Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Public Policy, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2023 Jun 13;18(6):e0287058. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287058. eCollection 2023.
The democracy-science relationship has traditionally been examined through philosophical conjecture and country case studies. There remains limited global-scale empirical research on the topic. This study explores country-level factors related to the dynamics of the global research collaboration network, focusing on structural associations between democratic governance and the strength of international research collaboration ties. This study combines longitudinal data on 170 countries between 2008 and 2017 from the Varieties of Democracy Institute, World Bank Indicators, Scopus, and Web of Science bibliometric data. Methods include descriptive network analysis, temporal exponential random graph models (TERGM), and valued exponential random graph models (VERGM). The results suggest significant positive effects of democratic governance on the formation and strength of international research collaboration ties and homophily between countries with similar levels of democratic governance. The results also show the importance of exogenous factors, such as GDP, population size, and geographical distance, as well as endogenous network factors, including preferential attachment and transitivity.
民主与科学的关系历来是通过哲学推测和国家案例研究来检验的。关于这个主题，全球范围内的实证研究仍然有限。本研究探讨了与全球研究合作网络动态相关的国家层面因素，重点关注民主治理与国际研究合作关系强度之间的结构关联。本研究结合了民主多样性研究所（Varieties of Democracy Institute）、世界银行指标（World Bank Indicators）、Scopus 和 Web of Science 文献计量数据中 2008 年至 2017 年间 170 个国家的纵向数据。方法包括描述性网络分析、时间指数随机图模型（TERGM）和赋值指数随机图模型（VERGM）。结果表明，民主治理对国际研究合作关系的形成和强度以及具有相似民主治理水平的国家之间的同质性具有显著的积极影响。结果还表明，外生因素（如 GDP、人口规模和地理距离）以及内生网络因素（包括优先连接和传递性）的重要性。
