Center for Political Studies
Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan
P.O. Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI
48106-1248

Voice: (734) 763-1348
Fax: (734) 764-3341

Title
DHB: The Dynamics of Political Representation and Political Rhetoric

PI
Burt Monroe

Co-PI
Steven Abney (Linguistics, University of Michigan)
Michael Colaresi (Political Science, Michigan State University)
Kevin Quinn (Government, Harvard University)
Dragomir Radev (School of Information , University of Michigan)

Direct Source
NSF

Abstract
This project, representing one of the first major collaborations across linguistics and political science (as well as statistics, computer science, and information science), seeks to exploit the opportunities presented by emerging electronic records, both contemporary and historical, of legislative debates around the world. For political science, such records represent a uniquely detailed account, ranging across multiple time scales, of elite positions on political issues and their dynamics. For linguistics, such records present a unique account of spoken word in a controlled setting, ranging across time scales from minutes to centuries. The massive scale of the databases involved presents statistical and computational challenges of interest and application in other fields. The project seeks to develop the methodological and computational infrastructure necessary to exploit these data for a unique interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary understanding of dynamics in human political and linguistic behavior.