Cosponsorship networks: factors of deputies’ bill co-authorship of the State Duma (VI–VII convocations)

The research is devoted to cosponsorship networks in the State Duma of VI–VII convocations. The interrelation between the structural characteristics of legislative activity in the State Duma and the indifferent characteristics of deputies when preparing bills are the subject of this article. In particular, the authors raise the question of what factors contribute to co-authorship link formation among deputies. The theoretical part of the paper briefly discusses the main conceptual approaches to the explanation of legislative activity in the Legislatures, the experience of the modern legislative studies of Russian parliamentarianism, as well as the features of the network approach in the newest studies of the Legislatures. Then theoretical hypotheses about the possible determinants of co-authorship relations between deputies are substantiated. The study relies on the original array of data on the open biographical characteristics of the deputies of the State Duma VI-VII, and also incorporates information on the bills from the GAS «Elections» database. The authors used descriptive and inferential network analysis methods to prove various hypotheses on the cosponsorship ties formation. In the networks of cosponsorship of bills, communities were identified based on the maximization of the modularity measure. Inferential regression analysis models were then constructed using the Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) and Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM). The results suggest that the most significant structural determinant of joint lawmaking is joint membership of parliamentary caucuses. Similar biographical characteristics and joint membership in committees are also positively related to lawmaking interaction among MPs. At the same time, the endogenous structure of the network of joint lawmaking has little impact on the co-authorship ties between MPs. 

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