Analyzing Ideological Communities in Congressional Voting Networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how ideological communities form and change over time in congressional voting networks using data from Brazil and the US, revealing distinct structural and dynamic patterns.

Contribution

It introduces a methodology to identify and analyze ideological communities and their evolution in political party systems over 15 years.

Findings

Distinct community patterns in Brazil and US

Community polarization varies over time

Structural and dynamic differences identified

Abstract

We here study the behavior of political party members aiming at identifying how ideological communities are created and evolve over time in diverse (fragmented and non-fragmented) party systems. Using public voting data of both Brazil and the US, we propose a methodology to identify and characterize ideological communities, their member polarization, and how such communities evolve over time, covering a 15-year period. Our results reveal very distinct patterns across the two case studies, in terms of both structural and dynamic properties.