Detecting the money networks of US politics…

David LazerNortheastern University

The money ecosystem of US politics

• The network and organizational dimensions

From Lin and Lazer (2010)

Geography of money

From Onnela and Lazer (2009)

Enormous regional inequalities…

• Per capita contributions, zip 66508 (Marshall KS) for 1999-2010:

• Per capita contributions, zip 10013 (New York City) for 1999-2010:

• $4.71

• $178.48

Population density, market niches, and collective action

• If you can’t find a niche in Manhattan, you can’t find it anywhere…

• The potential of making contributions that are “noticed”

• The utilization of networks to mobilize people• The existence of a critical mass for almost

anything (who wants a fundraising party with 3 people?)

The Political-Money networks

From Ruths and Lazer (2009)

Prominent pairs…

• Boston– Ryan Vincent & Carla Meyer - board members

• Washington DC– Ed Rogers & Lanny Griffith - partners in lobbying

firm• Los Angeles– Spielberg & Katzenberg - film producers

• NYC– Debra Black & Judith Hannan - board members

Population density of affluent…

• A key predictor of per capita contributions is # of affluent per square mile

The organizational dimension

Bottom line…

• Median voter vs median dollar…• Heavy bias toward need to “harvest money”

from geographically concentrated top few percent

• Corporation as setting to mobilize money• Democratic bias, because of Democratic tilt of

high population density areas

Where now?

• The Internet and Obama ’08: – the irrelevance of geography?– digging deeper into the income hierarchy?

• Citizens United– The 1% (or so) vs the .0001%– The importance of very different types of

networks and networking behavior