Compare methods

	Political Feasibility Analysis	Stakeholder Analysis for Policy
Field	Public Policy	Public Policy
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1972	2009
Originator	Arnold J. Meltsner	Management and development practice; typology synthesised by Reed and colleagues
Type	Assessment of the political viability of policy options	Systematic analysis of actors affected by or affecting a policy
Seminal source	Meltsner, A. J. (1972). Political feasibility and policy analysis. Public Administration Review, 32(6), 859–867.	Reed, M. S., Graves, A., Dandy, N., Posthumus, H., Hubacek, K., Morris, J., Prell, C., Quinn, C. H., & Stringer, L. C. (2009). Who's in and why? A typology of stakeholder analysis methods for natural resource management. Journal of Environmental Management, 90(5), 1933–1949.
Aliases	Political Feasibility Assessment, Feasibility Analysis for Policy, Politics of Policy Analysis	Stakeholder Analysis, Stakeholder Mapping, Interest-Influence Analysis
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.	Stakeholder analysis is a systematic approach to identifying the individuals, groups and organisations affected by or able to affect a policy or program, characterising their interests and influence, and understanding the relationships among them. Reed and colleagues' influential 2009 typology organises the field into three tasks: identifying stakeholders, differentiating and categorising them, and investigating their relationships. The aim is to inform the design, implementation and evaluation of policy by clarifying whose interests are at stake, who holds power, and how to engage them — improving both the effectiveness and the legitimacy of decisions.