This book began in a Stanford classroom. Nearly two hundred students have now taken our political risk seminar. Around a third have come from countries outside the United States—from places as wide-ranging as Brazil, China, India, Spain, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their ideas and perspectives have sharpened our thinking, and their enthusiasm is what led us to put our thoughts on paper. This book is dedicated to them.
From the development of our course to the drafting of this manuscript, our institutional home bases—the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), the Hoover Institution, and Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)—have been generous in support and helpful at every step. We would like to thank the leadership of each organization for sustaining this project and our work: GSB dean Jonathan Levin, Hoover director Tom Gilligan, and FSI director Michael McFaul.
We would also like to express our gratitude to the people who took time out of their busy schedules to assist us and in doing so enabled us to write a better book. Special thanks are due to the business practitioners who agreed to sit for interviews, including Marc Andreessen, Bibi Bleekemolen, Cam Burks, Pat Donovan, Adam Goldstein, Tom Hill, Vinod Khosla, Karen Laureano-Rikardsen, Alan Orlob, Fred Smith, Joe Sullivan, Peter Thiel, and Peter Whelpton. Others spoke to us on background. We hope they know how grateful we are. We are also greatly appreciative of the comments we received from Craig Mallery, Keith Hennessey, and Wayne Kabak, who carefully reviewed every word of the manuscript and provided invaluable feedback.
Over several years, we have been aided by an all-star team of research and course assistants led by Taylor Johnson McLamb and Charles Nicas. This book quite simply could not have been written without them. Katherine Boyle, Alexa Corse, Caroline Keller-Lynn, Iris Malone, Andrew Milich, Julia Payson, and Michael Robinson provided outstanding research and fact-checking. Since our political risk seminar began, we have been fortunate to have a number of other assistants, many of whom contributed to the development of case studies in this book. They included Sarah Benjamin, Nandi Chhabra, Matthew Decker, Torey McMurdo, Astasia Myers, Jenna Nicholas, Jessica Renier, Sarah Shirazyan, and Derick Stace-Naughton.
Many colleagues have discussed ideas, read parts of the book, or answered research queries from one or both of us. To Bill Barnett, Coit Blacker, Nick Burns, Bobby Chesney, Martha Crenshaw, Tino Cuellar, Kristen Eichensehr, Karl Eikenberry, Rod Ewing, Jim Fearon, Niall Ferguson, Joe Felter, Tom Fingar, Frank Fukuyama, Andrea Gilli, Toomas Ilves, Sean Kanuck, David Kennedy, Steve Krasner, Sarah Kreps, Herb Lin, Jane Holl Lute, Eric Min, Michael Morell, Chick Perrow, Bill Perry, Jason Reinhardt, Scott Sagan, Matt Spence, Eli Sugarman, John Taylor, Mike Tomz, Harold Trinkunas, John Villasenor, Matt Waxman, Jessica Weeks, and Keren Yahri-Milo, thank you.
We are both grateful to Sean Desmond, our gifted editor, and all of the fine people of Twelve Books.
Amy would like to thank her incredible Hoover team who make everything possible: Caroline Beswick, Nga-my Pham Nguyen, and Russell Wald. She is also deeply grateful to the faculty, fellows, students, and staff at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, for creating such a vibrant intellectual home. Literary agent Christy Fletcher has provided years of great advice. Thank you, Lisa Hammann and Courtney Kingston, for cofounding Room 130. Thanks to the Zegart and Mallery clans—and especially Craig, Alex, Jack, and Kate, for indulging in scary international security dinner conversations every night.
Finally, Amy would like to thank Condi for welcoming her into that comparative politics seminar back in 1991, inspiring her to become a political scientist, and being there, always, ever since. Condi’s immense talent is equaled only by her generosity of spirit. Working with her—first as a student and now as a colleague—has been the honor and joy of a lifetime.
Condi would like to thank her dedicated staff. She would not have been able to complete this book while juggling her other commitments without their untiring support. Enduring thanks goes to her chief of staff Shannon York (and her predecessor Georgia Godfrey), her office manager Jules Thompson (and her predecessor Caroline Beswick), and her longtime assistant Marilyn Stanley. For Condi, working on this book, and the seminar that predates it, has been a rare and rewarding experience. Amy was a graduate student of hers many moons ago. Amy has always been a first-rate scholar, and she has since become a world-class author, professor, expert, and leader, both within her field and at our university. Teaching alongside her and collaborating on this project has been one of the true pleasures of Condi’s professional life. Deepest thanks to her for that, and for her tireless efforts in bringing this book to fruition.