The king’s representative was the justiciar, and there was an Irish parliament. Towns and cities were incorporated and much of the country was shired. Ring-forts died out, and people lived mainly in wooden or mud houses, in small settlements or in towns. Bishops’ links with Rome and the proliferation of monastic orders of continental origin built international connections, as did thriving trade with France, Spain, Britain and the Low Countries.

Gaelic-Irish leaders stood fast against Anglo-Normans in some areas and enlisted the aid of Scotland’s Edward Bruce to fight them in 1316–1318. But in general the two groups entwined politically, socially, economically and personally (through marriage) with each other. All professed the same religion, and spoke, or understood, the same language: English was the language of administration and of the king’s representatives, but Irish remained the lingua franca, and most of the towns established by Normans (mostly in Leinster and Munster) had Irish names. Many European texts were translated into Irish. But by 1490, Irish political interests were united enough to support the Yorkists in England’s civil wars. At this stage around Dublin was an area known as the Pale, considered the extent of English power. The Anglo-Norman Fitzgerald dynasty of Kildare emerged as leaders of Ireland by 1500, although in Ulster the O’Neills held sway.

Employing a mixed-methods approach, this chapter surveys and compares how Chinese youth perceive China’s rise in relation to their Asian counterparts. The findings reveal that Chinese youth exhibit greater optimism regarding political stability and nationalism associated with China’s rise. However, they also demonstrate a willingness to acknowledge various social problems that accompany economic growth. Regarding China’s international influence, the majority of Chinese youth express strong confidence in the notion of China’s peaceful rise, while simultaneously recognizing perceived threats from other countries – factors often overlooked in the prevailing China threat thesis. Moreover, Chinese youth tend to attribute the negative evaluations of China by their Asian peers to external factors rather than interpreting them as reflections of China’s “problematic” foreign policy. Interview materials show why and how Chinese foreign policy is justified among Chinese young people.

This chapter identifies ten lessons for international relations that emerge from the book.

The book argues that the success or failure of prodemocracy social movements is inextricably linked to the regional and international external environment of states undergoing transitions from authoritarian rule. The seven country cases all have experienced both coercive and noncoercive forms of external influence by regional and international actors and states. To account for cross-national variation and to capture patterns of convergence and divergence, the chapter scrutinizes the conditions and processes that motivate intervention calculations by foreign actors. It examines two forms of external influence – foreign aid allocations and disbursements, and coercive military interventions. In the absence of direct interventions, the protest movements in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt (prior to 2013) were able to develop organically. Conversely, Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen experienced directly military interventions that produced more violent transitions resulting in autocratic survival or protracted civil wars and failed states.