Two decades working as a political intelligence practitioner — as analyst, researcher, and advisor — have taught me that political risk is not a score. It is not an event to be predicted or a deviation to be corrected. It is a socially produced condition, one that emerges from the interaction of power, legitimacy, structure, and uncertainty over time.
Most political risk analysis gets this wrong. It reaches for indices, probability estimates, and scenario matrices that offer the language of precision while substituting numerical coherence for analytical understanding. These are not my go to. Political life resists such closure. It requires an openness to nuance and an acceptance that uncertainty is not a variable to be resolved but a constant to be surfaced.
My work begins beneath the surface. I go beyond what is happening to what is driving it. Who holds power, how they hold it, what is constraining them, what is enabling them, and how that configuration is shifting.
I do this through four interconnected capabilities working in concert:
- Media Intelligence — systematic tracking of political and institutional narratives as early warning signals. Not monitoring for its own sake, but reading the information environment as a window into the distribution of power, legitimacy, and influence.
- Structured Research — rigorous, disciplined inquiry into political dynamics, institutional behaviour, and policy trajectories. Evidence-based. Historically grounded. Resistant to impressionistic commentary.
- Stakeholder Intelligence — mapping power, interest, and influence across political actors, institutions, and networks. Identifying who matters, why they matter, what they want, and how they interact.
- Political Risk Analysis — synthesising structural analysis into actionable intelligence. Not prediction. Prepared judgment under conditions of uncertainty.
This produces a clear articulation of why uncertainty exists, where it is concentrated, how it may evolve, and what it means for your specific operations and decisions.
This approach is particularly valuable in South Africa and across the African continent — contexts where conventional models frequently fail, where informal power matters as much as formal institutions, and where context is everything.
I do this work through Critical ThinkAR® — an independent political risk and stakeholder intelligence advisory founded in 2019 and based in South Africa. Serving investors, foundations, government departments, civil society organisations, and research institutions operating at the intersection of business, government, and political complexity. Our flagship products and services include:
- Bespoke political risk and stakeholder intelligence advisory services
- The Critical ThinkAR Political Monitor — a dashboard that contextualises, analyses, and tracks the anatomy of power in political systems
- The Critical ThinkAR Political Monitor Quarterly Brief for institutional subscribers
- The Critical Take monthly newsletter and column
- The Critical ThinkAR Handbook on Political Risk and Stakeholder Intelligence