Strong och weak ties inverkan på svensk lagstiftning. En kvantitativ analys.

This essay is structured as a theory test of an article written by Justin H. Kirkland (2011), his work was an application of a network theory on U.S. legislature. The theory he applied was about the importance of weak and strong ties in networks. This essay looked at the work done by Kirkland and decided to examine if his theory would give the same results if applied on a significantly different example in the form of the Swedish legislature. My data consisted of different kinds of bills from Swedish legislature, this data was taken from a freely available database controlled by the Swedish legislature in and of itself. Similar to Kirkland this essay utilizes quantitative methods, in the form of a regression analysis in order to test hypothesizes about the effects of weak and strong ties. Kirklands article concluded that weak ties had a significant effect on legislative success, while strong ties did not, in contrast the results of this essay indicated that when applied on a different and challenging material, Kirklands theory could no longer explain variance in legislative success and neither weak nor strong ties had seemingly any significant effect on legislative success in Swedish legislature.