This article analyses the concept of political risk, its evolution and conceptualisation, and explores its utility as a means of understanding political events and processes that can threaten order, stability and continuity in International Relations and disrupt the normal practices of inter-state investment, trade and commerce. More particularly, the article organises the disparate literature that surrounds the concept of political risk such that it might be more rigorously applied as a social science method for understanding political events and their effects upon commercial and strategic activities.