Political violence and civil unrest trends 2025

Businesses have ranked political risks and violence as a top 10 global risk for the past three years the Allianz Risk Barometer shows, demonstrating that it has become a key concern for companies of all sizes.

Political violence activity can impact businesses in many ways. In addition to endangering the safety of employees and customers, those in the immediate vicinity of unrest can suffer business interruption losses and material damage to property or assets, while indirect damage can be inflicted on companies in the form of “loss of attraction” or “denial of access” to their premises.

Among the key drivers of company concerns in 2024 were the record-breaking year of elections around the world and the potential for civil unrest during and after these events, as well as the developing conflict in the Middle East and ongoing war in Ukraine. Companies, especially in the large-corp and mid-sized segments have also been watchful of any miscalculation between China and Taiwan possibly escalating into a regional conflict.

Political violence remains a top 10 global business risk according to our customers because politics is increasingly perceived as being dominated by populism and blame and division, geopolitics by nationalism and a changing world order, and economics by mismanagement, corruption, and continually rising disparity between the “super rich”, “rich” and the rest.

Ultimately, the speed of change we have seen since 2019, has given companies little time to address their supply chains, meaning they have had to operate in an uncertain environment. Another factor is the unpredictability of the size, location and length of any incidents or issues. Unlike with other perils such as flood or windstorm, it is difficult to prepare in the same way to mitigate losses and build contingency and business continuity plans.

Further challenges for businesses in this space through 2025 and beyond are anticipated, as is already evidenced by the major anti-government protest activity seen in the Balkans and Türkiye, for example. Companies are having to deal with this new normal of increasing anti-social behavior and protest activity where events can last for longer and more hostile activism is to be expected. Since 2017, there have been over 800 significant anti-government protests in more than 150 countries, with more than 160 significant events taking place during 2024 alone. 18% of these protests lasted for more than three months. Allianz research shows that in the top 20 countries for frequency of protest and riot activity around the world during 2024, there were more than 80,000 incidents.

The risk of rogue state-sponsored sabotage is also a growing area of concern with covert acts here to stay. Irrespective of any wars ending, the cat is out of the bag. Key infrastructure may often be the primary target, but the risk is actually much broader, with cyber tools enabling state proxies to conduct a wide range of sophisticated and deniable operations. Meanwhile, the increasing frequency of plots and attacks from Islamist groups and inspired individuals, as well as growing empowerment among supporters of other far right and far left groups are among the factors driving the increasingly complex global terrorism landscape. This risk really is now shaped by multiple forces.

Ultimately, global stability in 2025 continues to be undermined by the forces of international conflict, geopolitical upheaval and economic uncertainty and the prospect of trade wars. In this report, Allianz Commercial experts highlight some of the potential drivers of political violence and civil unrest activity. Businesses need to remain vigilant about the shapeshifting nature of political violence and mindful of the risk that localized unrest could significantly impact their activities.