Source description last updated: 3 February 2022

In brief: The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a research entity within the Library of Congress that provides policy and legal analysis to committees and members of both chambers of the United States Congress (House of Representatives and Senate).

Coverage on ecoi.net:

Reports, In Brief, In Focus

Covered weekly on ecoi.net, for countries of priorities A-C.

Mission/Mandate/Objectives:

“The Congressional Research Service (CRS) works exclusively for the United States Congress, providing policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation.” It is “a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress” (CRS website: Congressional Research Service Careers, undated), that assists “at every stage of the legislative process” (CRS website, About CRS, last updated 18 March 2021). CRS remains committed to its core values, which are confidentiality, objectivity, nonpartisanship, authoritativeness and timeliness. ( CRS: Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2019, January 2020, p. 3)

“CRS employs more than 400 policy analysts, attorneys and information professionals across a variety of disciplines in five research divisions.”

These research divisions are: “American Law[;] Domestic Social Policy[;] Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade[;] Government and Finance”, and “Resources, Science and Industry” (CRS website: Areas of Research, undated).

“The Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division is organized into eight regional and functional sections that follow critical worldwide security, political and economic developments for Congress.” (CRS website: Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, undated)

Funding:

The CRS is funded as part of the budget of the Library of Congress (LoC). The CRS’s salaries and other expenses are indicated as 125,495,000 USD for the fiscal year 2021, based on the LoC’s Fiscal 2021 Enacted Budget (LoC: Fiscal 2022 Budget Justification, undated, p. 7).

Scope of reporting:

Geographic focus: all countries

Thematic focus: The Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade division works on issues including “U.S. relations with individual countries, regional trends and transnational issues such as terrorism, refugees and other humanitarian crises; global health; nonproliferation; and global institutions such as the United Nations.” (CRS website: Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division, undated)

Methodology:

CRS states that its “[a]nalysts demonstrate rigorous research methodologies, free of built-in bias”, “present, explain and justify any critical assumptions; investigate and recheck data anomalies; use primary resources whenever available; double-check all statements of fact; and document and vet all sources” and are “vigilant in evaluating issues without bias.” The CRS adds that “[a] multi-layered review process also helps ensure that CRS products present issues and analysis in a manner that is fair, considered and reliable.” (CRS website: Values, last updated 15 November 2012)

The publications are authored by staff analysts specialised in the region. Country reports, including “In Brief” reports, contain references to publicly accessible sources. Most of the sources referred to are in English (see, for example, CRS: Iran: Internal Politics and U.S. Policy and Options, last updated 29 July 2021 and CRS: Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations In Brief, last updated 30 December 2021) but some reports also draw on sources in other Western languages such as French (see, for example, CRS: Rwanda: In Brief, last updated 23 February 2021) or Spanish (see, for example, CRS: Mexico: Background and U.S. Relations, last updated 7 January 2021). The “In Focus” reports, which provide a brief overview of a current issue, do not contain any references to other sources (see, for example, CRS: Venezuela: Political Crisis and U.S. Policy, last updated 8 December 2021 and CRS: Hong Kong’s Protests of 2019, last updated 18 October 2019).

Language(s) of publications:

English

Further reading / links:

CRS publishes their reports at https://crsreports.congress.gov/

CRS Reports are also available on the website of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS): http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/index.html and via the EveryCRSREport.com project: https://www.everycrsreport.com/

US Congress website
https://www.congress.gov

LegBranch.org: The struggle between objectivity vs. neutrality continues at the Congressional Research Service, 13 February 2018
https://www.legbranch.org/2018-2-11-the-struggle-between-objectivity-vs-neutrality-continues-at-the-congressional-research-service/

Roll Call: Public to get rare look inside the Congressional Research Service, with attrition, morale points of contention, 19 June 2019
https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/public-get-rare-look-inside-crs-work-culture-point-contention

Methodological note:

ecoi.net's source descriptions contain background information on an organisation’s mission & objective, funding and reporting methodology, as well as on how we cover the source. The descriptions were prepared after researching publicly accessible information within time constraints. Most information contained in a source description was taken from the source itself. The aim is to provide a brief introduction to the sources covered regularly, offering information on relevant aspects in one place in a systematic manner. 

All links accessed 3 February 2022.