In response to Adam Sheingate's ambitious scheme of policy network analysis,
while I found it quite interesting and useful, I would also add a few words of
caution about institutions and about resource dependency. In my experience so
far analyzing empirical Japanese network data, the institutions of party, state,
etc. are not clearly separate from each other and merge and meld in unexpected
ways: that is the point of the "organizational state" approach (Laumann and
Knoke). And in tracing the flow of resources such as information and support it
is not always clear which side is dependent. The sender of information may be
providing a vital resource and thereby acquiring control over the receiver--or
alternately, the receiver may be getting the information because it controls the
sender or at least represents it, as in the case of the corporatist peak
associations. Given these problems, his eight-fold scheme may not work as
hypothesized.