Topics as clusters of citation links to highly cited sources

The case of research on international relations

Bibliographic Data

ID21255941
AuthorsFrank Havemann (0000-0002-0485-2580, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume2
Issue1
Pages204-223
Publication date2021-04-08
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueQuantitative Science Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2641-3337 • E-ISSN: 2641-3337
PublisherMIT Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1162/qss_a_00108
OpenAlexW3045815546
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited21

Following Henry Small in his approach to cocitation analysis, highly cited sources are seen as concept symbols of research fronts. But instead of cocited sources, I cluster citation links, which are the thematically least heterogenous elements in bibliometric studies. To obtain clusters representing topics characterized by concepts, I restrict link clustering to citation links to highly cited sources. Clusters of citation links between papers in a political-science subfield (international relations) and 300 of their sources most cited in the period 2006–2015 are constructed by a local memetic algorithm. It finds local minima in a cost landscape corresponding to clusters, which can overlap each other pervasively. The clusters obtained are well separated from the rest of the network but can have suboptimal cohesion. Cohesive cores of topics are found by applying an algorithm that constructs core-periphery structures in link sets. In this methodological paper I discuss some initial clustering results for the second half of the 10-year period

Bibliometrics · Citation · Citation analysis · Cluster analysis · Co-citation · Maxima and minima · Complex Network Analysis Techniques · scientometrics and bibliometrics research · Web visibility and informetrics

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