Notebooks

## Networks of Political Actors

28 Mar 2018 14:42

One of the things I'm interested in is understanding how network forms of organization emerge among political actors, how they affect decision-making, and how they interact with other social networks and institutions. I have a ridiculously over-ambitious research project, about networks of cronyism, that I'd like to do, but in the meanwhile I;m settling for small steps. Presumably, like other social networks, they serve as platforms for information exchange, deliberation, and other forms of collective cognition. Formal political organizations can also serve these functions, but it seems easier to make organizations democratically accountable than it is networks --- is this a problem? How does their structure compare to that of other networks?

Recommended:
• James Fowler
• "Legislative Cosponsorship Networks in the U.S. House and Senate," Social Networks forthcoming [Short version of the conference paper "Who is the Best Connected Congressperson?" PDF]
• "Who is the Best Connected Congressperson? A Study of Legislative Cosponsorship Networks" [Long version of the journal paper. PDF]
<li>Mason A. Porter, Peter J. Mucha, M. E. J. Newman and Casey M.


Warmbrand, "A network analysis of committees in the U.S. House of Representatives", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 102 (2005): 7057--7062 [PDF reprint via Mark]

Pride compels me to recommend:
• Justin H. Gross, Cues and Heuristics on Capitol Hill: Relational Models of Decision-making in the United States Senate [Ph.D. thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, 2010]
Modesty forbids me to recommend:
• Justin H. Gross, Justin H. Kirkland and CRS, "Cosponsorship in the U.S. Senate: A Multilevel Two-Mode Approach to Detecting Subtle Social Predictors of Legislative Support" [Unpublished MS.; PDF preprint via Prof. Gross]