{"title":"Exploring ideological signals from cosponsorship","authors":"Carol Ann Downes, Philip D. Waggoner","doi":"10.1080/0022250X.2020.1787406","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT While cosponsorship is a useful tool for cosponsors, what is its impact on the bill? Adapting the mathematical concept of directed transportation networks for the American Congressional context, we suggest cosponsorship’s impact on a bill comes in the form of an ideological signal. We offer a model of policymaking where ideological “weight” is added to bills each time legislators sign on as cosponsors. In addition to policy substance, the bill’s final position in ideological space may also be considered as a function of all collaborators (i.e., initial sponsor and cosponsors). We conclude by extending and applying our model to two bills from the 115th U.S. House. Results comport with our model’s expectations, suggesting we are capturing ideological signals from cosponsorship.","PeriodicalId":50139,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Mathematical Sociology","volume":"45 1","pages":"246 - 267"},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2020-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/0022250X.2020.1787406","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Mathematical Sociology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0022250X.2020.1787406","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MATHEMATICS, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT While cosponsorship is a useful tool for cosponsors, what is its impact on the bill? Adapting the mathematical concept of directed transportation networks for the American Congressional context, we suggest cosponsorship’s impact on a bill comes in the form of an ideological signal. We offer a model of policymaking where ideological “weight” is added to bills each time legislators sign on as cosponsors. In addition to policy substance, the bill’s final position in ideological space may also be considered as a function of all collaborators (i.e., initial sponsor and cosponsors). We conclude by extending and applying our model to two bills from the 115th U.S. House. Results comport with our model’s expectations, suggesting we are capturing ideological signals from cosponsorship.
期刊介绍:
The goal of the Journal of Mathematical Sociology is to publish models and mathematical techniques that would likely be useful to professional sociologists. The Journal also welcomes papers of mutual interest to social scientists and other social and behavioral scientists, as well as papers by non-social scientists that may encourage fruitful connections between sociology and other disciplines. Reviews of new or developing areas of mathematics and mathematical modeling that may have significant applications in sociology will also be considered.
The Journal of Mathematical Sociology is published in association with the International Network for Social Network Analysis, the Japanese Association for Mathematical Sociology, the Mathematical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, and the Methodology Section of the American Sociological Association.