Strategies for driving change will always be more likely to succeed if they are based on a clear and comprehensive understanding of the political dynamics surrounding an issue and how these interact with other interests, constituencies and institutions.

In contrast to the systematic and professionalised approach to policy analysis much of the politcal analysis carried out inside and outside government is anecdotal, narrative-based and fails to effectively combine different disciplines. Political economy analysis is often not rigorously stress-tested resulting in influencing and implementation strategies often being built based on partial and fragile assumptions which are hard to revise as new information emerges.

In the UK government, Nick Mabey led the development and testing of innovative tools and processes for country analysis of countries at risk of instability. These combined rigorous analytics with a visual cross-disciplinary approach to combining and testing qualitative information. He also applied this methodology to E3G’s analysis of climate and resource risks in the Middle East & North Africa after the Arab Spring.

At E3G Nick Mabey developed a similar analytical framework and high-level visualisation approach to understand the national political dynamics behind UNFCCC negotiating positions. This tool has been used by E3G, working with national partners, to analyse over 35 countries since the Copenhagen climate conference. This analysis has underpinned much of E3G’s climate diplomacy work with wide group of stakeholders including EU & Vulnerable country governments, but for tactical reasons little of this analysis was made public.

The politcal economy analysis framework has been enhanced and refined by E3G, led by Shane Tomlinson, and applied to support a range of different reform strategies including the political economy of long term decarbonisation, coal phase out in Eastern Europe, climate financial reform , German industrial transition, UK regional resilience and clean cooling in major economies.

E3G is continuing to refine the politcal economy mapping methodology and make it available to a wide range of partners including through in-person and on-line training courses.