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Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: Applications of Automated Document Classification Using Support Vector Machines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Vito D'Orazio ,
Steven T. Landis ,
Glenn Palmer  and
Philip Schrodt
Vito D'Orazio*
Affiliation:
Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University
Steven T. Landis
Affiliation:
National Center for Atmospheric Research, FL2-2096, 3450 Mitchell Lane, Boulder, CO 80301. e-mail: landis.steven@gmail.com
Glenn Palmer
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Pennsylvania State University. e-mail: gpalmer@psu.edu
Philip Schrodt
Affiliation:
Parus Analytical Systems, 100 N. Patterson St., State College, PA 16801. e-mail: schrodt735@gmail.com
*
e-mail: dorazio@iq.harvard.edu (corresponding author)
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Abstract

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Due in large part to the proliferation of digitized text, much of it available for little or no cost from the Internet, political science research has experienced a substantial increase in the number of data sets and large-n research initiatives. As the ability to collect detailed information on events of interest expands, so does the need to efficiently sort through the volumes of available information. Automated document classification presents a particularly attractive methodology for accomplishing this task. It is efficient, widely applicable to a variety of data collection efforts, and considerably flexible in tailoring its application for specific research needs. This article offers a holistic review of the application of automated document classification for data collection in political science research by discussing the process in its entirety. We argue that the application of a two-stage support vector machine (SVM) classification process offers advantages over other well-known alternatives, due to the nature of SVMs being a discriminative classifier and having the ability to effectively address two primary attributes of textual data: high dimensionality and extreme sparseness. Evidence for this claim is presented through a discussion of the efficiency gains derived from using automated document classification on the Militarized Interstate Dispute 4 (MID4) data collection project.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , Spring 2014 , pp. 224 - 242
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

Footnotes

Authors' note: The authors would like to thank Emre Haptipoglu, Matthew Lane, and Michael Kenwick for their work on the MID4 project. We would also like to thank the editors of Political Analysis and the anonymous reviewers for their insight and constructive comments. Supplementary materials for this article are available on the Political Analysis Web site.

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