Profiling giants: The networks and influence of Buchanan and Tullock

This paper uses network analysis to measure the positions and influences of two prominent academics, James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, founders of public choice theory. First, we recount parallel accounts of their lives. Second, we provide a literature review and outline the standard centrality measures insisting on their relevance in assessing the two authors’ roles in a given network. Third, we analyze their respective influences through the lens of network analysis by providing details on the publication records and, overall, co-authorship networks of the two scholars. We also explore their academic genealogy and show in particular that Buchanan and Tullock’s careers followed parallel paths and co-founded public choice theory and the journal of the same name, although the two had few common works; though being apparently very similar as to their centrality in the co-authoring network under scrutiny, their ego-networks were structured very differently, revealing diverse positions in the field and, thus, different influences on the discipline.