Political risk was once relatively easy to define--more often than not, it involved dictators seizing foreign assets. Today it comes from a wide array of actors: citizens making videos on cell phones, city officials issuing ordinances, terrorists with truck bombs, cybercriminals, and more. Supply chains are longer--and more vulnerable--and the geopolitical landscape is more crowded and uncertain. But just because you don't know exactly where political risk will come from, that doesn't mean you can't prepare for it, say Rice, the former U.S. secretary of state, and Zegart, the codirector for the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford. Effective risk management is still fairly straightforward. Companies that excel at it are strong in four core competencies: understanding, analyzing, and mitigating risk, and responding to crises. In this article, Rice and Zegart outline what each competency entails, providing questions that every organization can ask to identify gaps, along with case studies that illustrate how companies have successfully addressed real-world political threats.

The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) is a 1.25-square-mile industrial park six miles north of the Demilitarized Zone in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The complex includes both North and South Korean workers, and is subsidized by Seoul. The result of an agreement between North and South Korea in 2000, Kaesong stood as the sole beacon of hope for economic cooperation between the divided states, and remained open for business despite a number of hostilities over the ensuing decade. This case reviews the political and economic risks and opportunities of entering Kaesong through the lens of Bright Ray Apparel, a hypothetical South Korean textile manufacturing firm. Jihoon Lee, Bright Ray's CEO, is encouraged by his CFO and a trusted senior economist to enter Kaesong. But risks abound. North Korea's nuclear threats and leadership transition have brought a new wave of uncertainty to the Korean Peninsula. Facing its own upcoming presidential election, much remains to be determined in Seoul regarding future economic policy and outreach toward Pyongyang. As Jihoon Lee's meeting with his financial adviser nears, Bright Ray's leadership must consider a variety of influences and factors involved in entering Kaesong, from political instability to economic opportunity, and the potential to improve the working condition of North Korean employees.

This case explores how to manage the political risks of using a controversial energy extraction technology in the European Union. San Leon Energy, an Irish energy firm, was committed to developing large unconventional shale gas reserves in Poland. To reach these reserves, San Leon needed to use a technique called hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"). Pioneered in the United States during the early 2000s, fracking involved pumping a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals into a reservoir at high pressure to crack shale formations, releasing gas to flow up the well. The natural gas produced by this process provided a substantially cleaner energy alternative to coal. Additionally, since large, previously inaccessible shale gas reserves were located in the United States, Canada, China, and parts of Europe, fracking had the potential to revolutionize the geopolitics of the energy industry. However, American and European environmental groups grew concerned that fracking could contaminate local drinking water, generate air pollution, cause minor earthquakes, and crowd out investment in renewable energy alternatives. The Polish government supported fracking as a way to dramatically bolster the country's domestic gas production and reduce its energy dependence on Russia. Yet in 2011 and 2012, environmental protests worldwide grew, causing several countries, including Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Romania, and parts of Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom to issue temporary fracking bans. Since San Leon Energy's management called Poland "the heartbeat of our company," the company faced the challenging tasks of mitigating environmentalists' concerns and preventing a Polish or EU-wide fracking ban.