  The democracy-science relationship has traditionally been examined through
philosophical conjecture and single country case studies. There remains limited
global scale empirical research on the topic. This study explores country level
factors related to the dynamics of the global scientific research collaboration
network, focusing on structural associations between democratic governance and
the strength of international research collaboration ties. This study combines
longitudinal data on 170 countries between 2008 and 2017 from the Varieties of
Democracy Institute, World Bank Indicators, Scopus, and Web of Science
bibliometric data. Methods of analysis include descriptive network analysis,
temporal exponential random graph models (TERGM), and valued exponential random
graph models (VERGM). The results suggest positive significant effects of
democratic governance on the formation and strength of international research
collaboration ties, as well as homophily between countries with similar levels
of democratic governance. The results also show the importance of exogenous
factors, such as GDP, population size, and geographical distance, as well as
endogenous network factors including preferential attachment and transitivity.
