Political risk forecasting is an industry that provides specialized analysis to a range of clients, including insurance companies, extractive industries, governments, defense ministries, and NGOs. Risk forecasters aim to help their clients mitigate risks by anticipating political developments that could threaten their investments and assets, especially in the “emerging markets” of the Global South. What can ethnographic analysis reveal about this industry's knowledge practices and how it transforms open‐source intelligence into commercially relevant risk forecasts? Based on five years of work experience as Senior Africa Analyst at a commercial intelligence firm, I examine how forecasters select and process risk‐relevant events, narrate them as qualitative risk briefs, and finally assign them quantitative risk scores. Through a close reading of a risk firm's internal guidelines and its daily practices, I show how analysts construct risk in African countries in line with entrenched sociopolitical imaginaries, reproducing the coloniality of finance.

中文翻译：

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“神奇的数学挥手”


政治风险预测是​​一个为一系列客户提供专业分析的行业，包括保险公司、采掘业、政府、国防部和非政府组织。风险预测者旨在通过预测可能威胁其投资和资产的政治发展来帮助客户降低风险，特别是在南半球的“新兴市场”。人种学分析可以揭示该行业的知识实践的哪些内容以及它如何将开源情报转化为商业相关的风险预测？基于在一家商业情报公司担任高级非洲分析师的五年工作经验，我研究了预测者如何选择和处理风险相关事件，将它们描述为定性风险简报，最后为它们分配定量风险评分。通过仔细阅读风险公司的内部指导方针及其日常实践，我展示了分析师如何根据根深蒂固的社会政治想象构建非洲国家的风险，再现金融的殖民性。