Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:48:08.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Measuring networks in the field

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

Jennifer M. Larson  and
Janet I. Lewis
Jennifer M. Larson*
Affiliation:
Political Science Department, Vanderbilt University, College of Arts and Science, Nashville, TN US
Janet I. Lewis
Affiliation:
Political Science Department, US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD US
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Measuring networks in the field—usually by asking individuals systematically about their networks–entails complex design choices, with large consequences for the resulting data. Because observations in a network are interconnected, well-established practices from non-network survey settings can lead researchers astray. Despite the increasing focus on networks in political science, little guidance is available for researchers facing high-stakes decisions when designing a study to elicit networks. This paper serves as a practical guide. It offers a simple framework for constructing a network theory, illuminates tradeoffs like measuring more nodes versus more ties per node or asking for names versus selections from a list, and proposes a new technique for cleaning relational data.

Keywords

Data collectionmeasurementsurvey methodology
Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 123 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alatas, V, Banerjee, A, Chandrasekhar, AG, Hanna, R and Olken, BA (2015) Network structure and the aggregation of information: theory and evidence from Indonesia. Technical report, National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Baldassarri, D (2015) Cooperative networks: Altruism, group solidarity, reciprocity, and sanctioning in Ugandan producer organizations. American Journal of Sociology 121, 355–395.Google Scholar
Baldassarri, D and Grossman, G (2013) The effect of group attachment and social position on prosocial behavior: evidence from lab-in-the-field experiments. PLoS ONE 8, e58750.Google Scholar
Banerjee, A, Chandrasekhar, AG, Duflo, E and Jackson, MO (2013) The diffusion of microfinance. Science 341, 1236498.Google Scholar
Banerjee, A, Chandrasekhar, AG, Duflo, E and Jackson, MO (2014) Gossip: identifying central individuals in a social network. Technical report, National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Barr, A, Ensminger, J and Johnson, JC (2009) Social networks and trust in cross-cultural economic experiments. In Cook, KS, Levi, M and Hardin, R (eds). Whom Can We Trust. New York, NY: Russel Sage Foundation, pp. 65–90.Google Scholar
Bell, DC, Belli-McQueen, B and Haider, A (2007) Partner naming and forgetting: recall of network members. Social Networks 29, 279–299.Google Scholar
Bidart, C and Charbonneau, J (2011) How to generate personal networks: issues and tools for a sociological perspective. Field Methods 23, 266–283.Google Scholar
Bisbee, J and Larson, JM (2017) Testing social science network theories with online network data: an evaluation of external validity. American Political Science Review 111, 502–521.Google Scholar
Brewer, DD (1995) The social structural basis of the organization of persons in memory. Human Nature 6, 379–403.Google Scholar
Brewer, DD (2000) Forgetting in the recall-based elicitation of personal and social networks. Social Networks 22, 29–43.Google Scholar
Breza, E, Chandrasekhar, AG and Larreguy, H (2015) Network centrality and institutional design: evidence from a lab experiment in the field. NBER Working Paper 20309.Google Scholar
Butts, CT (2008) Social network analysis: a methodological introduction. Asian Journal of Social Psychology 11, 13–41.Google Scholar
Calvo, E and Murillo, MV (2013) When parties meet voters: assessing political linkages through partisan networks and distributive expectations in Argentina and Chile. Comparative Political Studies 46, 851–882.Google Scholar
Chandrasekhar, A and Lewis, R (2011) Econometrics of sampled networks. Unpublished manuscript, MIT. Available at https://goo.gl/Cp6T02.Google Scholar
Christia, F, Knox, D and Al-Rikabi, J (2017) Networks of sectarianism: experimental evidence on access to services in Baghdad. Working Paper.Google Scholar
Conley, TG and Udry, CR (2010) Learning about a new technology: pineapple in Ghana. The American Economic Review 100, 35–69.Google Scholar
Cruz, C, Labonne, J and Querubin, P (2014) Politician family networks and electoral outcomes: evidence from the Philippines. In Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association.Google Scholar
de Zúñiga, HG and Valenzuela, S (2011) The mediating path to a stronger citizenship: online and offline networks, weak ties, and civic engagement. Communication Research 38, 397–421.Google Scholar
Easley, D and Kleinberg, J (2010) Networks, Crowds and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eubank, N (2018) Social networks and the political salience of ethnicity. Working Paper. Available at https://goo.gl/om7U7c.Google Scholar
Eveland, WP and Hively, MH (2009) Political discussion frequency, network size, and “heterogeneity” of discussion as predictors of political knowledge and participation. Journal of Communication 59, 205–224.Google Scholar
Eveland, WP Jr, Hutchens, MJ and Morey, AC (2013) Political network size and its antecedents and consequences. Political Communication 30, 371–394.Google Scholar
Fafchamps, M and Gubert, F (2007) Risk sharing and network formation. The American Economic Review 97, 75–79.Google Scholar
Ferrali, R, Grossman, G, Platas, MR and Rodden, J (2018) Peer effects and externalities in technology adoption: evidence from community reporting in Uganda. Working Paper. Available at: https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/web.sas.upenn.edu/dist/7/228/files/2016/09/FGPR_Sept2018-14xeavm.pdf.Google Scholar
Fischer, CS (1982) What do we mean by “friend”? An inductive study. Social Networks 3, 287–306.Google Scholar
Fischer, CS (2009) The 2004 gss finding of shrunken social networks: an artifact? American Sociological Review 74, 657–669.Google Scholar
Fiske, AP (1995) Social schemata for remembering people: relationships and person attributes in free recall of acquaintances. Journal of Quantitative Anthropology 5, 305–324.Google Scholar
Fowler, JH, Heaney, MT, Nickerson, DW, Padgett, JF and Sinclair, B (2011) Causality in political networks. American Politics Research 39, 437–480.Google Scholar
González-Bailón, S and Wang, N (2016) Networked discontent: the anatomy of protest campaigns in social media. Social Networks 44, 95–104.Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Ocantos, E, Kiewiet de Jonge, C, Meléndez, C, Osorio, J and Nickerson, DW (2012) Vote buying and social desirability bias: experimental evidence from Nicaragua. American Journal of Political Science 56, 202–217.Google Scholar
Gross, J and Jansa, JM (2016) Relational concepts, measurement, and data collection. In Victor, JN, Montgomery, AH and Lubell, M (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Political Networks. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hammer, M (1984) Explorations into the meaning of social network interview data. Social Networks 6, 341–371.Google Scholar
Jackson, MO (2010) Social and Economic Networks. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, MO, Rodriguez-Barraquer, T and Tan, X (2012) Social capital and social quilts: network patterns of favor exchange. The American Economic Review 102, 1857–1897.Google Scholar
Jones, JJ, Settle, JE, Bond, RM, Fariss, CJ, Marlow, C and Fowler, JH (2013) Inferring tie strength from online directed behavior. PloS one 8, e52168.Google Scholar
Killworth, PD, McCarty, C, Bernard, HR, Shelley, GA and Johnsen, EC (1998) Estimation of seroprevalence, rape, and homelessness in the United States using a social network approach. Evaluation Review 22, 289–308.Google Scholar
Klofstad, CA, McClurg, SD and Rolfe, M (2009) Measurement of political discussion networks a comparison of two “name generator” procedures. Public Opinion Quarterly 73, 462–483.Google Scholar
Kolaczyk, ED (2009) Statistical Analysis of Network Data. New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Larson, JM and Lewis, JI (2017) Ethnic networks. American Journal of Political Science 61, 350–364.Google Scholar
Larson, JM and Lewis, JI (2018) Rumors, kinship networks, and rebel group formation. International Organization 72, 871–903.Google Scholar
Larson, JM and Rodríguez, P (2018) Not all ties are alike: the attenuating effect of aggregating networks.Google Scholar
Laumann, EO, Marsden, PV and Prensky, D (1989) The boundary specification problem in network analysis. Research Methods in Social Network Analysis 61, 87.Google Scholar
Lee, SH, Kim, P-J and Jeong, H (2006) Statistical properties of sampled networks. Physical Review E 73, 016102.Google Scholar
Marin, A (2004) Are respondents more likely to list alters with certain characteristics?: Implications for name generator data. Social Networks 26, 289–307.Google Scholar
Marin, A and Hampton, KN (2007) Simplifying the personal network name generator alternatives to traditional multiple and single name generators. Field Methods 19, 163–193.Google Scholar
Marsden, PV (1993) The reliability of network density and composition measures. Social Networks 15, 399–421.Google Scholar
Marsden, PV (2005) Recent developments in network measurement. Models and Methods in Social Network Analysis 8, 30.Google Scholar
McCarty, C, Killworth, PD, Bernard, HR, Johnsen, EC and Shelley, GA (2001) Comparing two methods for estimating network size. Human Organization 60, 28–39.Google Scholar
McClurg, SD (2006) The electoral relevance of political talk: examining disagreement and expertise effects in social networks on political participation. American Journal of Political Science 50, 737–754.Google Scholar
McCormick, TH, Salganik, MJ and Zheng, T (2010) How many people do you know?: efficiently estimating personal network size. Journal of the American Statistical Association 105, 59–70.Google Scholar
Moy, P and Gastil, J (2006) Predicting deliberative conversation: the impact of discussion networks, media use, and political cognitions. Political Communication 23, 443–460.Google Scholar
Olguin, DO, Paradiso, JA and Pentland, A (2006) Wearable communicator badge: designing a new platform for revealing organizational dynamics. In Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Wearable Computers (Student Colloquium), pp. 4–6.Google Scholar
Paluck, EL, Shepherd, H and Aronow, PM (2016) Changing climates of conflict: a social network experiment in 56 schools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, 566–571.Google Scholar
Parkinson, SE (2013) Organizing rebellion: rethinking high-risk mobilization and social networks in war. American Political Science Review 107, 418–432.Google Scholar
Rao, N, Mobius, MM and Rosenblat, T (2007) Social networks and vaccination decisions. Working Paper Series Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Available at http://hdl.handle.net/10419/55601.Google Scholar
Scholz, JT, Berardo, R and Kile, B (2008) Do networks solve collective action problems? Credibility, search, and collaboration. Journal of Politics 70, 393–406.Google Scholar
Schwedler, J (2006) The third gender: western female researchers in the middle east. PS: Political Science and Politics 39, 425–428.Google Scholar
Shakya, HB, Christakis, NA and Fowler, JH (2017) An exploratory comparison of name generator content: data from rural india. Social Networks 48, 157–168.Google Scholar
Shih, V (2015) Research in authoritarian regimes: transparency tradeoffs and solutions. Qualitative and Multi-Method Research: Newsletter of the American Political Science Association Organized Section 13, 20–22.Google Scholar
Siegel, DA (2011) Social networks in comparative perspective. PS: Political Science and Politics 44, 51–54.Google Scholar
Sinclair, B (2012) The social citizen: Peer networks and political behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sokhey, AE and Djupe, PA (2014) Name generation in interpersonal political network data: results from a series of experiments. Social Networks 36, 147–161.Google Scholar
Sudman, S (1988) Experiments in measuring neighbor and relative social networks. Social Networks 10, 93–108.Google Scholar
Wasserman, S and Faust, K (1994) Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Larson and Lewis supplementary material

Larson and Lewis supplementary material 1

Download Larson and Lewis supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 39.9 MB
Supplementary material: Link

Larson and Lewis Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/THCWHJ
Link