Definitions

What is analysis?
-Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller
parts to gain a better understanding of it.
- Analysis is a careful study of something to learn about its parts, what they
do, and how they are related to each other
What is political analysis?
-Political Analysis is the study of government and political processes,
institutions, and behavior. The analytical data obtained is utilized to predict
future trends in the government's political climate. Political scientists
measure how successful governance is and specific policies by examining
many factors, including stability, justice, material wealth, and peace.
What is empirical research?
-Empirical research is a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and
indirect observation or experience. Empirical evidence (the record of one's
direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or
qualitatively.
-Empirical research is research that applies observation and experience as
the main modes of gathering data. Data collected in this way is referred to as
empirical evidence which is subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis
then used to answer empirical questions. This process involves a great deal
of planning and is considered accurate as the researcher records what is
observed.
POLITICAL ANALYSIS FOR COLLABORATIVE PROCESS MANAGERS:
THINKING STRATEGICALLY ABOUT THE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
(Lesson Overview)
Introduction
With limited time, resources, and energy, you need to be strategic in how
you work with community groups, elected officials, the media, and other
outside parties to build support for what you are doing, protect yourself from
criticism, and avoid pitfalls.

Political analysis is one way to develop a strategic approach to external

players. Political analysis is a process of disaggregating the key players in a
community or policy environment, identifying how they influence progress
toward your goals, and developing strategies to interact with them to
advance your goals.
There are many different ways to do political analysis. This is something that
can take a few hours or a few months, involving a group of people
brainstorming around a table or a team of researchers conducting interviews
in the community.
We are presenting one method of analysis that is aimed at developing a
quick, but relatively rich, understanding of the broader social and political
context for your work. You should explore other approaches and experiment,
as you get comfortable with the core ideas of the approach. Many of the
concepts overlap the field of stakeholder analysis, a large and growing
topic in the social sciences and business.
You should do this kind of analysis on a periodic basis, as situations change
and new issues emerge.
The Process
Political analysis involves two main stages: Description and Analysis.
Description is the identification of who, what, when, and how. Analysis is the
investigation of why. This is what lays the groundwork for developing
appropriate strategic responses.
There are seven key elements in the political analysis framework:

Actors
Motivations/Interests
Participation
Resources
Strategies & Tactics
Influence
Action Channels

In a nutshell, you will disaggregate your situation into these pieces and then
identify key leverage points for your resources.
Actors

As a first step, you should brainstorm on all of the potential outside actors
that may have an interest in what you are doing. The relevant actors broadly
include anyone who will be affected by or can affect your project. You should
ask yourself:
Who benefits from your project or program?
Who will pay the costs?
Who might think they will be positively or negatively impacted by your
project?
What individual(s) occupy organizational roles that give them a stake?
Who shares power/formal authority to make decisions affecting what
we do?
Your initial goal should be to develop as complete a list of actors as you can.
Cast a wide net, brainstorm everyone that might have an interest in what
you are doing. You can always eliminate parties as you move through the
process and develop a sense their relative importance, but you do not want
to omit anyone at this stage.
Objectives/Motives/Interests
Once you have developed a list of actors or stakeholders, you need to
identify what forces and interests motive them. What does each participant
want out of a process or program? Why do they care what happens?
There are several broad topics you should consider as a way of isolating the
interests of the actors that you identified in the first step. Ask yourself:
What financial and material interests does each party have at stake?
What are the social and psychological needs of each party? Status,
prestige, etc.
What are the political and organizational needs and interests of each
party?
What ideological goals or values influence how each actor thinks?
In thinking about each actors motivations, you should be aware of the
distinction between positions and interests. Positions are the outwards
stances that individual stake, but interests are the issues that really motivate
an individual in a dispute. Interests often underlie positions; but positions do
not always reflect someones true interests.
Participation and resources

Individuals who have some interest or motivation might not necessarily be

involved or active in a particular issue or project. In addition to their level of
interest or motivation, each partys ability to participate will depend on:

Their likelihood of success

The visibility of the issue
The costs of participating
What opportunities they have to participate

The extent and nature of each actors participation will also depend on the
resources that they have to generate outcomes that favor their
objectives/interests. Key resources can include:

Money
People: grassroots membership or powerful individual champions
Access
Expertise: technical, legal, procedural
Reputation/credibility
Moral authority
Relationships with other actors

Strategies and influence

Actors can expand their resources through strategic and tactical

choices. They can build coalitions, link their proposals to other issues,
change the venue or site of dispute, or seek to develop broader
support through media connections.

Action channels

Public choices and decisions happen in regular places. Some common

formal venues include legislatures, courts, budget processes,
administrative processes (NEPA,NFMA, etc).
Informal action channels can also provide settings for public decisions.
These can include civic and community organizations, social networks,
and academic or professional connections.
Action channels pre-select participants: the process by which a
decision is made defines who participates and how they participate.
Action channels also distribute different advantages and disadvantages
to each party.

Developing Strategy: what do you do with this all of this

information?

Once you have mapped out the whole situation, you should have a sense of
the relative potential that different external actors have to influence your
own goals and objectives:

Supporters - Individuals who might support your goals and have the
power to help you achieve them.
Mixed blessing or persuadable actors - Individuals who are
potentially powerful, but are unclear or ambivalent in their support or
opposition to your activities.
Opponents - Individuals who are likely to oppose you and are powerful
enough to be threats.
Marginal actors - Individuals who may support or oppose you, but do
not have the resources power, or interest to seriously help or hinder
you.

The point of this whole exercise is to make sure that your strategies toward
different stakeholders match up with their own capacity and motivations to
influence your own goals and objectives. You do not want to waste your time
and resources trying to involve a marginal, disinterested outside party, even
if that is someone who might superficially be powerful. Similarly, you do not
want to overlook any potentially powerful sources of support or opposition
that operate below the radar.
Think about your own resources and influence channels that you can use to
reach out to external parties.
For potential supporters, you should think about wants to turn them into
effective advocates and participants. What opportunities for involvement can
you give them? In what ways can they use their own relationships and
connections to publicize your goals and build support for your project?
For mixed blessing or persuadable actors, you need to identify the steps you
can take to win their support. What are their reservations about getting
involved? What information or outreach do they need in order to become
supporters? What relationships or connections can you develop or use to
bring persuadable parties into the fold?
For individuals who are likely to be opponents, you should think about how
you can address their concerns or neutralize their opposition. Can you turn
them into supporters? Can you mitigate their opposition? What relationships
do you have that can build bridges to potential opponents and minimize or
modify their criticism?
Related Topics

Socio-Political Analysis
A socio-political analysis can be defined as a analysis of the social, political
and economic factors that shape a particular environment and how these
affect the lives and opinions of those who live within it.
Socio-Political Analysis focuses on issues such as the level of support the
government or a specific initiative enjoys from political parties, how it is
viewed by the media and from domestic and foreign civil society. It studies
the position and strategies used by opponents of the project, and the main
political incentives for potential allies of the project, as well as how these
challenges are communicated by the government to the people. A SocioPolitical Analysis consists of:

Social and political analysis

Assessment of active and potential trade barriers

Labour statistics

Analysis of the public industry movement and actions

Analysis of government performance and the creation of business

opportunities.

Political feasibility analysis

Political feasibility analysis is used to predict the probable outcome of a
proposed solution to a policy problem through examining the actors, events
and environment involved in all stages of the policy-making process. It is one
frequently used component of a policy analysis and can serve as an
evaluative criterion in choosing between policy alternatives.
Feasibility is the state or degree of being easily or conveniently done.
More plainly, one might ask can we get this done? Feasibility, as it pertains
to the political arena, speaks to the political climate. The question then
becomes: In this political climate, can we get this done?

Political feasibility is a measure of how well a solution to a policy problem,

will be accepted by a set of decision makers and the general public. For a
policy to be enacted and implemented, it must be politically acceptable, or
feasible. A policy alternative's lack of political feasibility can often be
attributed to its lack of political support or the result of controversy that may
surround the issue the policy seeks to address. Alternatively, a politically
feasible alternative is one that has the greatest probability of "receiving
sufficient political push and support to be implemented" given any specific
constraints
Policy analysis
Policy analysis is "determining which of various alternative policies will most
achieve a given set of goals in light of the relations between the policies and
the goals". However, policy analysis can be divided into two major fields.
Analysis of policy is analytical and descriptivei.e., it attempts to explain
policies and their development. Analysis for policy is prescriptivei.e., it is
involved with formulating policies and proposals (e.g., to improve social
welfare).

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_analysis
http://www.ask.com/question/definition-of-political-analysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_research
http://www.ask.com/question/what-is-the-definition-of-empirical-research
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/analysis
http://www.snre.umich.edu/ecomgt/lessons/stages/organizing_the_process/political/Political
%20Analysis.pdf
http://www.shield.eu/services/risk-consulting/analysis-and-intelligence/socio-political-analysis/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_feasibility_analysis