I found this article unclear about what you were talking about when you say “improving institutional decision making” (in policy). I think we can break this down into two very different things.
A: Improving improving the decision making processes and systems of accountability that policy institutions use to make decisions so that these institutions will more generally be better decision makers. (This is what I have always meant by and understood by the term “improving institutional decision making”, and what Jess talks about in her post you link to)
B: Having influence in a specific situation on the policy making process. (This is basically what people tend to call “lobbying” or sometimes “campaigning”.)
I felt that the DFID story and the three models were all focused on B: lobbying. The models were useful for thinking about how to do B well (assuming you know better than the policy makers what policy should be made). Theoretical advice on lobbying is a nice thing to have* if you are in the field (so thank you for writing them up, I may give them some thought in my upcoming work). And if you are trying to change A it would be useful to understand how to do B.
The models were not very useful for advising on how to do A: improving how institutions work generally. And A is where I would say the value lies.
I think the main point is just on how easy the article was to read. I found the article itself was very confusing as to if you were talking about A or B at many points.
*Also in general I think the field of lobbying is as one might say “more of an art than a science” and although a theoretical understanding of how it works is nice it is not super useful comapred to experience in the field in the specific country that you are in.
I found this article unclear about what you were talking about when you say “improving institutional decision making” (in policy). I think we can break this down into two very different things.
A: Improving improving the decision making processes and systems of accountability that policy institutions use to make decisions so that these institutions will more generally be better decision makers. (This is what I have always meant by and understood by the term “improving institutional decision making”, and what Jess talks about in her post you link to)
B: Having influence in a specific situation on the policy making process. (This is basically what people tend to call “lobbying” or sometimes “campaigning”.)
I felt that the DFID story and the three models were all focused on B: lobbying. The models were useful for thinking about how to do B well (assuming you know better than the policy makers what policy should be made). Theoretical advice on lobbying is a nice thing to have* if you are in the field (so thank you for writing them up, I may give them some thought in my upcoming work). And if you are trying to change A it would be useful to understand how to do B.
The models were not very useful for advising on how to do A: improving how institutions work generally. And A is where I would say the value lies.
I think the main point is just on how easy the article was to read. I found the article itself was very confusing as to if you were talking about A or B at many points.
*Also in general I think the field of lobbying is as one might say “more of an art than a science” and although a theoretical understanding of how it works is nice it is not super useful comapred to experience in the field in the specific country that you are in.