{"id":377,"date":"2012-03-19T07:46:48","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T07:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rulesofreason.wordpress.com\/?p=377"},"modified":"2012-03-19T07:46:48","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T07:46:48","slug":"visualizing-left-right-government-positions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=377","title":{"rendered":"Visualizing left-right government positions"},"content":{"rendered":"

How does the political landscape of Europe change over time? One way to approach this question is to map the socio-economic left-right positions of the governments in power. So let’s plot the changing ideological \u00a0positions of the governments using data from the Manifesto<\/a> project! As you will see below, this proved to be a more challenging task than I imagined, but the preliminary results are worth sharing nonetheless.<\/p>\n

First, we need to extract the left-right positions from the Manifesto<\/a> dataset. Using the function described here<\/a>, this is straightforward:<\/p>\n

lr2000<-manifesto.position('rile', start=2000, end=2000)<\/code><\/p>\n

This compiles the (weighted) cabinet positions for the European countries for the year 2000. Next, let’s generate a static map. We can use the new package<\/a> rworldmap <\/code>for this purpose. Let’s also build a custom palette that maps colors to left-right values. Since in Europe red traditionally is the color of the political left (the socialists), the palette ranges from dark red to gray to dark blue (for the right-wing governments).<\/p>\n

library (rworldmap)\nop <- palette(c('red4','red3','red2','red1','grey','blue1', 'blue2','blue3', 'blue4'))<\/pre>\n
After recoding the name of the UK, we are ready to bind our data and plot the map. You can save the map as a png<\/code> file.<\/p>\n
library(car)\nlr2000$State<-recode(lr$State, \"'Great Britain'='United Kingdom'\")\n\nlrmapdata <- joinCountryData2Map( lr2000,joinCode = \"NAME\", nameJoinColumn = \"State\", mapResolution='medium')\n\npar(mai=c(0,0,0.2,0),xaxs=\"i\",yaxs=\"i\")\npng(file='LR2000map.png', width=640,height=480)\nmapCountryData( lrmapdata, nameColumnToPlot=\"position\",colourPalette=op, xlim=c(-9,31), ylim=c(36,68), mapTitle='2000', aspect=1.25,addLegend=T )\ndev.off()<\/pre>\n
The limits on on the x- and y-axes center the map on Europe. It is a process of trial and error till you get it right, and the limits need to be co-ordinated with the aspect and the width and height of the png<\/code> file so that the map looks reasonably well-proportioned. Here \u00a0is the result (click to see in full resolution):<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
It looks a bit chunky but not too bad. Next, we have to find a way to show developments over time. We could show several plots for different years on one page, but this is not very effective:<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n
A much better way would be to make the maps dynamic, or, in other words, to animate them. But this is easier said than done. After searching for a few days for tools that can accomplish the job, I settled for producing individual maps for each month, importing the series into Adobe Flash, and exporting a simple animation movie. The R code to produce\u00a0 the individual\u00a0 maps:<\/p>\n
lr<-manifesto.position('rile', start=1948, end=2008, period='month')\nlr$State<-recode(lr$State, \"'Great Britain'='United Kingdom'\")\nu.c<-unique(lr$Year.month)\nfor (i in 1:length(u.c)){\n     lr.temp<-subset(lr, lr$Year.month==u.c[i])\n     lrmapdata <- joinCountryData2Map( lr.temp,joinCode = \"NAME\", nameJoinColumn = \"State\", mapResolution='medium')\n     plot.name<-paste('.\/maps\/map',i,'.png', sep='') \n\n     par(mai=c(0,0,0.2,0),xaxs=\"i\",yaxs=\"i\")\n     png(file=plot.name, width=640,height=480)\n     mapCountryData( lrmapdata, nameColumnToPlot=\"position\",colourPalette=op, xlim=c(-9,31), ylim=c(36,68), mapTitle=u.c[i], aspect=1.25,addLegend=T )\n     dev.off() }<\/pre>\n
And here is the result (opens outside the post):<\/em><\/p>\n
Flash video of Left-Right positions<\/a> (slow)<\/p>\n
It kind of works, it has buttons for navigation, but it has one major flow – it is damn slow. It should be 12 frames (maps) per second, and it is 12 fps inside Flash, but once exported, the frame rate goes down (probably because my laptop’s processor is too slow). In fact, I can<\/em> export a fast version, but only if I get rid of the control buttons. Here it is (right-click and press play to start):<\/p>\n
Flash video of Left-Right positions<\/a> (fast)<\/p>\n
You can also play the animation as an AVI video (uploaded on YouTube), but somehow, through the mysteries of video-processing, a crisp slideshow of 8mb ended up as a low-res movie of 600mb.<\/p>\n