As the mechanism of interaction between business institutions and the world of politics is getting more complex, the problem of political risks is becoming one of the hottest issues of Russian political science. So far, Russian experts have hardly made any attempt to build a model for estimating the influence of external factors on the functioning of various commercial organizations, transnational corporations first of all. The monograph provides ample material on a range of approaches to research on the problem of political risks. Of special interest is the description of the models used by transnational corporations and banks for the analysis of political risks. Information on many of the described models has never been published before. The book also contains data on the best- known commercial R&D projects in the sphere of political forecasting. Comparisons are drawn between different methods of estimation of external risks employed by transnational corporations and international banks, rating agencies and business publications.