Compare methods

	Political Feasibility Analysis	Policy Network Analysis
Field	Public Policy	Public Policy
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1972	1992
Originator	Arnold J. Meltsner	R. A. W. Rhodes & David Marsh (British school); broader governance-network tradition
Type	Assessment of the political viability of policy options	Analysis of inter-organisational policy relationships
Seminal source	Meltsner, A. J. (1972). Political feasibility and policy analysis. Public Administration Review, 32(6), 859–867.	Marsh, D., & Rhodes, R. A. W. (Eds.) (1992). Policy Networks in British Government. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN: 9780198278528
Aliases	Political Feasibility Assessment, Feasibility Analysis for Policy, Politics of Policy Analysis	Policy Networks, Governance Network Analysis, Policy Network Approach
Related	4	4
Summary	Political feasibility analysis assesses whether a policy option can realistically be adopted, enacted and sustained given the political environment — the actors involved, their interests and beliefs, the resources they command, and the arenas in which they act. Arnold Meltsner's classic 1972 article 'Political Feasibility and Policy Analysis' argued that analysts who attend only to economic or technical merit and ignore politics produce recommendations that are dead on arrival. By systematically appraising the political viability of options, the method helps distinguish proposals that are merely good on paper from those that can actually survive the political process.	Policy network analysis examines policymaking as the product of relationships among interdependent actors — government agencies, interest groups, experts and others — who exchange resources such as information, money, legitimacy and authority. In the influential British tradition associated with R. A. W. Rhodes and David Marsh, policy networks range along a continuum from tightly knit, exclusive 'policy communities' to loose, open 'issue networks', and the type of network is held to shape policy outcomes. More broadly, the approach applies the concepts and tools of social-network analysis to governance, treating the structure of ties among actors as a key explanatory variable.