A network analysis of committees in the United States House of Representatives

Abstract

Network theory provides a powerful tool for the representation and analysis of complex systems of interacting agents. Here we investigate the United States House of Representatives network of committees and subcommittees, with committees connected according to ``interlocks'' or common membership. Analysis of this network reveals clearly the strong links between different committees, as well as the intrinsic hierarchical structure within the House as a whole. We show that network theory, combined with the analysis of roll call votes using singular value decomposition, successfully uncovers political and organizational correlations between committees in the House without the need to incorporate other political information.