Structural equation modeling of political discussion networks

This study conducts structural equation modeling (SEM) of political discussion networks. It examines multiple relationships between political discussion networks—network size and non-kin composition, political efficacy, and neighborhood conversation. Based on a two-step approach, it first analyzes and revises the measurement model and then analyzes and revises the structural model given the revised measurement model. The proposed SEM model includes ordered categorical variables as factor indicators in the confirmatory analysis and outcome variables in the structural regressions. Traditional estimation and regression methods need to be adjusted accordingly. This study uses WLS estimation and adopts a latent variable approach to study the categorical outcome variables in the SEM. The results show that the hypothesized SEM model is fully supported. Neighborhood conversation positively and directly contributes to political discussion network size as well as the non-kin composition of the networks. It also indirectly affects network size through political efficacy. Political efficacy also has a direct effect on network size.Statistic

Discourse network analysis: policy debates as dynamic networks

Political discourse is the verbal interaction between political actors. Political actors make normative claims about policies conditional on each other. This renders discourse a dynamic network phenomenon. Accordingly, the structure and dynamics of policy debates can be analyzed with a combination of content analysis and dynamic network analysis. After annotating statements of actors in text sources, networks can be created from these structured data, such as congruence or conflict networks at the actor or concept level, affiliation networks of actors and concept stances, and longitudinal versions of these networks. The resulting network data reveal important properties of a debate, such as the structure of advocacy coalitions or discourse coalitions, polarization and consensus formation, and underlying endogenous processes like popularity, reciprocity, or social balance. The added value of discourse network analysis over survey-based policy network research is that policy processes can be analyzed from a longitudinal perspective. Inferential techniques for understanding the micro-level processes governing political discourse are being developed

Co-authorship networks in Swiss political research

Co-authorship is an important indicator of scientific collaboration. Co-authorship networks are composed of sub-communities, and researchers can gain visibility by connecting these insulated subgroups. This article presents a comprehensive co-authorship network analysis of Swiss political science. Three levels are addressed: disciplinary cohesion and structure at large, communities, and the integrative capacity of individual researchers. The results suggest that collaboration exists across geographical and language borders even though different regions focus on complementary publication strategies. The subfield of public policy and administration has the highest integrative capacity. Co-authorship is a function of several factors, most importantly being in the same subfield. At the individual level, the analysis identifies researchers who belong to the “inner circle” of Swiss political science and who link different communities. In contrast to previous research, the analysis is based on the full set of publications of all political researchers employed in Switzerland in 2013, including past publications

Brokering Votes With Information Spread Via Social Networks

Throughout much of the developing world, politicians rely on political brokers to buy votes prior to elections. We investigate how social networks help facilitate vote-buying exchanges by combining village network data of brokers and voters with broker reports of vote buying. We show that networks diffuse politically-relevant information about voters to brokers who leverage it to target voters. In particular, we find that brokers target reciprocal voters who are not registered to their party and about whom they can hear more information through their social network. These results highlight the importance of information diffusion through social networks for vote buying and ultimately for political outcomes

Urban Inequality and Political Recruitment Networks

This paper provides evidence of segregation-generated differences in political recruitment networks. By taking explicit account of social-geographical differentiation in the urban landscape, we evaluate—in prior work largely neglected—contextual effects on requests for participation. Consistent with previous research, we find that those activists who try to convince others to participate in political life systematically use a set of selection criteria when deciding whom to approach. However, using recent data based on a sample of inhabitants of Swedish cities and properties of their neighborhoods, we also show that the degree of (aggregate-level) social exclusion negatively influences (individual-level) recruitment efforts. This contextual effect stems both from the disproportional population composition as such in residential areas, and from recruiters’ rational avoidance of areas marked by high levels of social exclusion. We conclude that these logics jointly reinforce urban inequalities regarding the chances for ordinary citizens to be invited to political life.political recruitment; political recruiters; contextual effects; Civic Voluntarism Model; statistical discrimination

In Congressional races, political networks play an important role in ensuring minority representation

A number of retirements in Congress ahead of the 2018 midterms have opened up the possibility for increased Latino representation in the US House of Representatives. But, the past has shown that Latino candidates aren't always selected for, or win elections in, majority Latino districts and that Latinos and non-Latinos who are elected don't always represent the views of their constituents. In new research, Angela X. Ocampo finds that political networks have a large influence on whether a Latino or non-Latino gets onto the ballot as a candidate. These networks are also often able to push candidates forward based on their legislative priorities, which may or may not align with the preferences of their constituents

A dual modelling of evolving political opinion networks

We present the result of a dual modeling of opinion network. The model complements the agent-based opinion models by attaching to the social agent (voters) network a political opinion (party) network having its own intrinsic mechanisms of evolution. These two sub-networks form a global network which can be either isolated from or dependent on the external influence. Basically, the evolution of the agent network includes link adding and deleting, the opinion changes influenced by social validation, the political climate, the attractivity of the parties and the interaction between them. The opinion network is initially composed of numerous nodes representing opinions or parties which are located on a one dimensional axis according to their political positions. The mechanism of evolution includes union, splitting, change of position and of attractivity, taken into account the pairwise node interaction decaying with node distance in power law. The global evolution ends in a stable distribution of the social agents over a quasi-stable and fluctuating stationary number of remaining parties. Empirical study on the lifetime distribution of numerous parties and vote results is carried out to verify numerical results

Brazilian Congress structural balance analysis

In this work, we study the behavior of Brazilian politicians and political parties with the help of clustering algorithms for signed social networks. For this purpose, we extract and analyze a collection of signed networks representing voting sessions of the lower house of Brazilian National Congress. We process all available voting data for the period between 2011 and 2016, by considering voting similarities between members of the Congress to define weighted signed links. The solutions obtained by solving Correlation Clustering (CC) problems are the basis for investigating deputies voting networks as well as questions about loyalty, leadership, coalitions, political crisis, and social phenomena such as mediation and polarization.Comment: 27 pages, 15 tables, 6 figures; entire article was revised, new references added (including international press); correcting typing error