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***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Dear Colleagues,

We are hosting a session on “political networks” at the 4th European Conference on Social Networks (EUSN 2019) taking place from 9-12 September 2019 in Zürich, Switzerland.

The call for abstracts is open now (until April 12):  https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=eusn2019

Please apply and distribute!

Warm regards,

Florence Metz, James Hollway, Mario Diani, Dimitris Christopoulos


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Session on Political Networks 

4th European Conference on Social Networks (EUSN 2019)
9-12 September 2019, Zürich, Switzerland
http://www.eusn.org/2019/
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Call for abstracts on political networks

The Political Networks Section aims to provide a multidisciplinary space for scholars sharing a common interest in political networks. A network approach to studying political phenomena has become increasingly popular and broad, with topics including social movements, domestic and international legislative and policy-making processes, governance, and power. Political networks can consist of political actors, institutions, documents, topics, or events, connected by resources, information, symbols, affiliations, collaborations, negotiations or on- or offline communications. Irrespective of the topic or type of political network, researchers share an understanding of relational political phenomena, whereby the interdependencies among observations must be integrated in theory, empirical data and analysis.

Central research questions in political networks research include: Which political network topologies are more common or effective and why? Which are a political network’s central actors, institutions, cleavages, or classes? What mechanisms drive the evolution of political networks? And how should we study all of the above? Scholars have analyzed patterns of collaboration, coordination or information exchange in political networks and found drivers that include perceived influence or popularity, attribute or value homophily, and closure or social cohesion as responsible for different political network topologies and how they have evolved. However, we are only beginning to understand how political network topologies and the mechanisms that drive their evolution differ across political contexts.

One way to address this gap is to compare political networks across political contexts, systems or policy sectors. Comparing political networks over space and time is a powerful strategy to support causal explanations on the antecedents or consequences of network structures. Comparisons over space can include cross-country comparisons or within-country comparisons across regions or policy sectors. Comparisons over time can include network observations at several discrete time points, or can be based on the dynamic assessment of network evolution.

Another emergent area of research involves the ways in which political networks are composed of multiple, interlocking sets of nodes and ties. Political networks are often multimodal, multiplex, or multilevel, and understanding how each node set or network depends on the other can be key to understanding individuals, groups, or whole topologies in these political networks. Handling such complex networks, especially their evolution, pushes the boundaries of social network methodology, but potentially offers rich insight.

Within the Political Networks section we aim to offer panels on political network theory, political network applications, and political network methodology, and welcome any papers that serve to extend the study of political networks in these areas.

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Paper submission open March 1 to April 12: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=eusn2019

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—

James Hollway

Assistant Professor
International Relations/Political Science
Graduate Institute, Geneva

Maison de la Paix | Office P2-639
For an appointment: http://bit.ly/1LPv5My

Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
Chemin Eugène-Rigot 2A | PO Box 1672 | 1211 Geneva 1 | Switzerland
T +41 22 908 5916
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Hollway
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