the importance of network analysis in studying international politics

What is it about?

Network theory and analysis are used increasingly to study conflict and cooperation in international politics. The article is an introduction to a special issue on advances in the use of network analysis. We demonstrate that network analysis is valuable to theorise about and empirically analyse complex interdependencies.

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Why is it important?

Network analysis is often treated as just another methods available in the 'toolbox' to study conflict and cooperation. We highlight how networked interdependencies affect conflict and cooperation in a broad range of areas at the center of international relations scholarship. Network analysis is therefore often an essential as (1) a theoretical tools, (2) as measurement tools, and (3) as inferential tools. Further, we use Monte Carlo simulations to illustrate one of the strengths of network analysis, namely that it helps researchers avoid biased inferences when the data generating process underlying the observed data contains extradyadic interdependencies.

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