Networks in Political Science Conference

该提案寻求资金，以便于2008年6月在哈佛大学举办一次会议，汇集研究政治科学网络的学者。尽管网络分析工具在过去十年中得到了极大的发展，但大多数都是在政治科学之外开发的。会议的目的是让一直在处理政治科学中网络分析的独特问题的学者探讨这种分析中出现的共同问题。参与者将包括与网络分析的复杂性作斗争的政治科学家，他们相信网络分析的发展将对政治科学分析个人与正式制度之间的关键关系的能力做出重大贡献，并相信当前个人的努力将通过创造机会共同解决这些问题而受益匪浅。政治科学的应用为网络分析提供了重要的理论挑战，因为政治科学的具体兴趣变量和方法不同于社会学和其他领域。同时，网络方法论的应用将有助于将政治科学更积极地引入这些知识群体之间的合作，并有助于在政治科学和网络研究中带来重要的理论和基础设施进步。会议将加快发展和传播创新的步伐，因此现有的方法（理论的、经验的、分析的）将更迅速地应用于政治科学问题的范围，这些问题目前强调个人行为和正式制度，不易分析。该项目更广泛的影响包括培训至少15-20名尚未接受过网络分析培训的研究生和教师。会议还将扩大网络分析的最新进展向政治学听众的传播，以确保当前对政策和政治制度的分析具有这些技术，可用于研究受网络或关系影响的广泛主题。

This proposal seeks funding to stage a conference at Harvard University in June 2008 to bring together scholars studying networks in political science. Although network analysis tools have expanded dramatically in the past decade, most have been developed outside of political science. The purpose of the conference is to allow scholars who have been dealing with the unique problems of network analysis in political science to explore common problems that arise in this analysis. The participants will include political scientists who struggle with the complexities of network analysis, believe that the development of network analysis will contribute significantly to the ability of political science to analyze critical relationships that fall between individuals and formal institutions, and believe that current individual efforts will benefit substantially by creating opportunities to work together on these problems.Political science applications offer important theoretical challenges to network analysis because the specific variables of interest and approach in political science differ from those in sociology and other fields. At the same time, the application of network methodology will help to bring political science more actively into collaboration across these intellectual communities and help bring important theoretical and infrastructure advances in both political science and network studies. A conference will increase the pace of development and spread of innovations, so available approaches (theoretical, empirical, analytical) will be applied more rapidly to the range of political science issues that are not readily analyzed with the current emphasis on individual behavior and formal institutions.This project's broader impacts include the training of at least 15-20 graduate students and faculty not already trained in network analysis. The conference will also broaden the dissemination of the most recent advances in network analysis to a political science audience, to ensure that current analyses of policies and the political system have these techniques available for studying the broad range of topics affected by networks or relationships.