory Directory and the Washington Information Directory and covers such topics as International Affairs, Congress, Law and the Courts, Elections and Political Behavior, the Presidency and Politics and History.
GovTrack.us
- non-governmental source of legislative information and statistics.
CIA World Factbook
- The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. Our Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.
CFR/Regulations.gov
- Find and comment on Federal administrative regulations
Country Risk Assessments from Coface.com
- 160 country assessments, drawn up on the basis of macroeconomic, financial and political data, are made freely available. Regularly updated, they provide an estimate of the average credit risk on a country’s businesses. This is an invaluable tool, giving an indication of a country’s potential influence on businesses’ financial commitments.
Our analyses use a eight-level ranking. In ascending order of risk, these are: A1, A2, A3, A4, B, C, D and E.
