Visual network analisys for political science database.


The study of networks in political sciences, social sciences and beyond has grown rapidly in recent years. A formal network analysis perspective can be employed to understand political, economic and social organizations and individuals.

This project aims to visualize and analyze bi-national and multilateral agreement networks using network analysis techniques. A first step of this project is devoted to the creation of the database: using the knowledge and the experience of the political scientists, we plan to build a solid database of information covering national and multilateral pacts and treaties for the major influencing powers (USA, France, China and GB) in southeast Asia. Final data will be available for any graph representations on the world map: we are going to explore visual analysis approach and build classical and innovative network analysis measurement for fixed-time and time series networks. We plan to implement basic network metrics (closeness, network density, local centrality, global centrality, betweenness, etc.) and cluster analysis tools to study and examine the temporal evolution of such networks. Part of the investigation will be devoted in studying new measures and properties for time series graphs.

The goal is to develop tools that allow representing network time series and calculating relevant network measures to reveal the properties. This method allows visualization of complex entanglements and interactions between different elements of the security policies of main powers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Team Members:

  • Filippo Visco-Comandini, Universidad de Palermo, Argentina

  • Hugo Meijer, European University Institute, Italy

  • Yohann Michel, European University Institute, Italy