Quantifying Global Networks of Exchange through the Louvain Method

Abstract: Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports provide detailed analyses of major policy issues to members of the US Congress. We extract and analyze data from 2,010 CRS reports written between 1996 and 2024 in order to quantify the relationships between countries. The data is processed and converted into a weighted graph, representing 172 unique countries as nodes and 4,137 interests as bidirectional edges. Through the Louvain method, we use a greedy algorithm to extract non-overlapping communities from our network and identify clusters with shared interests. We then compute the eigenvector centrality of countries, effectively highlighting their network influence. The results of this work could enable improvements in sourcing evidence for analytic products and understanding the connectivity of our world.