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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Riesch, Benjamin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20275
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author Riesch, Benjamin
author_facet Riesch, Benjamin
contents Spatial models are central to the study of political conflict, yet their empirical application often depends on text-based methods. A prominent example is the Wordfish model, which estimates actor positions from political texts. However, a key limitation of Wordfish is its unidimensionality, despite the well-established multidimensional nature of political competition. This contribution introduces Wordkrill, a multidimensional extension of Wordfish that retains the original model's interpretability while allowing for efficient estimation of political positions along multiple latent dimensions. After presenting the mathematical framework of Wordkrill, its utility through brief applications to party manifestos and parliamentary speeches is demonstrated. These examples illustrate both the practical advantages and current limitations of the approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_20275
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Wordkrill: Extending Wordfish into the multidimensional political space
Riesch, Benjamin
Methodology
Social and Information Networks
Spatial models are central to the study of political conflict, yet their empirical application often depends on text-based methods. A prominent example is the Wordfish model, which estimates actor positions from political texts. However, a key limitation of Wordfish is its unidimensionality, despite the well-established multidimensional nature of political competition. This contribution introduces Wordkrill, a multidimensional extension of Wordfish that retains the original model's interpretability while allowing for efficient estimation of political positions along multiple latent dimensions. After presenting the mathematical framework of Wordkrill, its utility through brief applications to party manifestos and parliamentary speeches is demonstrated. These examples illustrate both the practical advantages and current limitations of the approach.
title Wordkrill: Extending Wordfish into the multidimensional political space
topic Methodology
Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20275