What are the chances of success and what are the factors of risk in the new round of talks between the Iranian government and the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (“P5+1”) about Iran’s disputed nuclear programmed? These questions will draw much attention by political decision-makers and business executives and students of…
Stakeholders active in countries ruled by autocratic leaders should acquire a thorough understanding of potential “succession dilemmas” in order to be prepared to respond to a variety of political risk scenarios which could affect their interests. This article explores why certain regime types are more exposed to succession risks and lines out the potential negative…
One major lesson learnt by business investors engaging in foreign countries in the light of regime change events in 2011 is that the conventional concept of political stability may be overvalued. In contrast, it is the actual diversity of regime types which should receive the appropriate appreciation when assessing political risks. The concept of regime…
Any decision-maker in government or business who is concerned about the planet’s sustainable future and is looking for serious guidance, might consider studying the “2011 State of the Future” report. Published by The Millennium Project, an international participatory think tank established in 1996, this year’s report is the fifteenth of its kind, and it is…
Political risks know no vacation. August 2011 will be remembered as a month of misery, not simply because of the politically induced crash on the stock markets during the first two weeks, but also because of the spreading sensation of angst that the industrialized world might be facing a new economic recession. Put in a…
A major concern for a company getting engaged in a tender project in a foreign country is the opaque role that Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) might play through the relationship between business and politics surrounding the project. This article builds on previous explorations of approaches to political risk research, and ties in with the recent…
The second part of the article on conflict resolution draws the conclusions from the previously developed argument, that mitigating the risks of peace negotiations, as perceived by the conflict parties, is the key to ending protracted conflict (see Conflict Resolution (I): Peace-Making and Risk-Taking). The risk evaluation tool introduced below, aims to identify and assess…
Parties who are involved in a protracted conflict must take risks in order to be able to settle their dispute. This argument may seem counter-intuitive at first, but consider the Middle East conflict as the perhaps most notorious case. For many years of on-and-off peace talks, both the Israeli government and the representation of the…
Given the diversity of countries to monitor, this article introduces a generic method for political risk intelligence that can easily be customized to a client’s needs. Defined as the issue-based approach, it mediates between the macro-level of assessing the main categories of political risk and the micro-level analysis of political power networks. The issue-based approach…
