ECtHR Citation Network Rankings Analysis

This repository is the reproducibility package for the ECtHR citation-network paper. The active source of truth is the script-based workflow under scripts/. Notebook-era experiments, alternative data exports, deprecated network families, and superseded results have been moved to archive/.

What This Repository Contains

The repository is organized around the path from source metadata to the paper:

rankings/
├── data/        # Canonical in-repo source data
├── scripts/     # Active executable code
├── networks/    # Active paper-used network family
├── results/     # Fixed centrality bundles and paper-facing outputs
├── docs/        # Manuscript, traceability, reproduction, reflections
└── archive/     # Historical material kept for traceability

Source Of Truth

The active reproducibility path is:

1. data/METADATA/echr_metadata.csv
   • Canonical metadata export retained in-repo.
2. scripts/load/
   • Processes metadata and extracts citation edges into results/load/.
3. scripts/generate/
   • Rebuilds networks/merged-article-edges/, supporting tables, supporting figures, and the per-network centrality bundles.
4. scripts/analysis/
   • Produces the paper-facing comparisons, threshold analyses, and figures from the centrality-enriched total_df.csv tables.

Main Locations

• data/METADATA/echr_metadata.csv
  • Source metadata used to derive citation edges and network partitions.
• networks/merged-article-edges/
  • Active network family used to generate the centrality results.
• results/fixed-merged-subarticles-edges/
  • Fixed centrality-enriched total_df.csv bundles used by the paper-facing analysis scripts.
• results/analysis/
  • Analysis outputs that support the manuscript claims.
• results/analysis/00_supporting_tables/network_statistics_updated.csv
  • Supporting network statistics table.
• results/analysis/00_supporting_figures/correlation_matrix.png
  • Supporting correlation matrix figure.
• docs/paper/paper.tex
  • Manuscript source.
• docs/TRACEABILITY.md
  • Maps paper figures, tables, and claims to scripts and generated files.
• docs/REPRODUCE.md
  • Submission-facing reproduction guide.
• docs/REFLECTIONS.md
  • Consolidated notes on methodological choices and abandoned directions.

Active Script Families

• scripts/load/
  • Prepares metadata-derived node/edge outputs from the canonical CSV.
• scripts/generate/
  • Recreates the active network family and non-paper-facing supporting artifacts such as the correlation matrix and statistics table.
• scripts/analysis/
  • Generates the paper-facing outputs, including the high/low performer counts, composite-threshold comparisons, priority comparisons, and overlay figures.

Quick Start

Activate the environment:

source venv/bin/activate

Run the load-stage scripts if you need to rebuild metadata-derived artifacts:

venv/bin/python scripts/load/process_metadata.py
venv/bin/python scripts/load/extract_edges.py

Run the generation scripts to rebuild supporting artifacts:

venv/bin/python scripts/generate/00_generate_merged_article_edge_networks.py
venv/bin/python scripts/generate/01_generate_network_statistics.py
venv/bin/python scripts/generate/02_build_centrality_results.py \
  --network-dir networks/merged-article-edges/split-unbalanced \
  --output-dir results/rebuilt/split-unbalanced \
  --min-nodes 50
venv/bin/python scripts/generate/03_generate_correlation_matrix.py \
  --input results/fixed-merged-subarticles-edges/importance-merged/unbalanced/total_df.csv \
  --output results/analysis/00_supporting_figures/correlation_matrix.png

Run the paper-facing analyses:

venv/bin/python scripts/analysis/01_find_best_high_low.py
venv/bin/python scripts/analysis/03_test_paper_composite.py
venv/bin/python scripts/analysis/04_test_optimized_threshold_composite.py
venv/bin/python scripts/analysis/05_compare_across_network_types.py
venv/bin/python scripts/analysis/06_test_low_relevance_priority.py
venv/bin/python scripts/analysis/07_compare_priority_approaches.py
venv/bin/python scripts/analysis/08_visualize_balanced_overlay.py

Documentation

• docs/README.md indexes the active supplementary-facing documents.
• docs/TRACEABILITY.md maps paper claims to scripts and outputs.
• docs/REPRODUCE.md describes the supported rerun modes and Makefile targets.
• scripts/README.md explains how the active script families fit together.
• scripts/load/README.md, scripts/generate/README.md, and scripts/analysis/README.md describe each script and its outputs.
• results/README.md describes the active result roots and what they contain.
• archive/README.md documents the boundary between active and historical material.