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Community structure in the United States House of Representatives

Author

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  • Porter, Mason A.
  • Mucha, Peter J.
  • Newman, M.E.J.
  • Friend, A.J.

Abstract

We investigate the networks of committee and subcommittee assignments in the United States House of Representatives from the 101st–108th Congresses, with the committees connected by “interlocks” or common membership. We examine the community structure in these networks using several methods, revealing strong links between certain committees as well as an intrinsic hierarchical structure in the House as a whole. We identify structural changes, including additional hierarchical levels and higher modularity, resulting from the 1994 election, in which the Republican party earned majority status in the House for the first time in more than 40 years. We also combine our network approach with the analysis of roll call votes using singular value decomposition to uncover correlations between the political and organizational structure of House committees.

Suggested Citation

  • Porter, Mason A. & Mucha, Peter J. & Newman, M.E.J. & Friend, A.J., 2007. "Community structure in the United States House of Representatives," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 386(1), pages 414-438.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:386:y:2007:i:1:p:414-438
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2007.07.039
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Kyungjin Yoo & Seth Blumsack, 2018. "The Political Complexity of Regional Electricity Policy Formation," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2018, pages 1-18, December.
    4. Baek, Seung Ki & Kim, Jonghoon & Lee, Song Sub & Jo, Woo Seong & Kim, Beom Jun, 2020. "Co-sponsorship analysis of party politics in the 20th National Assembly of Republic of Korea," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 560(C).
    5. Roger Guimerà & Marta Sales-Pardo, 2011. "Justice Blocks and Predictability of U.S. Supreme Court Votes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(11), pages 1-8, November.
    6. Rodriguez, Marko A. & Pepe, Alberto, 2008. "On the relationship between the structural and socioacademic communities of a coauthorship network," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 195-201.
    7. Clio Andris & David Lee & Marcus J Hamilton & Mauro Martino & Christian E Gunning & John Armistead Selden, 2015. "The Rise of Partisanship and Super-Cooperators in the U.S. House of Representatives," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-14, April.
    8. Greg Morrison & L Mahadevan, 2012. "Discovering Communities through Friendship," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-9, July.

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