(c) Organizational culture
The aspiring PEA epistemic community within DFID is a
small network of governance advisers working in the headquarters
or in specific country offices. Intellectually, Drivers
of Change and the current PEA framework were gestated
within the Policy Division, which is tasked with providing “the
best policy options to help DFID focus its efforts on building
economic, social and political institutions that provide the
environment for sustained growth and poverty reduction”
(DFID, 2013b, p. 3). The Division has housed the successive
teams issuing guidelines and “how to notes” regarding political
analysis over the last decade. In professional terms, PEA
has come to be identified with the cadre of governance advisers,
whose mandatory technical competency is precisely “governance,
political and institutional analysis.” This
encompasses the “ability to apply political and institutional
analysis and use this to influence strategic planning and programing
decisions,” which in turn includes knowledge and
experience with drivers of change, country governance analyses,
anti-corruption assessments, and “the key features of
political economy analysis and the main PEA frameworks
and tools” (DFID, 2013c). However, this does not mean that
PEA has become fully institutionalized in the governance profession
outside competency frameworks: for instance, the
2011–15 “Operational Plan for the Governance, Open Societies
and Anti-Corruption Department” makes no mention
whatsoever of political-economy analysis (DFID, 2013d).