A recent paper by Porter, Mucha, Newman, and Warmbrand studies the interconnections of the committees and sub-committees in the U.S. Congress from a network theoretic perspective. They conclude that the distribution of congressmen among the committees is not random — there’s a shocker — that cliques rule over certain parts of the government. For example, there are strong ties between the Select Committee on Homeland Security and the House Rules Committee.
Regardless of the political implications of the study, I found it to be a fun example of network theory.
For those less inclined to read the paper, New Scientist has a summary.
Ken Dyck 