Cool Infographics

View Original

A House Divided: The Rise of Political Partisanship

The Rise of Partisanship in the House of Representatives is a video infographic showing network maps and animating their change over time. Business Insider published this great data visualization video earlier this year.

See this content in the original post

This 60-second animation shows how divided Congress has become over the last 60 years

It's news to no one that Congress has had a hard time passing legislation in recent years. Some have even asserted that partisanship in Washington has reached historic levels. But how do we put the current divide in perspective? A group of researchers recently tried to quantify and visualize House partisanship in a paper published in PLoS ONE.

Produced by Alex Kuzoian. Original visualization by Mauro Martino.

To understand what is being displayed:

  • Each dot represents a member of the U.S. House of Representatives

  • Connection lines represent when two members voted the same way

  • Connection line thickness represents how often they voted together during each 2-year period

  • Dot size based on the total number of connections

  • Color represents political party

A poster version of this design is also available on Mauro Martino's site:

Thanks to Sue Miller for sharing on Facebook!