Mapping political discourse: An application of network visualization to textual records of legislative deliberations

Norbert Kwan Nok Chan Azadeh Nematzadeh Karissa McKelvey School of Public and Environmental Affairs School of Informatics and Computing, School of Informatics and Computing, Indiana University Indiana University Indiana University Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

Abstract—In political science, one strand of research on agenda To tease out the mechanisms of agenda setting, much of the setting concerns the politics of choosing and defining problems research falls on the strategies and calculations of actors who for policy action. While theory deals with both strategies for engage in the contest (Cobb and Elder 1972; Rochefort and agenda control at the individual level and the dynamic of agenda change at the aggregate level, existing quantitative analysis Cobb 1994), the cognitive and informational basis of agenda remains confined to the latter. This deficiency prevents scholars change (Jones 2001), the general institutional environment from testing empirical observations about the micro-macro link regulating agenda formation and revision (Kingdon 1984; between behaviors and outcomes. With a view to closing this Jones and Baumgartner 1993; Workman, Jones, and Jochim analytical gap, this paper describes our application of network 2009), and the broad patterns of agenda change (Downs 1972; visualization as a first step to realizing the aggregate structure of local interactions between participants of in the legislative Baumgartner and Jones 2003). However, existing research has process. It concludes with some preliminary outputs generated yet to take a systematic look at the micro-macro link between from a dataset of published chamber deliberations in the French the disparate actions pursued by individual actors and the national legislature . macro-level trends of agenda change (e.g. Princen and Rhinard 2006). Though often supported by supplemental case studies, I.INTRODUCTION most quantitative analyses of agenda setting are confined to Agenda setting research in political science deals with the broad descriptions of the aggregate dynamic of agenda change politics of choosing and defining problems for policy action. (Kingdon 1984; Sabatier 1997; Baumgartner and Jones 2009 At one level, since more issues emerge than there is time to ; Jones, Sulkin, and Larsen 2003). address them all, deciding which of the few issues out of a Although theorists seek to make sense of agenda setting practically infinite set should receive attention is a chief source with reference to activities occurring across entire political of conflict [?] (Walker 1977; Kingdon 1984; Baumgartner and systems (Berger 2001; Soroka 2002; Jones and Baumgartner Jones 1993; Jones 2001). While some actors want an issue to 2004), legislative activities have often provided the key indi- be put forward for discussion so that they can contest and alter cator for agenda outcomes in the literature (John 2006b). We existing policies, others may wish to keep that issue away from follow this practice and attempt to unpack the micro-macro the agenda so as to protect the status quo from the sceptics link in agenda setting processes by focusing on the legislature (Schattschneider 1960; Pralle 2006). At the other level, how as the nexus of the agenda setting processes (Brninger and the issues are portrayed is just as important as what issues are Debus 2009). In other words, we are interested in the agenda being brought up for discussion (Chong and Druckman 2007a; setting process as it unfolds in legislative deliberations. These Baumgartner and Jones 2009). deliberations, in sum, form a body of discourse from which In pluralistic communities, competing interests use different we can learn about the interconnections between policy topics ideas and values to construct their own policy narrative (Chong and how individual actors interact with others in setting the and Druckman 2007b; Dery 2000). The ability to marginalize agenda. Given such a dataset, the challenge is to organize narratives different from their own enables advocates to sustain the relationships in a way that allows scholars to reconsider a policy regime most compatible with their interests (Rochefort agenda dynamics in terms of the microfoundations in general and Cobb 1993). and formulate new hypotheses about the emergent properties of policy agendas in particular. 1The current visualization outputs are produced in a very short time frame and much of the information about the nodes is yet to be incorporated into the Following the example of the growing scholarship on po- graphs. With a clear strategy for further analysis, we can expect substantial litical communication (e.g. McKelvey et al. 2012; Vespignani improvements at the time of presentation. In addition, we will expand the 2011; Conover et al. 2011) and network analysis of political dataset to cover the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth legislative cycles (1995- 2007) and use network statistics to substantiate the interpretation of the visual data (e.g. Fowler 2006), this paper describes our attempt outputs. to represent legislative discourse as networks. The network paradigm affords a new way to conceive the link between network aggregated from actors will align with political mem- micromotives and macrobehavior in complex social systems berships. Since political actors claim ownership over specific (Schelling 2006; Mitchell 2006). It is our intention to capture policy issues to differentiate themselves from rivals, legislative the overall clustering pattern of actors involved in agenda debates about these ’owned’ issues will draw attention from setting in the legislative process so that we can develop an the same ’owners’ over time. If this behavioral specification effective way to systematically review untested intuitions and in political discourse is correct, actors will find themselves hypotheses about policy agendas using the network terminol- interacting with the same set of actors over the same set of ogy. We have three forms of interaction in political discourse: issues. However, counter-arguments have been raised in the one between the individuals taking part in the discourse, literature. It is also possible, at least for some issues, to draw one between the individuals and the discourse events that attention from a much wider range of actors. In the extreme, they choose to take part in, and one between the discourse there is no particular clustering pattern, as actors do not con- events. Each gives different insights on the social dynamics fine themselves to any particular issue. These two possibilities and contexts of agenda setting. We explain below how each mirror the theoretical debate over the partisan neutrality thesis of these forms of interaction can be inspected through network in policy agendas studies (Baumgartner, Brouard, Grossman visualization. 2009). With the edges between the nodes representing co- II.NETWORK VISUALIZATION participation in discourse events, the actor-to-actor network We propose to examine the theoretical expectations outlined derived from actor-event interaction is expected to have high above using network visualization in the following three modularity. The community will be dominated by a few larger approaches. components comprising of actors who participate in meetings A. Actor-to-event network that concern controversial issues. There should also be small Contentious issues are expected to draw a relatively diverse components, each containing small communities of actors set of actors, as participation diversity is indicative of agenda interested in marginal issues. Like the actor-to-event network, setting activities. Skeptics of the policy regime attempt to the actor-to-actor network will reveal a social structure based discredit the current arrangement while its supporters counter on shared issue interests: actors are located in the same these criticisms by reiterating their narrative (Pralle 2006; component because they participated in chamber deliberations Rochefort 1993). On the other hand, issues that are less in the same meetings or in meetings that draw on similar contentious are relegated to the margin of agenda, where only participants. Actors who are located in different components a few advocates may claim ownership and feel interested participate in an non-overlapping set of discourse events. The to allocate attention to the subject matter. In addition, since modularity of the actors choose issues to differentiate themselves from others C. Event-to-event on political spectrum (Slothuus and de Vreese 2010), different issues are expected to draw unique sets of actors. However, In the context of policy agendas, discourse events are some overlapping is expected as some issues affect the in- occasions where actors come together to elaborate on issues terests of the same social and political groups, with some and policy topics. Since these events are topic-specific, actors scholars arguing that partisanship is only relevant to some participating in the deliberations are required to share their issues (Baumgartner et al. 2009). views on the same issue. Yet, the multidimensionality of issue To explore these expectations in the network paradigm, frames often means that such a strict separation between issues we represent discourse events and the actors who participate can only be an artificial division which hardly reflects the in these events as two types of nodes. Nodes that represent interconnectedness of issues due to shared values, contexts, discourse events, such as legislative hearings, are connected and interests (Jones 2010). Knowing whether a discourse to nodes that represent actors who participated in the events. event is close to another facilitate the investigation on how The first proposition that issue contentiousness predicts the the multiple dimensions of different issues may structure the diversity of participation can be reflected by the variation of whole body of discourse by supplying similar symbols and promiscuity of the nodes representing different events, such values to the construction of frames across events dedicated that a handful of nodes should be connected with actors to different topics. belonging to a wide range of political affiliations while others The theory of issue framing as a rhetorical exercise consid- have relatively homogeneous actors as neighbors in the net- ers the social and political context as the source of values and work. The second proposition that issues have non-overlapping ideas with which the frames are constructed (Rochefort and constituencies can be reflected by the extent that the clustering Cobb 1994). Some structural particularities can be expected pattern is indicative of the behavioral tendency to selectively based on the debate over the nature of policy issues as participate in discourse events based on issues. multidimensional, social constructs. Event-to-event edges are indicative of shared attention; the more closely two events B. Actor-to-actor network are connected, the more likely the events are discussed in Theories of policy ownership and policy advocacy (Sabatier similar terms and contexts. By contrast, events that occupy and Jenkins-Smith 1993) lead us to the expectation that the very different locations in the network invite dissimilar sets of actors. This structural pattern may help us reveal the latent dimensions of issue frames by combining appropriate analysis of the speeches delivered in both the proximate and distant discourse events.

marie-hlne thoraval bernard mazouaud sandrine hurel

hugues martin

michel zumkeller benot apparu

michel vauzelle jean charroppin marie-nolle battistel In conclusion, network visualization will guide the devel- frdric lefbvre anne grommerch franck reynier

christine marin

jean grellier

martine faure alain moyne-bressand

colette le moal grard longuet jean-yves bony arnaud richard

apeleto albert likuvalu secrtaire detat aux petites et moyennes entreprises au commercegisle lartisanat bimouret aux professions librales et la consommation christian patria arnaud robinet didier gonzales jean-claude bouchet robert diat marie-line reynaud jacqueline maquet jean-philippe maurer opment of some testable hypotheses about policy agendas and franoise briand frdric mitterrand

philippe-armand martin georges ginesta alfred almont william dumas bernard reyns olivier dussopt abdoulatifou aly

albert likuvalu patrick lebreton rmi delatte bernard lesterlin gunhal huet herv fron michel grall daniel boisserie dosne martine martinel patrick verchre jacques lamblin nicolas dhuicq marie-luce penchard genevive fioraso jean-claude fruteau jean-jacques aillagon christophe payet grard gaudronlie aboud fabienne labrette-mnager philippe sguin annick le loch yves vandewalle marie-lou marcel philippe richertmichel mnard philippe duron brigitte barges douard leveau jean-michel villaum jean-marie binetruy ren galy-dejean marc goua issue framing in the terminology of network analysis. At the philippe plisson jean-michel couve jean-marie bockel christian jeanjean franoise gugot richard dellagnola daniel fasquelle martin hirsch tienne mourrut chantal berthelot monique iborra anny poursinoff georges hage patrice calmjane jean-jacques candelier catherine qur guy malherbe dominique orliac pascal deguilhem claude bodin jean-luc reitzer frdric cuvillier jacques alain bnisti yanick paternotte jean-louis gagnaire lionel luca vincent descoeur jol giraud corinne erhel philippe meunier christophe guilloteau jacques valax fernand sir max roustan martine pinville jean-pierre marcon jeannette bougrab marie-hlne amiable pierre lang marc vampa jeanny marc marc joulaud pascale got alain suguenot marietta karamanli philippe goujon ric jalton bernardjean-patrick grard gille jean-pierre schosteck gal yanno olivier carr jean grenet paul jeanneteau philippe vigier philippe feneuil michel issindou pascale crozon yves jgo charles decatherine la verpillire coutelle serge letchimyfrdrique massat valrie rosso-debord ric ciottidaniel goldberg ric diard marie-christine dalloz patrice debray tony dreyfus josiane boyce maxime bono yves albarello franoise hostalier michle delaunay jean-frdric poisson franois pupponi jean-jacques guillet michel havard andr wojciechowski philippe martin guy lefrand alain cacheux ric straumann patrick balkany bertrand pancherrgis juanico marc dolez current stage, we have generated a dataset jean-yves le drian aurlie filippetti isabelle vasseur marianne dubois ccile gallez pierre gosnat thierry carcenac roger boullonnois michel diefenbacher christian eckert delphine batho genevive gaillard catherine lemorton philippe gosselin jean lemire dominique baert claude guant serge grouard nathalie kosciusko-morizet benoist apparu michel lezeau alain marleix frdric de saint-sernin lionel tardy pierre-alain muet michle alliot-marie daniel prevost christianjean-charles jacob taugourdeau franois baroin valrie boyer sbastien huyghe franois de rugy patrice verchre jean-paul lecoq brengre poletti jean-yves cousin jacques kossowski jacques houssin alfred marie-jeanne jean-pierre nicolas jean-louis borloo marcel rogemontric woerth dominique raimbourg jol hart frdric lefebvre george pau-langevin michel raison jrme cahuzac sandrine mazetier franois deluga jean-michel bertrand jean-yves besselat germinal peiro -narquin alain rodet jean-sbastien vialatte martial saddier nicolas forissier franoise olivier-coupeau antoine herth jean-paul chari philippe bonnec bernard debr andr santini alain jupp marguerite lamour jacqueline irles didier mathus louis giscard destaing franck jean-jacquesgilard urvoas damien meslot olivier jard jean-marie rolland arlette grosskost alain merly daniel spagnou jean launay jean-luc prat philippe tourtelier daniel garrigue yves censi franois scellier georges mothron paul quils jean-franois mancel jean gaubert franoise branget sylvia pinel roland muzeau marie-anne montchampfranois fillon pierre morel-a-lhuissier christian hutin jean mallot jrme chartier daniel fidelin luc-marie chatel grard weber xavier breton aim kergueris pierre bourguignon yannick favennec gilles cocquempotjacques plissard ric besson jacques bascou jean-paul chanteguet michel franaix tienne pinte louis-joseph manscour yves simon franoise vallet jean-franois cop jean-paul bacquet jean bardet jacques domergue pierre mhaignerie jean-claude bois serge poignant patrick bloche stphane demilly christian mnard michel liebgott yves cochet sylvie andrieux thierry benoit michel herbillon camille de rocca serra andr flajolet franois guillaume dominique tian michel hunault gilbert mathon sauveur gandolfi-scheit michel piron jean-pierre soisson grard cherpion patrice martin-lalande annick lepetit ATA AND RELIMINARY RESULTS jean-pierre door III.D P claude gatignol marc le fur bernard brochand michel vergnier jean dionis du sjour marc-philippe daubressejean-pierre gorges marcel dehoux marc bernier patrick roy jean-paul garraud marc francina jol beaugendre ccile dumoulin franois dos jean-yves le daut cleste lett georges siffredi ren-paul victoria gilles carrez alain venotherv gaymard daniel prvost jean-claude sandrier pascal brindeau franois brottes alain gest franois grosdidier valrie ltard philippe vitel claude greff francis vercamer jean proriol jean-luc warsmann marc laffineur jean-pierre jouyet richard maill dominique le mner huguette bello christian paul nicolas perruchotfranoise de panafieu jean auclair patrick lemasle dino cinieri jean-ren marsac jacqueline fraysse jean-pierre abelin anne-marie idrac charles de courson olivier dassault michel lefait jean michel edwige antier bernard deflesselles nol mamre pierrechristian moscovici philip andr chassaigne grard hamel claude birraux michel bouvard nadine morano yves coussain patrick braouezec pierre lequiller alain cousin fadela amara grard bapt jean-yves le bouillonnec franois sauvadet martine billard jean-marc roubaud jean roatta franois calvet muriel marland-militello jean-pierre brard chantal bourragu philippe rouault gilbert le bris jean-luc prel yves bur grard menuel serge lepeltier christian vanneste franois loncle pierre morange bruno le roux michel roumegoux valrie pcresse jean glavany marie-louise fort corinne marchal-tarnus jean-pierre defontaine henri nayrou daniel paul bernard pousset jean-louisemmanuel touraine hamelin herv mariton jean-marc ayrault henriette martinez didier migaud claude goasguen alain gouriou catherine gnisson richard malli bernadette pax alain ferry bernard carayon philippe armand martin dominique caillaud ren dosire serge blisko marie-jose roig jean-pierre balligandchristophe caresche nathalie gautier patrick hoguet danile hoffman-rispal grard charasse henri novelli franois goulard jean-louis lonard jean-marie le guen maxime gremetz The dataset is extracted from the corpus of parliamentary michel dasseux pierre ducout franois rochebloine lisabeth guigou douard courtial rodolphe thomas francis saint-lger jean-louis dumont gilles artigues jean dibold gabrielle louis-carabin jean-claude lenoir alain vidalies augustin bonrepaux georges tron henri plagnol jean-claude lemoine jacques myard jean-christophe lagarde marie-jo zimmermann jean-claude bateux alfred trassy-paillogues franois-michel gonnot maurice leroy jacques le guen guy geoffroy prsident. jean-marc lefranc edouard balladurphilippe nauche pierre lasbordes michel vaxs axel poniatowski herv novelli guy drut manuel aeschlimann herv de charetteyves deniaudmile blessig jean-pierre decool alain claeys denis jacquat pascal terrassealain nri marcel bonnot philippe auberger yves nicolin jacques briat serge janquin jacques remiller andr schneider jean-louis idiart odette duriez

genevive perrin-gaillard paul giacobbi michel terrot jean-pierre dufau bernard roman jacques bobe michel sainte-marie frdric reiss christian bataille jean-michel dubernard muguette jacquaint franois asensi marie-franoise prol-dumont jacques desallangre jean-michel boucheron gatan gorce eric besson franois cornut-gentille michel destot jacques dessallangre gabriel biancheri jean-pierre blazy jean-marc nudant jean de gaulle jean-franois rgre bruno sandras jean-claude mathis dominique richardherv morin lionnel luca jrme lambert pierre amouroux georges colombier luc ferry jean-claude viollet jean-michel fourgous philippe briand jolle ceccaldi-raynaud eric jalton francis hillmeyer chantal robin-rodrigo pascal clment nicole ameline alain lambert jean-pierre grand rudy salles eric woerth jacques le nay yves durand andr gerin yves jego bernard laporte michel heinrich debates compiled from the published chamber remarks of the louis cosyns jean le garrec jean jacques urvoas antoine carr jrme bignonclaude vin pierre cardo marie-franoise clergeaujean-michel clment gilles dettore juliana rimane franois hollande claude gaillardalain joyandet frdric dutoit philippe dubourg bernard madrelle philippe morenvillier jean-louis christ daniel mach franois bayrou chantal brunel didier quentin martine lignires-cassou pierre-louis fagniez jean-jacques descamps andr vallini paulette guinchard martine david renaud donnedieu de vabres lonce deprez xavier de roux dominique dord pierre-christophe baguet grard lonard michel pajon jean-yves le bouillonec brigitte le brethon alain marty claude evin pierre cohen odile saugues georges fenech jean-louis bernard patricia adam eric raoult mansour kamardine eric diard nicole guedj arlette franco marie-george buffet ren couanau alain bocquetrichard cazenave philippe houillon etienne pinte andr thien ah koon bernard derosier lon bertrand robert lecou ric raoult jean-jack queyranne pierre hriaud jean-yves hugon nelly olin marie-hlne des esgaulx jean-claude lefortjean-yves chamard paulette guinchard-kunstler franois liberti philippe vuilque daniel poulou gilbert meyer michel voisin lucien degauchy patrick labaune charles cova edouard courtial yves fromion sgolne royal jrme rivire claude leteurtre janine jambu elisabeth guigou tienne maryseblanc joissains-masini jean-pierre giran yves boisseau franois loos albert facon batrice pavy pierre micaux douard landrain jacques-alain bnisti christian decocq louis gudon vronique besse jean-pierre kucheida hlne mignon pierre bdier bertho audifax francis delattre pierre albertini jacques brunhes jean marsaudon colette langlade patrick beaudouin robert pandraud victor brial jean-pierre le ridant lucien guichon gilles bourdouleix klber mesquida jean ueberschlag jacques masdeu-arus thirteenth legislative cycle of the National Assembly of . paul-henri cugnencgrard larcher anne-marie comparini pierre hellier martine carrillon-couvreur franois lamy brigitte bareges jean-paul anciaux gilbert biessy armand jung yvan lachaud jean-marie geveaux bernard schreiner nicolas dupont-aignan alain marsaud pascal mnage frdric soulier denis merville philippe douste-blazy jean-franois chossy robert lamy maurice giro grard leonard christian cabal michel delebarreghislain brayedouard landrain sylvia bassot richard mallie valrie fourneyron claude darciaux roland chassain nolle lenoir jean-marc nesme michel buillard hamlaoui mkachra jean-claude beauchaud lilian zanchi emile zuccarelli jean-claude guibal pierre-andr prissol philippe cochet emile blessig jean-christophe cambadlis jean-claude leroy franois vannson christophe masse gilbert gantier philippe de villiers pierre goldberg jacques floch dominique strauss-kahn philippe pemezecdominique perbenjean-franois lamour batrice vernaudon simon renucci ren andr arnaud lepercq etienne blanc bernard depierre patrick delnatte martine aurillac grard dubrac philippe edmond-mariette jean-marie sermier vincent rolland pierre forgues jean-michel ferrand jean-claude mignon grard voisin jean-claude beaulieugenevive colot roger-grard schwartzenberg bruno bourg-broc michel lejeune maryvonne briot edouard jacque grard grignon marie-rene oget genevive levy ric berdoati

Our dataset runs from 26 July 2007 to 30 June 2011, and guillaume garot loc bouvard danielle bousquet michel charzat marcelle ramonet jean-louis bianco douard dominiqueballadur de villepin dominique juillot jean-claude flory dominique souchet conchita lacuey jean-claude perez jean-claude abrioux jean-marie demange serge roques franoise imbert jean-pierre dupont jean-pierre-brard jacques godfrain jean-marie aubron michel sordi jean besson sophie delong franois daubert monique boulestin marie-odile bouill claudie haigner raymond durand jack lang claude-anne darciaux mile zuccarelli jean-jacques gaultier roland blum michle tabarot ren rouquet etienne mourrut thierry lazaro christophe bouillon grard lorgeoux josette pons guy chambefort

christophe priou irne tharin contains a total of 969 sessions. Each document of the corpus jean-franois mattei jean-paul dupr catherine gmisson dominique paill andr berthol alain cortade jean-pierre raffarin jean-claude thomas jean-marie morisset hlne tanguy andr samitier

andr vzinhet jean-antoine leonetti

andr grin marc reymann hamlaoui mekachera

guy lengagne guy delcourt contains verbatim chamber remarks delivered by the MPs, henri houdouin

jean-claude decagny jean-paul delevoye dominique versini

henri sicre

franck marlin ministers representing the administration, and other policy jean mallot. stakeholders from outside the government who chose to take part in the deliberations. A session may cover a single or multiple topics; sometimes the entire session is dedicated to one issue, while at other times a medley of topics is dealt with in a single session. The documentation procedure follows this structure by listing chamber remarks in order of delivery and Fig. 1. Actor-to-actor network then break the whole session into sublists by the topic on which the speeches were made. This presentation structure allows us to determine the information for (1) grouping other participants in the discourse pay attention to each of chamber remarks based on the time of delivery and (2) tagging the discourse events an actor is involved in. Located centrally each speech with the political and biographical information in the network are actors whose participation in legislative of the speaker and (3) associating the meetings with specific deliberations is regular and frequent. The discourse events they participants based on participation. take part in are also important - their centrality is an indication With this information, a bipartite edgelist with 1,051 unique that those events drawn attention from a large portion of the participants and 7,767 unique discourse events is developed. network community. These of the network is occupied Apart from network information, we are also in the process by important lawmakers who are senior members and hold of extracting biographical and political data of the participants strategic positions in the legislative institutions, such as a in the chamber deliberations, such as party affiliation, gender, membership on the finance committee. In terms of policy age, and constituency composition (in the case of the MPs), agendas, the network centrality of these actors may have a as well as the contents of the parliamentary sessions from positive impact on their ability to control the policy agenda official publications. We propose the following network rep- and manipulate policy frames. resentations of the political discourse with reference to the In between the core region and the margins of the network theoretical and methodological issues cited above. are those actors whose participation is less frequent and While the literature on policy agendas is dominated by the regular. The discourse events they take part in are less relevant studies of the U.S., there is a growing interest in overseas cases for the majority of the network community, perhaps events (John 2006b). In France, several research projects have shown that deal with issues of low political salience. These actors the comparability of the agenda dynamics under constitutional include more junior members of parliament and government arrangements much different from those in the U.S., yet the officials whose participation is relatively infrequent. Young system exhibits the same agenda dynamics observed in the lawmakers may choose to focus on their constituency while U.S. (Baumgartner, Foucault, and Franois 2006). Studying officials do not get involved in parliamentary operations unless parliamentary discourse of the French National Assembly is invited to answer questions and explain legislative proposals. consistent with the current effort by policy agendas scholars to Generally speaking, the ability for them to control the policy examine French politics as a comparison to the U.S. system. agenda and manipulate issue frames is undermined by the This visual representation of the actor-to-actor network,fig1, peripheral location, but at the same time the distance from the shows some expected properties of the legislative discourse in network core may enable them to embrace alternative views the . The many actors involved in legislative of issues. Lastly, there are many actors who are located in deliberations are highly unequal in terms of the frequency, i.e. the peripheral region of the network. These actors take part how often an actor speaks in the chamber, and the importance only a few times in the legislative discourse. Their sporadic of the discourse events they participate, i.e. how many of the involvement means that they can only have minimal impact the issues (Bruninger and Debus 2009). The associated tests bernard madrelle can help us understand the interaction between the private considerations (captured by the personal parameters such as christophe payet age, education, and gender) and the political considerations jacques floch marcel dehoux lilian zanchi (captured by political parameters such as partisanship, con- claude evin jean-pierre blazy guy lengagne stituency composition, and committee membership) in shaping julien drayjean-marie aubron henri emmanuelli

michel charzat expressed issue preference. This also links up our project to alain gouriou serge janquin damien alary didier mathus the theory of source cues (identity of the issue framers) in claude bartolone

augustin bonrepaux jean-michel boucheron christophe masse issue frames (Hartman and Weber 2009). didier migaudjean-louis idiart bernard derosier jean-pierre balligand michel dasseux 2. We will categorize each discourse event based on a jean-marc ayrault

jean-claude bateux nomenclature of policy rubriques, or issue topics, supplied by martine david

christian bataille jean-pierre kucheida jean glavany the archival services of National Assembly. A report is pub- jean le garrec lished every year with summaries of all legislative activities, michel delebarre henri sicre pierre ducout jean-claude beauchaud alain rodet patrick roy including a list of the meetings that have occurred. This can

michel destot help the identification of the discourse structure with reference laurent cathala jean-marie bockel to the actual themes of the deliberations rather than looking at

dominique strauss-kahn the discourse events alone without reference to the contents. With that information, we can estimate the distance between

paulette guinchard issues as a function of the way attention is allocated across

jean-claude leroy these issues by individual lawmakers and participants taking part in chamber deliberations. 3. Seeing how the network structure evolves over time is Fig. 2. Actor-to-actor network in committee important for evaluating claims about the dynamic of agenda setting. Agenda change theories make extensive references to how the contents of the policy agenda and issue frames on the agenda processes inside the legislature. Yet, it would are changed, and these changes cannot be dealt with unless be interesting to see whether they involvement coincide with our dataset covers a longer time frame than our present major shifts in issue frames or policy agendas as they may only dataset. We plan to expand the dataset to cover the X, XI, take part in the deliberations strategically given the scarcity of and XII legislative cycles of National Assembly and realize participation opportunities. the network structures of these legislatures for comparative This graph, fig2, shows how the actors, color-coded based analysis. on committee membership, are linked to each other. We plan to use the same method for other political variables, such as IV. FUTURERESEARCHDIRECTIONS partisanship, length of tenure, and location of constituency. If This paper describes the initial stage of a project that at- a variable determines how actors choose to take part in the tempts to answer some major questions about policy agendas. discourse, we expect the distribution of nodes to follow the New theoretical knowledge can be developed by applying the clustering pattern of the network. Here, for example, members method to international contexts, making use of the actual of the finance committee - a very central body in French contents of the deliberations in the analysis, and looking into politics - occupies central locations on the graph. different indicators of the policy processes. Specifically: Pending analyses 1) Implement comparative analysis for other legislatures These initial outputs only show us the basic clustering belonging to different regime types, and in the long run, patterns of interactions. They can only be fully understood, with political discourse occurring in institutional and however, with information about the actors and the events. organizational contexts other than lawmaking. Cross- To build on these initial outputs, we need to ascertain whether national analysis of agenda setting will serve as an ef- the network representations of the legislative discourse interact fective response to the concern that the theory of agenda with major political, institutional, and contextual variables that setting is dominated by studies of the U.S. (Baumgartner, are known to influence policy agendas. Below is a brief outline Green-Pedersen, and Jones 2006). The methods pre- of how this can be achieved. sented in this paper will be applied to different legis- 1. We will incorporate political and biographical data of latures, where factors such as party system (Walgrave participants into the visualizations. Decisions to participate in a et al. 2006; John 2006a; Breunig 2006), institutional particular discourse event may be related to the actors political structures (Baumgartner, Foucault, and Francois 2006), and personal parameters, such as seniority, constituency com- competitive contexts (Chong and Druckman 2007b), and position, voting margin (seat security), partisanship, committee the size of direct public involvement (Princen and Rhi- membership, and age. If actors similar in any of these respects nard 2006) can be more systematically and collectively cluster together, we can develop some testable hypotheses that examined. This will also form the basis of an effective the variables in question can predict attention allocation to evaluation of the respective roles of human cognition and institution in shaping agenda dynamics (Jones 2001; [5] Baumgartner, Frank R., M. Foucault, and A. Franois. 2006. Punctuated Baumgartner, Brouard, and Grossman 2006). equilibrium in French budgetary processes. Journal of European Public Policy 13(7):1086-103. 2) Analyze the dynamic of discursive interactions between [6] Baumgartner, Frank R., Christoffer Green-Pedersen, and Bryan D. Jones. participants in conjunction with concomitant changes in 2006. Comparative studies of policy agenda. Journal of European Public policy agenda and issue frames where the discourse is Policy 13(7):959-74. [7] Berger, Bruce K. 2001. Private issues and public policy: locating the realized as evolving networks. The temporality of policy corporate agenda in agenda-setting theory. Journal of Public Relations agendas is crucial to the analysis of focusing events Research 13(2): 91-126. and post-event politics (Birkland 1998), group activ- [8] Birkland, Thomas A. 1998. Focusing events, mobilization, and agenda ities (Bachrach and Baratz 1962), media propagation setting. Journal of Public Policy 18(1): 53-74. [9] Bleich, Sara. 2007. Is it all in a word? The effect of issue framing on (Edwards and Wood 1999), diction or choice of words public support for U.S. spending on HIV/AIDS in developing countries. (Belich 2007; Baker 2004; Bachmann 2011), and fluctu- Press/Politics 12(2): 120-32. ations of issue attention over time (Liu, Lindquist, and [10] Bruninger, Thomas, and Marc Debus. 2009. Legislative agenda-setting in parliamentary democracies. European Journal of Political Research 48: Vedlitz 2009). Since the current network is based partly 804-39. on shared issue preference (i.e. choosing to speak on [11] Breunig, C. 2006. The more things change, the more things stay the the same subject matter), not actual act of collaboration same: a comparative analysis of budget punctuations. Journal of European Public Policy 13(7):1086-103. (e.g. co-sponsoring a bill, see Fowler 2006), information [12] Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. 2007a. Framing theory. Annual about word choice would be particularly interesting if Review of Political Science 10: 103-26. brought into the analysis of the networks. It affords [13] Chong, Dennis, and James N. Druckman. 2007b. Framing public opinion in competitive democracies. American Political Science Review 101(4): an opportunity to link the social dimension of agenda 637-55. setting (collaboration through coalition formation) to [14] Cobb, R.W., and C.D. Elder. 1983. Participation in American Politics. the realms of ideas, attitudes, and frames (collaboration Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press. as the sharing frames in communication) (Kinder and [15] Cohen, Michael D., James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. A garbage can model of organizational choice. Administrative Science Sanders 1996; Chong and Druckman 2007b). This will Quarterly 17(1): 1-25. also contribute to the recent development of automated [16] Conover, Michael D., Bruno Gonalves, Jacob Ratkiewicz, Alessandro textual analysis in political science (Grimmer and King Flammini, and Filippo Menczer. 2011. Predicting the political alignment of Twitter users. 2011). [17] Dery, David. 2000. Agenda setting and problem definition. Policy 3) While legislative debates are likely to produce the richest Studies 21(1): 37-47. dataset for the analysis of political discourse, many other [18] Edwards, George C., and B. Dan Wood. 1999. Who influences whom? The President, Congres, and the media. American Political Science government activities can allow us to gauge the pattern Review 93(2): 327-44. of agenda change. Apart from records of legislative [19] Fowler, James H. 2006. Connecting the Congress: A study of cospon- deliberations, digests of cabinet meetings, questions to sorships networks. Political Analysis 14(4):456-87. 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