This chapter looks at one of the earliest and arguably most powerful narratives in Irish foreign policy—that of the Irish Nation. With this narrative it is easily understood how and why Irish foreign policy has been frequently characterised as being essentially a creature of Ireland's bilateral relationship with Great Britain and therefore subject to the overwhelming domination of a single narrative rooted in the struggle for independence. While this narrative of the Irish Nation dominated Irish foreign policy at the state's foundation, it later came to be challenged as a result of contradictions from within that narrative as well as the development of competing narratives.

The war in Iraq of spring 2003 is a major crisis, and one that continues to affect global security dynamics. The USA invaded Iraq, using as its key argument that rogue states with links to terrorism demand forceful action. According to the 2002 version of the US National Security Strategy, the USA would defend itself not only in a reactive way, but also in a proactive way—invoking self-defence in order to act pre-emptively against terrorists. This chapter scrutinises the leaders' framing of the Iraq crisis from the build-up to the war from 1 December 2002 until its official end on 1 May 2003.

This chapter outlines the development and potency of the third grand narrative in Irish foreign policy—that of Ireland as a European Republic. It explains that this narrative is based on a particular conception of sovereignty and it argues that the Irish are part of a distinct regional family and underlines the limited nature of the Irish state's capacity to shape its external environment. This narrative was constructed from Ireland's historic engagement with the European mainland, from an understanding of Europe as representing modernity, and from an aspiration of normalcy. The strength of this narrative reflects the abiding preoccupation of Irish policy makers over the last thirty to forty years to place Ireland at the heart of the European project and to refract so much else of Irish foreign policy through that lens of Europeanness.

Health insurance barriers are a uniquely American experience arising from decades of political choices pushing the United States toward increased privatization of health insurance. Despite notably high health care spending, many Americans face coverage denials and delays, which are a little-discussed dimension of underinsurance. These coverage barriers arise out of managed care practices such as prior authorization, or required health insurer pre-approval for prescribed care. This practice proliferated as American health reform efforts accelerated reliance on privatization, in which health insurers seek to not only contain costs but maximize profits. Tracing the history of health reform and successive choices favoring managed care, this chapter shows that Americans’ everyday struggles with their health insurers are actually the product of intentional political choices that keep care out of reach. Assessment of medical necessity is likewise political and allows for insurer discretion that impedes patients’ access to care. However, rather than containing costs, prior authorization can ultimately shift costs from insurers to patients (especially marginalized patients) and their physicians.

This chapter introduces prototyping methods – the heart of Life Design experimentation. Prototyping transforms ideas into tangible actions, allowing you to test life paths without pressure or perfectionism. Instead of waiting for certainty, you gain clarity by doing. The chapter presents ten playful, low-risk ways to explore possibilities: from desk research and volunteering to thirty-day challenges, role plays, and side projects. Two signature methods anchor the process: the Magic Circle, which helps surface bold dreams by aligning your values, energy, and longings; and the Stairway to Heaven, which breaks those dreams into actionable microsteps. Together, they offer a bridge from aspiration to implementation. Whether you’re curious about new directions or ready to reimagine your life, these methods help you act now – creatively, confidently, and joyfully.

This chapter establishes the parameters of the second great identity narrative in Irish foreign policy discourse—that of Ireland as a Global Citizen. It considers how a vision of Ireland and Irish foreign policy has been constructed which values and prioritises a sense of Irish mission in the wider global community. It explains that this narrative is rooted in perceptions of Ireland's global mission, its contributions to other nations on other continents and in its sense of opportunity was certainly a positive fillip to an otherwise introverted and sometimes parochial sense of self and it also offered new avenues of expression and international participation and contributed significantly to a greater self-confidence.

The New Cambridge History of the English Language is aimed at providing a contemporary and comprehensive overiew of English, tracing its roots in Germanic and investigating the contact scenarios in which the language has been an active participant. It discusses the various models and methodologies which have been developed to analyse diachronic data concisely and consistently. The new history furthermore examines the trajectories which the language has embarked on during its spread worldwide and presents overviews of the varieties of English found throughout the world today.

This chapter outlines the development of the third narrative of Irish foreign policy—that of Ireland as an Anglo-American State. It explains that this narrative looks to the English-speaking world as being Ireland's natural political and cultural hinterland and it encapsulates a more radical challenge to nationalism than that offered by the narrative of the European Republic. This narrative was constructed from an understanding of Irish history as part of the warp and weft of a larger civilisational narrative and from an understanding of the Anglo-American world as representing modernity. This chapter also discusses challenges and criticisms on this narrative.

Letter to Yorgos Lanthimos

Dear Yorgos, there are no words to describe the national pride we all feel these days …

In the week leading up to the Ninety-First Academy Awards Ceremony in 2019, the Association of Greek Cinema Directors and Producers (ESPEK) released a video to wish Lanthimos good luck. His third English-language feature film, The Favourite, had been nominated for ten Oscars, the culmination of an international reception that included the Grand Jury Prize at the Seventy-Fifth Venice Film Festival, an array of Golden Globes, Baftas and other mentions during that ‘award season’. The film eventually won Olivia Colman the Academy Award for the best performance by an actress in a leading role.

The Greek Cinema Association's video is titled Letter to Yorgos Lanthimos,1 and it was filmed in the seaside town of Kinetta, the location of Lanthimos's first feature-length film of note in 2005, Kinetta. It starts with actor Makis Papadimitriou, well-known from a spate of recent Greek films such as Chevalier, A Blast and Suntan, reading the first lines of his ‘letter’ to the famous director while on a coach heading to Kinetta. He continues via voice-over while we see him wandering through empty streets, beaches and hotels.

Postmodernity, as a logic of differentiation, heterogeneity, and flux not only gives impetus to new struggles of emancipation, but, perversely, also defines a new field of power and domination which these struggles must contend with. The question of power has always been central to radical politics. This chapter examines the concept of power, arguing that an understanding of modern power relationships and the new forms of ‘postmodern’ social control and surveillance that are emerging today — particularly in the ‘war on terror’ — is vital to the development of new radical political strategies. It takes as its point of departure Michel Foucault's notion of power, whose general focus on ‘micro-political’ relations tends to imply a kind of localised politics of resistance and, moreover, neglects to some extent the ‘broader picture’ of political domination, including the problem of state sovereignty itself. Finally, the chapter considers the ‘micro-physics’ of power, war and biopolitics, the sovereign state of exception, and the global ‘security’ state.

The incoming Conservative Government of 1951 had no developed plans for reforming local government. The Butskillist common ground between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party encompassed a tacit consensus on the structure and functions of the system, as it had developed into a more service-orientated approach since 1945. During the first years of Winston Churchill's government, local government became in effect a ministry for housing. Churchill allocated the Ministry of Local Government and Planning to Harold Macmillan in order to fulfil the latter's ambitious pledge made at the 1950 Conservative Party Conference to build 300,000 new houses a year. This chapter examines the ‘modernisation’ of the local government in Britain from 1951 to 1979. It discusses financial reforms, the restructuring of local government, the restructuring of London, the Labour Government during 1964–1970, local government finance, the 1972 Local Government Act, and nationalism and regional devolution.