Google Scholar is a search tool from Google, separate from its main search engine, with its own URL (http://scholar.google.com). Its purpose (says Google) is “to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research.”
Google Scholar is an excellent resource; however, be sure that you check your Settings and Library Links, to be sure that Emory is chosen--this will allow you to access Emory owned and subscribed journal content. You will still need to use DiscoverE to access books--or you can use the proxy servlet or Normad Key.
Google Scholar's strengths are that it is multidisciplinary, easy to search and provides a quick way to locate articles which cite other articles.
The principal database for scholarly research in political science is:
Political Science Complete contains full text for over 450 journals, and indexing and abstracts for nearly 2,100 titles, (including top-ranked scholarly journals). The database also features 330 full-text reference books and monographs, and over 35,000 full-text conference papers, including those of the International Political Science Association. PSC includes a subject-specific thesaurus with 10,453 terms to provide subject searching guidance to researchers.