Bruno Wüest | University of Zurich, Switzerland (original) (raw)
Papers by Bruno Wüest
Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 2011
Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are onl... more Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are only a few software packages that apply natural language processing to identify semantic concepts such as issue categories or political statements by actors. Although these procedures usually allow efficient data collection, most have difficulty in achieving sufficient accuracy because of the high complexity and mutual relationships of the variables used in the social sciences. To address these flaws, we suggest a (semi-) automatic annotation approach that implements an innovative coding method (Core Sentence Analysis) by computational linguistic techniques (mainly entity recognition, concept identification, and dependency parsing). Although such computational linguistic tools have been readily available for quite a long time, social scientists have made astonishingly little use of them. The principal aim of this article is to gather data on party-issue relationships from newspaper articles. In the first stage, we try to recognize relations between parties and issues with a fully automated system. This recognition is extensively tested against manually annotated data of the coverage in the boulevard newspaper Blick of the Swiss national parliamentary elections of 2003 and 2007. In the second stage, we discuss possibilities for extending our approach, such as by enriching these relations with directional measures indicating their polarity.
Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are onl... more Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are only a few software packages that apply natural language processing to identify semantic concepts such as issue categories or political statements by actors. Although these procedures usually allow efficient data collection, most have difficulty in achieving sufficient accuracy because of the high complexity and mutual relationships of the variables used in the social sciences. To address these flaws, we suggest a (semi-)automatic annotation approach that implements an innovative coding method (Core Sentence Analysis) by computational linguistic techniques (mainly entity recognition, concept identification, and dependency parsing). Although such computational linguistic tools have been readily available for quite a long time, social scientists have made astonishingly little use of them. The principal aim of this paper is to gather data on party-issue relationships from newspaper articles. In the first stage, we try to recognize relations between parties and issues with a fully automated system. This recognition is extensively tested against manually annotated data of the coverage in the boulevard newspaper Blick of the Swiss national parliamentary elections of 2003 and 2007. In the second stage, we discuss possibilities for extending our approach, such as by enriching these relations with directional measures indicating their polarity.
Citizens are increasingly dissatisfied with the political system and wide-spread vote abstention ... more Citizens are increasingly dissatisfied with the political system and wide-spread vote abstention potentially undermines the legitimacy of votes in established democracies such as Switzerland. Drawing on survey data for 39 popular votes in Switzerland from 1999 until 2010, this article shows that Internet exposure has ambiguous implications for this `crisis of disengagement'. The de-hierarchization of communication networks drives political polarization and reduces individual trust in national government. At the same time, however, the interactive nature of the Internet increases the likelihood for political participation. On the conceptual level, we are therefore offering a theoretical framework that integrates the influence of the Internet on polarization and political participation into one single analysis. These two major strands of research on digital politics have so far lived quite separate lives. Empirically, our results are more robust compared to previous studies, since...
Political Conflict in Western Europe, 2012
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
ABSTRACT For now more than four decades, quantitative protest event analysis (PEA) has routinely ... more ABSTRACT For now more than four decades, quantitative protest event analysis (PEA) has routinely contributed to the testing and refinement of theories on political processes from different perspectives. However, it is commonly agreed that PEA data face serious challenges regarding their data sources. Precisely, researchers applying PEA struggle with the fact that they cannot use multiple sources for large geographical areas and long time periods. As a consequence, most of the scholarship still focuses on a narrow set of European countries or the United States and does not cover the period since the early 2000s. We are bringing PEA and computational linguistics together to suggest and evaluate an approach that will enable political scientists to extend their research designs with a more efficient and at the same time reliable data collection. The approach relies on hidden topic models, word space models, and named entity recognition to identify and code protest events.
ournal of Information Technology and Politics, 2011
Comparative European Politics, 2013
Journal of European Public Policy, 2015
European Journal of Political Research, 2010
This article analyses how political parties frame European integration, and gauges the consistenc... more This article analyses how political parties frame European integration, and gauges the consistency of their argumentation. Over the course of investigation, one can see how actors' positions are justified, and how the European Union is perceived (i.e., what forces give rise to Euroscepticism and Europeanism). It is argued here that the parties' framing of issues depends on the interests they traditionally defend at the national level, their general positions on European integration, and whether or not they belong to the established political actors in their respective countries. The coding approach enables the relation of frames to actors and positions, moving beyond the techniques employed by existing studies that analyse the media presentation of European integration. Sophisticated frame categorisations are provided to capture the complex structure of argumentation, going beyond a simple dichotomy of economic and cultural frames. Relying on a large and original media dataset covering the period 2004–2006, six Western European countries are investigated.
The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2008
ABSTRACT Opinion polls as a linkage mechanism between the public and politics have rarely been ex... more ABSTRACT Opinion polls as a linkage mechanism between the public and politics have rarely been examined in a parliamentary context. In our comparative study (Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) we analyse if and how polls are invoked by MPs with different roles in parliamentary debates. Focusing on three theo- retical aspects (responsiveness, populism and deliberation), we find that polls are indeed invoked to bring the views of the public into parliamentary debate to some degree, but they are also often used merely to support policies already developed in the political realm. Fears of the populist effect of polls are exaggerated; polls, in fact, have a positive influence on the discursive quality of parliament. Looking at par- liamentary roles, we find very different patterns of poll use: while MPs oriented towards their constituencies use polls in the most direct and participatory vein, others mediate public opinion as displayed by polls through different institutions (the party, the parliament) or through expertise.
This paper proposes to study how the European integration process is framed. Such an analysis hel... more This paper proposes to study how the European integration process is framed. Such an analysis helps us better understand how the European Union is perceived and which arguments are mobilized to support or oppose it. We will test a series of hypotheses that have so far only been tested in individual countries. Drawing on Habermas' typology of pragmatic-, identity-and value-related arguments we provide sophisticated frame categorizations to capture the complex structure of argumentation and to go beyond a simple dichotomization of economic and cultural frames. Relaying on a large media dataset for the period from 2004 to 2006 in six Western European countries we not only look at how political actors argue, but also whether framing strategies vary across countries and issues that are debated. We will come to the conclusion that the way the European Union is perceived depends a lot on the actors that are involved in the debate and the issues that are at stake.
Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 2011
Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are onl... more Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are only a few software packages that apply natural language processing to identify semantic concepts such as issue categories or political statements by actors. Although these procedures usually allow efficient data collection, most have difficulty in achieving sufficient accuracy because of the high complexity and mutual relationships of the variables used in the social sciences. To address these flaws, we suggest a (semi-) automatic annotation approach that implements an innovative coding method (Core Sentence Analysis) by computational linguistic techniques (mainly entity recognition, concept identification, and dependency parsing). Although such computational linguistic tools have been readily available for quite a long time, social scientists have made astonishingly little use of them. The principal aim of this article is to gather data on party-issue relationships from newspaper articles. In the first stage, we try to recognize relations between parties and issues with a fully automated system. This recognition is extensively tested against manually annotated data of the coverage in the boulevard newspaper Blick of the Swiss national parliamentary elections of 2003 and 2007. In the second stage, we discuss possibilities for extending our approach, such as by enriching these relations with directional measures indicating their polarity.
Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are onl... more Among the many applications in social science for the entry and management of data, there are only a few software packages that apply natural language processing to identify semantic concepts such as issue categories or political statements by actors. Although these procedures usually allow efficient data collection, most have difficulty in achieving sufficient accuracy because of the high complexity and mutual relationships of the variables used in the social sciences. To address these flaws, we suggest a (semi-)automatic annotation approach that implements an innovative coding method (Core Sentence Analysis) by computational linguistic techniques (mainly entity recognition, concept identification, and dependency parsing). Although such computational linguistic tools have been readily available for quite a long time, social scientists have made astonishingly little use of them. The principal aim of this paper is to gather data on party-issue relationships from newspaper articles. In the first stage, we try to recognize relations between parties and issues with a fully automated system. This recognition is extensively tested against manually annotated data of the coverage in the boulevard newspaper Blick of the Swiss national parliamentary elections of 2003 and 2007. In the second stage, we discuss possibilities for extending our approach, such as by enriching these relations with directional measures indicating their polarity.
Citizens are increasingly dissatisfied with the political system and wide-spread vote abstention ... more Citizens are increasingly dissatisfied with the political system and wide-spread vote abstention potentially undermines the legitimacy of votes in established democracies such as Switzerland. Drawing on survey data for 39 popular votes in Switzerland from 1999 until 2010, this article shows that Internet exposure has ambiguous implications for this `crisis of disengagement'. The de-hierarchization of communication networks drives political polarization and reduces individual trust in national government. At the same time, however, the interactive nature of the Internet increases the likelihood for political participation. On the conceptual level, we are therefore offering a theoretical framework that integrates the influence of the Internet on polarization and political participation into one single analysis. These two major strands of research on digital politics have so far lived quite separate lives. Empirically, our results are more robust compared to previous studies, since...
Political Conflict in Western Europe, 2012
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
ABSTRACT For now more than four decades, quantitative protest event analysis (PEA) has routinely ... more ABSTRACT For now more than four decades, quantitative protest event analysis (PEA) has routinely contributed to the testing and refinement of theories on political processes from different perspectives. However, it is commonly agreed that PEA data face serious challenges regarding their data sources. Precisely, researchers applying PEA struggle with the fact that they cannot use multiple sources for large geographical areas and long time periods. As a consequence, most of the scholarship still focuses on a narrow set of European countries or the United States and does not cover the period since the early 2000s. We are bringing PEA and computational linguistics together to suggest and evaluate an approach that will enable political scientists to extend their research designs with a more efficient and at the same time reliable data collection. The approach relies on hidden topic models, word space models, and named entity recognition to identify and code protest events.
ournal of Information Technology and Politics, 2011
Comparative European Politics, 2013
Journal of European Public Policy, 2015
European Journal of Political Research, 2010
This article analyses how political parties frame European integration, and gauges the consistenc... more This article analyses how political parties frame European integration, and gauges the consistency of their argumentation. Over the course of investigation, one can see how actors' positions are justified, and how the European Union is perceived (i.e., what forces give rise to Euroscepticism and Europeanism). It is argued here that the parties' framing of issues depends on the interests they traditionally defend at the national level, their general positions on European integration, and whether or not they belong to the established political actors in their respective countries. The coding approach enables the relation of frames to actors and positions, moving beyond the techniques employed by existing studies that analyse the media presentation of European integration. Sophisticated frame categorisations are provided to capture the complex structure of argumentation, going beyond a simple dichotomy of economic and cultural frames. Relying on a large and original media dataset covering the period 2004–2006, six Western European countries are investigated.
The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2008
ABSTRACT Opinion polls as a linkage mechanism between the public and politics have rarely been ex... more ABSTRACT Opinion polls as a linkage mechanism between the public and politics have rarely been examined in a parliamentary context. In our comparative study (Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) we analyse if and how polls are invoked by MPs with different roles in parliamentary debates. Focusing on three theo- retical aspects (responsiveness, populism and deliberation), we find that polls are indeed invoked to bring the views of the public into parliamentary debate to some degree, but they are also often used merely to support policies already developed in the political realm. Fears of the populist effect of polls are exaggerated; polls, in fact, have a positive influence on the discursive quality of parliament. Looking at par- liamentary roles, we find very different patterns of poll use: while MPs oriented towards their constituencies use polls in the most direct and participatory vein, others mediate public opinion as displayed by polls through different institutions (the party, the parliament) or through expertise.
This paper proposes to study how the European integration process is framed. Such an analysis hel... more This paper proposes to study how the European integration process is framed. Such an analysis helps us better understand how the European Union is perceived and which arguments are mobilized to support or oppose it. We will test a series of hypotheses that have so far only been tested in individual countries. Drawing on Habermas' typology of pragmatic-, identity-and value-related arguments we provide sophisticated frame categorizations to capture the complex structure of argumentation and to go beyond a simple dichotomization of economic and cultural frames. Relaying on a large media dataset for the period from 2004 to 2006 in six Western European countries we not only look at how political actors argue, but also whether framing strategies vary across countries and issues that are debated. We will come to the conclusion that the way the European Union is perceived depends a lot on the actors that are involved in the debate and the issues that are at stake.