RIDIR: Collaborative Research: DAPPR: Diffusion Analytics for Public Policy Research

社会、技术和金融系统的稳定，以及组织跨国界工作的能力，都需要跨司法管辖区的公共政策保持一致。然而，进步取决于针对社会问题的创新政策解决方案。法律和法规跨越政治界限的传递避免了创新激励和一致性之间的冲突。目前的项目将提供一个数据库，允许跟踪政策在美国各州的传播情况。该数据库将通过项目网页传播。网络界面还将包括高级分析，以阐明政策传播的途径。用户将能够下载数据和软件，用于他们自己对美国各州政策传递的定制分析。几十年来，政策扩散一直是社会科学关注的焦点，但由于数据和计算技术的限制，研究人员尚未全面考察许多不同政策的扩散模式。调查人员建议将文本和网络分析的尖端方法结合起来，以了解数字化文本所代表的政策是如何通过连接美国各州的网络传播的。研究人员将开发数据和计算方法，以解决政策扩散网络研究中最紧迫的限制。该项目将产生两个主要贡献：(1)一个全面的数据来源，用来跟踪政策从一个州政府转移到另一个州政府的情况，涉及三个管理部门；(2)一个方便用户的开放源码软件包，用于了解政策数字化记录中的传播网络并使之可视化。这些资源将帮助研究人员、公共官员、倡导团体和其他相关利益攸关方了解如何在公共政策的创新和一致性这两个相互冲突的目标之间取得平衡。

Stability in social, technical, and financial systems, as well as the capacity of organizations to work across borders, requires consistency in public policy across jurisdictions. However, progress depends upon innovative policy solutions to society's problems. The transmission of laws and regulations across political boundaries averts a conflict between the incentives for innovation and consistency. The current project will offer a database that allows the tracking of the spread of policies through the US states. The database will be disseminated through project webpages. The web interface will also include advanced analytics that illuminate the pathways through which policies spread. Users will be able to download the data and software for their own custom analysis of policy transmission in the US states. Policy diffusion has been a topic of focus across the social sciences for several decades, but due to limitations of data and computational technology, researchers have not taken a comprehensive look at patterns of diffusion across many different policies. The investigators propose to combine cutting-edge methods of text and network analysis to understand how policies, as represented in digitized text, spread through networks connecting the American states. The investigators will develop both data and computational methods that address the most pressing limitations to the study of policy diffusion networks. The project will result in two key contributions: (1) a comprehensive source of data with which to track the movement of policies from one state government to another, across three governing branches, and (2) a user-friendly, open source software package for understanding and visualizing diffusion networks from digitized records of policies. These resources will help researchers, public officials, advocacy groups, and other relevant stakeholders understand how to balance the competing goals of innovation and consistency in public policy.