Social network analysis as a tool for the analysis of the international trade network of aquatic products

Abstract

Social network analysis (SNA) is an efficient method to describe network characteristics from various specific aspects. In this study, it took world countries (areas) as the primary units of analysis and introduced different procedures of SNA, including network density, centrality, and core-periphery structure, and applied them to the field of international aquatic product trade (IAPT). Besides statistical and descriptive analysis, the paper made full use of tools as Ucinet 6.3 and ArcGIS 10.2 to conduct visualized analysis, which would be more convenient and clear for demonstrating network structure of IAPT. With aim of figuring out the overall structure features, the important countries (areas) as the center roles, and the core-periphery structure in the network from both spatial and temporal perspective, data on international aquatic products in the period 2008–2017 was used in SNA. Above all, a special part was that a comparison analysis was given in the paper by comparing the results of IAPT with the general trade network, showing how different was the network of IAPT from the general trade network. The paper found that the IAPT network became increasingly dense from 2008 to 2017 despite of a relatively low level of density for the long period. Countries distributed mainly in the northern areas of North America, Europe, and east and south Asia dominated the whole IAPT network in the most periods of 2008–2017, while most of those distributed in South America, southern areas of the North America, Africa, and western Asia consistently served as the weak in IAPT network. Moreover, core-periphery structure did exist in IAPT network. And the network outcomes of IAPT were similar to a general one in some aspects.