nalysis that established this as a normative model. Implicit within the model, according to Rhodes (1988), is that policy networks are important because they decide which issues will be included and excluded from the policy arena.
Marsh and Smith (2001) agree and emphasize the agenda-setting role of networks while noting that tight policy networks persist because they are characterized by a large degree of consensus focused not necessarily on specific policy but rather on policy agenda or the boundaries of acceptable policy. Marsh and Smith (2001) also contend that networks are the logical focus of policy analysis because all changes taking place in the policy arena are mediated through the understanding of agents who are remarkably committed over time to their own agendas.
According to Peter John (1998), group and network approaches both stress the importance of the interactions taking place between participants in the policymaking process. With respect to network approaches, John (1998) states that researchers use the network metaphor and research technique to describe and attempt to explain relationships between the decision-makers as they operate in policy sectors. Central to the approach is the assumption that the different type of relationships between group representatives, bureaucrats, politicians, and other actors in the decision-making process account for the various ways in which political systems process policy. It affirms the importance of relationships between decision-makers and does takes into account both the informal and associative aspects of decision-making and formal arrangements.
Formal network analysis as described by John (1998) can include the sociometric mapping technique which applies concepts used in sociology and anthropology to political relationships. The idea, said John (1998, p. 81), is that the relationships "within a network can be measured by finding out how dense it...