Multilevel exponential random graph models application to civil participation studies

Abstract

Due to the development of the Internet and social networks, civil participation in political processes is taking new forms, not accounted for in the classical theoretical frameworks. In this study, we present a new methodology for researching these new, unconventional forms of civil participation. We use data collected from a social network site VK.com. Social network analysis methods, such as multilevel exponential random graph models (ERGM) were used to analyze the data. First proposed by Wang in 2013, multilevel ERGM allows us to model tie formation in a wide class of social networks. This method allows us to efficiently model group membership based on node attributes. Since the collected data is fundamentally 2-mode, this model allows us to identify the important factors that lead people to join online protest communities.