Political forecasting as a management tool

Political forces in developing countries permeate and significantly shape the business environment. Yet the political information used by managers is usually general, subjective and superficial. Managers lack an appropriate analytical framework for systematically examining political factors and forecasting their impact on the firm. This paper attempts to present such a framework. The framework focuses on the impact of political forces on development strategies, public policies and policy instruments. It then discusses how the analysis of these factors can be made managerially relevant by integrating them with firm specific characteristics and corporate strategy. This approach departs from many of the traditional political forecasting techniques which only concentrate on macro‐level factors and indicators.