In his response to Jonathan Lewis's piece, Professor Campbell refers to the "epistemic communities" literature, which he says is the closest thing that we can find to policy network analysis in the international arena. He is probably right; this body of work is pretty close, but it seems to me that we ought to bear in mind two key points about this particular take on the creation of international cooperation.

First, the epistemic communities approach, as articulated by Peter Haas, refers to the creation of networks of scholars and technical experts who are able to effect cooperation by convincing state officials of appropriate interests and strategies. Central to this discussion is the idea (which is not particularly new) that "reality is socially constructed," as one topic heading in an article by Haas in International Organization reads. Here, interests do not appear to exist until epistemic communities help to create a discursive background (for lack of a better term) that actually gives rise to specific interests. It seems to me that this differs somewhat from what Mr. Lewis has in mind, since the "policy network analysis" approach apparently relies on the prior existence of interests that may simply be revealed through contact within a network. I don't particularly have a preference for one method over the other, but if one seeks to combine them, care ought to be taken in bridging the epistemelogical gap between on the one hand, a framework that seeks to explain social action on the basis of interests and intentions, and on the other, an approach that finds that interests themselves are either epiphenomenal or simply intervening variables between a normative/institutional environment (or habitus, or whatever word is in vogue) and social action.

Second, Professor Campbell rightly notes that logically (if not always empirically) established policy networks should generally promote the status quo. This then should be seen as a major difference between the two approaches, since the epistemic communities literature focuses on scholars and experts attempting to cope with new information as well as to convince state officials of the existence of interests. The idea of "sustainable development" probably isn't anything too novel, since most hunter-gatherers probably tried not to kill too many bears and not to eat too many nuts and berries; but the term and its use in economic development discussions are relatively new, quite possibly because its creators were attempting to find a slick label to actually give people an interest in taking care of the environment.

Dave Leheny
Department of Government, Cornell Univ.