Measuring legislative collaboration: The Senate press events network

Desmarais, Bruce A.; Moscardelli, Vincent G.; Schaffner, Brian F.; Kowal, Michael S.

doi:10.1016/j.socnet.2014.07.006

Cited by 46 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…While some previous research has relied on such actual working relationships to map legislative networks (e.g., Desmarais et al. () treat participation in joint press events held by American Senators as social ties, while Ringe et al. () used a survey and interviews to record social ties in the EP), doing so is generally quite difficult.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This interaction may not always mean working cooperatively or harmoniously, but it produces genuine social ties between small groups of lawmakers. While some previous research has relied on such actual working relationships to map legislative networks (e.g., Desmarais et al (2015) treat participation in joint press events held by American Senators as social ties, while used a survey and interviews to record social ties in the EP), doing so is generally quite difficult. Indeed, a key challenge in all social network analysis is the difficulty of measuring social ties directly, which is why researchers routinely rely on proxies for interpersonal relationships, such as shared membership in legislative institutions (e.g., Arnold et al 2000;, spatial proximity (Masket 2008;Rogowski & Sinclair 2012), alumni networks (Cohen & Malloy 2014), shared campaign contributions (Victor & Koger 2016), and especially co-sponsorship (e.g., Briatte 2016;Fowler 2006;Kirkland 2011).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rapporteur‐shadow rapporteur networks in the European Parliament: The strength of small numbers

Häge

Ringe

2018

European J Political Res

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Specialisation and delegation of policy leadership within committees is the norm rather than the exception in legislatures around the world. Yet, little research has studied the sub‐groups of lawmakers who serve as policy leaders on particular bills. This article uses conceptual and methodological tools from social network analysis to investigate the groups’ composition and relational structure. It tests the proposition that limited human resources lead lawmakers from small parties to more frequently engage with a greater number of colleagues from other parties across a wider range of policy areas. This may have important relational benefits that have the potential to outweigh the structural disadvantages of small party size. The article examines whether small party lawmakers participate more, are more central and have greater potential for brokerage in policy‐making networks, or if the constraints associated with small party size and/or particular ideological leanings prevent their realisation. Empirically, the analyses focus on working relationships between rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs in the adoption of reports by standing committees of the 7th European Parliament, 2009–2014. Methodologically, a mixed methods approach is employed. The quantitative analyses show that small party size does not affect legislators’ participation in policy‐making networks, but that it increases legislators’ centrality and brokerage potential. Regarding ideology, being committed to democratic participation as a good in itself has a positive association with all three outcomes, while attitudes to European integration show no effect. The qualitative data suggest that the relational benefits of belonging to a small party partially mitigate the structural disadvantages associated with it. They also indicate that policy making in the European Parliament is quite inclusive, as any systematic exclusion tends to be the result of self‐marginalisation.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapporteur‐shadow rapporteur networks in the European Parliament: The strength of small numbers

Häge

Ringe

2018

European J Political Res

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“…For these reasons, it is necessary to compare the network data output from the proposed method to existing network data as collected by one of the conventional approaches identified above. I validate the method’s conceptual accuracy with five existing network data sets: directly using the North Korean guidance visit network (Ishiyama 2014) and US Senate press event network (Desmarais et al 2015), and indirectly using US Senate co-sponsorships (Fowler 2006), US House caucus memberships (Victor and Ringe 2009), and Mexican board memberships (Avina-Vazquez and Uddin 2016). I provide a full description and results from these validation exercises in the Online Appendix.…”

Section: Techniques For Network Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Scraping Public Co-Occurrences for Statistical Network Analysis of Political Elites

Mahdavi¹

2017

PSRM

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Collecting network information on political elites using conventional methods such as surveys and text records is challenging in authoritarian and/or conflict-ridden states. I introduce a data collection method for elite networks using scraping algorithms to capture public co-appearances at political and social events. Validity checks using existing data show the method effectively replicates interaction-based networks but not networks based on behavioral similarities; in both cases, measurement error remains a concern. Applying the method to Nigeria illustrates that patronage—measured in terms of public connectivity—does not drive national oil companies appointments. Given that theories of elite behavior aim to understand individual-level interactions, the applicability of data using this technique is well-suited to situations where intrusive data collection is costly or prohibitive.

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“…In addition, scholars have observed that legislators engage in other common, observable events that can be used to proxy social relationships. For example, Desmarais et al (2015) show that legislators who participate in joint press events have a positive correlation in their voting behavior.…”

Section: The Social Legislator: What Connects Lawmakers?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Legislative Networks

Ringe¹,

Victor²,

Cho³

2016

Oxford Handbooks Online

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Legislatures are naturally interactive institutions. Creating laws, engaging in representation and oversight, and serving constituents are social processes. Legislators have many connections with each other, some preexisting or natural and some created while in office. This chapter explores various ways to understand legislative politics through a relational lens. Legislators rely on networks for a variety of functions, including collaboration, information diffusion, policy coordination, coalition building, and voting. Relationships are a fundamental aspect of how legislators, and those who interact with them, function. The chapter examines the history of how networks have been studied in legislatures and describes various challenges this field of study has recently overcome, as well as other challenges yet to be solved in studying legislative politics using networks. It relays the dominant existing applications and methods in this subfield and suggests several fruitful avenues for future research.

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Measuring legislative collaboration: The Senate press events network

Cited by 46 publications

References 39 publications

Rapporteur‐shadow rapporteur networks in the European Parliament: The strength of small numbers

Rapporteur‐shadow rapporteur networks in the European Parliament: The strength of small numbers

Scraping Public Co-Occurrences for Statistical Network Analysis of Political Elites

Legislative Networks

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