Hot Topics in the House: The Formation and Importance of Congressional Speech Networks
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Date
2024-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Congressional speeches drive policy making and political debate at the national level. As a crucial method of communication, these speeches directly reflect legislators’ political agendas and serve as a vehicle by which members of Congress can convey their political priorities and advocate for important issues. Previous work applied well-known natural language processing methods to determine the level of rhetorical similarity between speeches contained in the Daily Edition of the Congressional Record from 1981 to 2017, developing relational networks between members of Congress based on these similarities. Through the application of a pooled temporal exponential random graph model to these networks, the impact of various endogenous (inside the network) and exogenous (outside the network) effects on the formation of congressional speech networks over this 36-year period of time is evaluated. Analysis of factors that contribute to the formation of network ties in each Congress yields significant insights into the evolution of rhetorical relationships over time. Moreover, it sheds light on the underlying dynamics and trends driving similarities between the topics discussed in speeches given on the House floor. Ultimately, these speech networks provide a direct window into the motivations and beliefs underlying congressional rhetoric. This unique glimpse into the inner workings of Congress improves our understanding of the most important legislative body in the United States and motivates future research studying this institution.
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Keywords
congress, speech, networks, language, temporal exponential random graph model