Participation in Social Networks: The Case of the American Legislative Council and Arkansas State Legislators

• In Event: 50416 - Political Organizations

Abstract

Scholars suggest that members of both “hybrid” and citizen legislatures often rely on lobbyists for policy information, especially in emerging policy areas. One such source of policy information is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a prominent conservative-oriented organization known for drafting generic bills at gatherings, which legislative members from various states can then introduce in their own jurisdictions. Building upon this prior research, we conduct the Social Network Analysis of the co-participation of the ALEC conferences from 2011 to 2022 among 27 Arkansas legislators. We also employ an exponential random graph model (ERGM) using partisanship, geographical location, legislative chamber, overlapping tenures, and gender. The goal of this article is to determine who participates in these voluntary networking opportunities and who does not. Participation in ALEC events is not uniform, even among conservative legislators, though we do find that clustered participation by party among Arkansas legislators, with Democratic participation ending as the two parties became more polarized. More importantly, ALEC participation did foster more networking between colleagues from different regions of the state. We also find that the few women who participate play disproportionately larger roles as central actors in linking these conservative policy networks within ALEC together and focus on one female Arkansas legislator who serves as the bridge between fiscal and business regulation networks within ALEC affiliates.

Authors

• Melanie Hoskins

• Andrew Dowdle, University of Arkansas

• Song Yang, University of Arkansas