Philip Leifeld

Mapping the ideological networks of American climate politics

How do we understand national climate change politics in the United States? Using a methodological innovation in network analysis, this paper analyzes discussions about the issue within the US Congress. Through this analysis, the ideological relationships among speakers providing Congressional testimony on the issue of climate change are mapped. For the first time, issue stances of actors are systematically aggregated in order to measure coalitions and consensus among political actors in American climate politics in a relational way. Our findings show how consensus formed around the economic implications of regulating greenhouse gases and the policy instrument that should do the regulating. The paper is separated into three sections. First, we review the ways scholars have looked at climate change policymaking in the United States, paying particular attention to those who have looked at the issue within the US Congress. Next, we present analysis of statements made during Congressional hearings on climate change over a four-year period. Our analysis demonstrates how a polarized ideological actor space in the 109th Congress transforms into a more consensual actor landscape in the 110th Congress, which is significantly less guided by partisan differences. This paper concludes by discussing how these findings help us understand shifting positions within American climate politics and the implications of these findings.

Where Does Political Polarization Come From? Locating Polarization Within the U.S. Climate Change Debate

How do we understand political polarization within the U.S. climate change debate? This article unpacks the different components of the debate to determine the source of the political divide that is so noted in the mainstream media and academic literatures. Through analysis of the content of congressional hearings on the issue of climate change, we are able to explain political polarization of the issue more fully. In particular, our results show that, contrary to representations in the mainstream media, there is increasing consensus over the science of the issue. Discussions of the type of policy instrument and the economic implications of regulating carbon dioxide emissions, however, continue to polarize opinion. This article concludes by exploring how these findings help us understand more recent political events around climate change.

Do Narcissism and Emotional Intelligence Win Us Friends? Modeling Dynamics of Peer Popularity Using Inferential Network Analysis

This research investigated effects of narcissism and emotional intelligence (EI) on popularity in social networks. In a longitudinal field study, we examined the dynamics of popularity in 15 peer groups in two waves (N = 273). We measured narcissism, ability EI, and explicit and implicit self-esteem. In addition, we measured popularity at zero acquaintance and 3 months later. We analyzed the data using inferential network analysis (temporal exponential random graph modeling, TERGM) accounting for self-organizing network forces. People high in narcissism were popular, but increased less in popularity over time than people lower in narcissism. In contrast, emotionally intelligent people increased more in popularity over time than less emotionally intelligent people. The effects held when we controlled for explicit and implicit self-esteem. These results suggest that narcissism is rather disadvantageous and that EI is rather advantageous for long-term popularity.

Die Netzwerkanalyse in der Policy-Forschung: Eine theoretische und methodische Bestandsaufnahme

Die Frage nach der Wirkungsweise von Akteurskonstellationen auf den Politikprozess ist nicht neu, aber immer noch aktuell (Raab/Kenis 2006). Bereits in den 1940er Jahren wurden mit dem Aufkommen des Pluralismusansatzes sowohl die Wettbewerbsbeziehungen zwischen organisierten Interessen betont als auch die horizontale Verflechtung von Regierung, Administration und organisierten Interessen hervorgehoben (McIver 1947, Truman 1951). Allerdings konnte sich erst seit den 1980er Jahren ein eigenstandiger Netzwerkansatz in der Politikwissenschaft etablieren, als deutlich wurde, dass offentliche Politik weder ausschlieslich auf funktionale Bedurfnisse und Anforderungen der Gesellschaft zuruckgefuhrt werden kann (Almond/Powell 1966), noch das Aggregat eigennutzig handelnder Individuen und Organisationen darstellt (Becker 1985). Vielmehr sind in den Politikprozess eine Vielzahl von privaten und offentlichen Akteuren eingebunden, die durch ihre Interaktion masgeblich das Politikergebnis bestimmen (Kenis/Schneider 1991, Raab/Kenis 2006).

Diskursnetzwerkanalyse. Überlegungen zur Theoriebildung und Methodik

Die Entdeckung, dass Denksysteme, Ideologien, Uberzeugungen, Normen und Werte in der Politik allgemein und in politischen Entscheidungsprozessen im Besonderen eine bedeutende Rolle spielen, ist wahrlich nicht neu. Bedeutende Stromungen der politischen Philosophie – von den alten Griechen bis zum deutschen Idealismus – sind masgeblich von dieser Grundannahme gepragt. Auch in der modernen Politikwissenschaft spielt die Welt der Ideen eine nicht unbedeutende Rolle, insbesondere in den Analysen zur politischen Kultur. Sowohl die strukturfunktionale Systemtheorie als auch der franzosische Strukturalismus haben die (relative) Autonomie von ideellen Prozessen stets betont. Das Ideelle als Gegenstand der Politikanalyse in modernen diskursanalytischen Varianten ist daher nicht ungewohnlich. Innovativ hingegen ist der spezielle theoretische und methodische Zugang. Wahrend traditionelle Analysen empirische Evidenz in der Regel nur uber pauschale oder anekdotische Verweise auf relevante Denk- und Uberzeugungssysteme zu erzeugen versuchten, haben moderne Untersuchungen den Anspruch, uber Mikroanalysen von Sprachbildern und Argumentationsmustern die spezifische Funktionslogik dieser ideellen Strukturen zu dechiffrieren.

A Comparison between Political Claims Analysis and Discourse Network Analysis: The Case of Software Patents in the European Union

The study of policy discourse comprises actor-centered and content-oriented approaches. We attempt to close the gap between the two kinds of approaches by introducing a new methodology for the analysis of political discourse called Discourse Network Analysis. It is based on social network analysis and qualitative content analysis and takes an entirely relational perspective. Political discourse can be analyzed in a dynamic way, and the approach makes previously unobservable cleavage lines and alignments measurable at the actor level, at the level of the contents of a discourse, and a combined layer. We compare discourse network analysis with political claims analysis, a competing method, and apply both methods to the European-level discourse on software patents. Our results demonstrate how an anti-software-patent coalition was mobilized and how it gained control over important frames, while the well-organized pro-software-patent discourse coalition was not able to gain sovereignty over the discourse.

Coping with Creeping Catastrophes: National Political Systems and the Challenge of Slow-Moving Policy Problems

Catastrophes are usually associated with phenomena like tsunamis, earthquakes or asteroid impacts – disasters that happen rapidly with immediately visible impacts. A different logic is involved when problems and challenges evolve incrementally, in slow-motion, and when they only become visible over long periods (Pierson 2004). Jared Diamond recently referred to such changes as “creeping normalcy” (Diamond 2005). Changes are perceived as normality if they happen in unnoticed increments. This concept was used to explain the varying adaptation capacities of human societies to long-term environmental changes.

Contributions by Interest Groups to Lobbying Coalitions

Decisions by interest groups about when and how to work together inside coalitions are critical components of interest group strategies. This article argues that the composition of lobbying coalitions is a key factor that relates to these decisions. First, partisan diversity within a coalition may enhance contributions from groups if bipartisanship is seen as a positive signal of the coalition’s likely success. Second, network embeddedness may enhance contributions from coalition members if concomitant relationships make it easier to collaborate. Using a two-mode exponential random graph model with structural zeros, the study draws on interviews with congressional staff members, interest group representatives, and coalition representatives working on health policy in the United States. The results demonstrate a robust, positive association of partisan diversity with contributions by interest groups to lobbying coalitions. The results also reveal positive correspondence with network embeddedness, although these results are contingent on model specification.

Collaboration patterns in the German political science co-authorship network

Research on social processes in the production of scientific output suggests that the collective research agenda of a discipline is influenced by its structural features, such as “invisible colleges” or “groups of collaborators” as well as academic “stars” that are embedded in, or connect, these research groups. Based on an encompassing dataset that takes into account multiple publication types including journals and chapters in edited volumes, we analyze the complete co-authorship network of all 1,339 researchers in German political science. Through the use of consensus graph clustering techniques and descriptive centrality measures, we identify the ten largest research clusters, their research topics, and the most central researchers who act as bridges and connect these clusters. We also aggregate the findings at the level of research organizations and consider the inter-university co-authorship network. The findings indicate that German political science is structured by multiple overlapping research clusters with a dominance of the subfields of international relations, comparative politics and political sociology. A small set of well-connected universities takes leading roles in these informal research groups.

Networks and Social Influence in European Legislative Politics

The Treaty of Lisbon strengthened the role of national parliaments in the European Union. It introduced an ‘early warning system’, granting parliamentary chambers the right to reject legislative proposals by the European Commission. Previous studies assumed independence between the decisions of parliaments to reject a legislative proposal. We apply recent advances in inferential network analysis and argue that parliamentary vetoes are better explained by conceptualizing parliaments’ veto actions as a temporal network. Network effects can be observed along the dimension of party families. Based on a new permutation approach, we find that parliaments with similar party majorities influence each other over the course of the decision period (‘social influence’), rather than basing their decisions independently on joint prior partisanship (‘selection’).