BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Applying network science to political problems. A conceptual and a nalytical framework for understanding and predicting corruption risks in b usiness-political networks - Silvia Ioana Fierascu (Central European Unive rsity) DTSTART:20160826T092000Z DTEND:20160826T094000Z UID:TALK67068@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:INI IT DESCRIPTION:This short talk is a summary of my in-progress PhD disse rtation\, &ldquo\;The Network Phenomenon of State Capture. Network Dyna mics\, Unintended Consequences\, and Political-Business Elite Relations in Hungary.&rdquo\; The thesis comes as a critique to the typical concep tual and methodological approaches in political science to studying instit utionalized grand corruption. It proposes a novel conceptual and analytica l framework\, rooted in network theory and using network scientific resear ch designs and methods\, to better understand the complex case of a succes sful post-communist democracy turning hybrid regime - Hungary. To this end \, I analyze the formation\, evolution\, and development of different type s of business-political elite and organizational networks\, and their effe cts on the quality of the state and the market\, from the beginning of the democratic regime until today&rsquo\;s illiberal democracy. Using two lar ge empirical datasets - interlocking directorates (business-political elit e and organizational networks\, 1990-2010) and corruption risks in issuer- winner public procurement networks (2009-2012)\, I model these multi-mode\ , dynamic\, and projected networks using statistical methods for network d ata (e.g.\, comparisons to random models\, motif detection\, ergms) and ma chine learning algorithms (e.g.\, regression trees\, random forests). In t his presentation\, I will showcase s ome of the main findings and future research plans. The study is part of a broader research agenda - building a robust conceptual and (network) anal ytical framework for a large cross-country analysis of corruption risks in public procurement\, with data-driven and evidence-based policy recommend ations. I will end the talk with highlighting some of the successes \, challenges\, and questions I have encountered in applying network scien ce to better understand political problems. LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR