Our task was not helped by the fact that the civil service had been prevented by the Cameron government from making any preparations for a leave vote. In fact, the civil service and No. 10 generally were still in a state of shock. The only real European policy experts all came from the ‘Remain’ side of the fence. While their professionalism was not in doubt, it was clearly going to be a huge task for them to pivot to embrace the new reality of the UK’s changed status with the EU. It wasn’t long before the UK’s long-serving Ambassador to the EU, Ivan Rogers, was moved on. His expertise was never in question, but in the weekly meetings with the Prime Minister in her study behind the Cabinet Room, he barely sought to disguise his dismay at the UK’s decision. Treating Brexit as a problem to be managed rather than an opportunity to be seized was never going to go down well with the Brexiteers still drunk on their own success. What Ivan saw as pragmatism, the Brexiteers saw as pessimism. He quickly became public enemy number one and was swiftly replaced.

On the night of 23 June 2016, gathered together in the Thatcher Study at No. 10, the Cameron team saw the results in. I sat next to the Prime Minister, David Cameron; his daughter, Nancy, in her pajamas and cuddling a favourite toy, was under the round oak table made purposely to seat the G8 leaders at Lough Erne. ‘Dad, we are losing,’ said Nancy, as the results began to trickle and then pour in. Around 2am, when Sunderland declared a decisive result for Leave (61 per cent to 39 per cent), the trend was clear. John Curtice called it for Leave – who won by 52 to 48 per cent – roughly 17 million to 16 million (600,000 votes between the two) with a strong turnout of 72 per cent. At 3am, Cameron gathered a small group of us in his Den; it was game over. The answer to the question of whether the British people wanted to stay in the European Union was ‘no’. The decision to give them that choice was made by Cameron in a speech made at Bloomberg HQ on 23 January 2013, unleashing one of the most divisive periods we have known.

The UK government’s handling of Northern Ireland exposed serious failings in UK state negotiating capacity as well as its relative weakness not only to the EU, but also in relation to even one small EU member state, Ireland, which played a far stronger hand far better, even if it ultimately overplayed it. The UK pushback was politically costly to the Johnson government at home and with the EU, but demonstrated at last its ability to win a diplomatic victory. Though it was clear, to those who paid attention, that there were serious implications for Northern Ireland in the event of Brexit, it did not figure much in the question of continued membership or in the campaign. Those implications were much more serious once Theresa May, in her 30 June 2016 leadership speech, stated that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, and this meant ending freedom of movement. That alone determined the kind of future relationship the UK would have with the EU – outside the Single Market – with huge implications for Northern Ireland and Ireland. Yet few recognised then just how much these would come to define Brexit and post-Brexit policy.

Only one person can answer as to the sincerity of the decision Boris made to back leave. The now infamous two articles allow his enemies to present his decision as an act of calculating duplicity for which they will forever believe him guilty. This perhaps also provides a focus for the real cause of their angst – that he beat them. I can only observe that I saw him use this device often in decision-making. Whatever motivated his decision in February 2016, he certainly owned it from there on. Johnson’s arrival as the public face of leave brought energy and stardust to the campaign. New voters seemed to ‘have permission’ to vote leave because of Johnson’s arrival. He moved the centre of gravity of the campaign away from the purely Faragist proposition. A good test of the effectiveness of the message was in the reaction of some of the arch-Brexiteers. Supreme bores like Bernard Jenkin deeply resented Johnson, whom they regarded as a Johnny-come-lately. Those not stuck in the time warp of 1992–7 rejoiced at it.

This chapter explains the reasons for the stalemate in the WTO negotiations on domestic agriculture support, public stockholding (PSH) for food security purposes, and fisheries subsidies. The negotiations are crucial for achieving Sustainable Development Goals related to zero hunger, food security, sustainable agriculture, and marine resources. In agriculture, members are divided on disciplining trade-distorting support and addressing historical asymmetries. The PSH negotiations are contentious owing to disagreements on a permanent solution and calculation of the external reference price. Fisheries subsidy negotiations have stalled on the issue of over-capacity and overfishing subsidies, despite progress on illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

Studies of imperial Chinese and Byzantine diplomacy conventionally assume that their diplomatic norms had indigenous origins that became models for neighbouring polities. This chapter questions this assumption by comparing the diplomatic traditions of empires of Sui and Tang China (581–907), Byzantium (395–1453), Sasanian Iran (224–651), Turkic polities, and smaller Eurasian states. Eurasia shared diplomatic protocols incorporating pageantry, status ranking, displays of obeisance to the ruler, gift exchange, and feasting. Visiting envoys enjoyed rights to safe passage that sometimes were violated during periods of interpolity tension. Peaceful relations were normally signalled when a greater power invested a lesser one as a vassal, and sometimes when two great powers negotiated and ratified written treaties. Diplomatic agreements were reinforced via marriage or fictive kinship relations between rulers, trade accords, and/or direct payments from one polity to another. This customary diplomatic tradition provided rulers with shared standards to negotiate agreements that protected their perceived strategic, political, economic and symbolic interests.

At the beginning of Chapter 7, two Kuwaiti detainees remain, Fawzi Al Odah and Fayiz Al Kandari, both of whom had their habeas petitions denied and appeared to be out of options. The US government was not talking to the detainees’ legal teams or to the Kuwaiti government. It was feared that they would be “forever prisoners”; the long project to repatriate these men would fail. At a cocktail party, Marcia Newell of the Core Team spoke to Hillary Clinton and told her that they were on opposite sides of an issue because she represented the Kuwaiti detainees; Clinton told Newell to call Ambassador Dan Fried, the key person on Guantanamo. They met at a noisy coffee shop. Newell proposed an Inter-Agency Working Group between the two governments. Fried indicated he was considering such cooperation and a parole-like process. Thus, began a working relationship that resulted in the development of a forward-looking Periodic Review Board process and the development of a rehabilitation center and security protocols that led to the ultimate return of the final two Kuwaiti detainees.

In 1965, an antiwar movement with disparate constituencies united uneasily in a loose coalition, but remained so amorphous that no single entity could provide either leadership or direction. Local actions built around teach-ins, the international days of protest, or as independent events, dominated antiwar activism that year. Peace liberals and pacifists pursued moderate actions such as lobbying, education and persuasion, legal and peaceful rallies, and picketing, while hoping for change through an international solution or the electoral process. Radicals and leftists connected the war with domestic injustice and questioned some fundamental assumptions about American power. Despite its limitations, organized dissent provided a significant enough challenge that the Johnson administration felt compelled to push back. Government officials mixed efforts to persuade public opinion with denigrating activists as communist-inspired or threatening protesters with military induction. President Johnson aimed his April negotiating proposal and a brief December bombing halt over North Vietnam at impressing his domestic critics as much as his foreign adversaries.

This chapter explores the contested terrain of “subsidies” as applied to the Gulf region’s energy policies by multilateral organizations. It reviews how the Gulf states navigate the definitions and regulations established by international bodies such as the World Trade Organization and the International Energy Agency, and reviews the region’s defense of its energy pricing regimes in the face of international scrutiny. The chapter also analyzes how these low and regulated energy pricing frameworks, viewed as integral to the Gulf’s social contract and industrial strategy, present a challenge to established international norms and trade policies. Furthermore, this analysis extends to the strategic positioning of Gulf states within global forums, where they strive to align their energy practices with international trade standards while safeguarding their development priorities. By doing so, Gulf states aim to shape the future direction of global energy governance in a way that accommodates their specific economic and developmental needs.

The signing of the instrument popularly known as the ‘Anglo Irish Treaty’ in December 1921 paved the way for the creation of the Irish Free State in December 1922. The draft constitution of the Irish Free State, created in Dublin in early 1922, was taken to London for a confidential preview in May of that year. The British government insisted that the draft constitution had effectively ignored the provisions of the 1921 Treaty and demanded major revisions. For a brief period, the collapse of the entire settlement agreed in 1921 appeared to be a real possibility. This disaster was only averted when both sides agreed to redraft substantial portions of the draft constitution in early June 1922. This chapter examines the negotiating strategies developed in Dublin and London before and during the radical redrafting of the future constitution of the Irish Free State.

As the surge petered out, the Obama administration had to decide what came next. On paper, Afghan security forces were supposed to take the lead for security throughout Afghanistan by 2014. But as the military surged and withdrew, a faction within the administration began to push for another option. Those who doubted that military progress could be sustained argued that the only plausible route to ending the war was through negotiations with the Taliban. Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s negotiations with the Taliban were undermined by battlefield realities, bureaucratic pathologies, and, above all, the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.

Trump’s newly empowered foreign policy led to the Doha agreement with the Taliban and America’s final defeat in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s principal demand and the central element of the eventual Doha agreement was the full withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. It was hardly something the Taliban needed to demand because Trump was demanding it too. Trump was not inclined to enforce the agreement anyway. Trump campaigned on getting out of Afghanistan and repeatedly and publicly announced his intent to withdraw, which undermined negotiations just as much as Obama’s timetable had done.

The Bush administration faced three major strategic choices between September 11 and October 7, when the military campaign started: how to define the war, what to do about the Taliban, and what kind of military footprint to deploy. The administration chose to frame the conflict as a War on Terror, to treat the Taliban as of secondary importance, and to adopt a light footprint. The first choice – to declare a War on Terror – has been the subject of ample and justified criticism, then and now. The latter two choices made more sense at the time, and the Taliban’s fall from power two months later, on December 7, seemed to vindicate the administration’s impressive improvisation. But the sense of vindication also numbed the administration to the need to adapt as circumstances changed.

Arndt Emmerich and Alyaa Ebbiary explore the evolution of scholarship on Salafi Islamic movements, highlighting how the field has matured over time. The chapter emphasizes recent research that recognizes the agency exhibited by Salafi women in engaging with their faith. These women adhere to the core rulings while negotiating secondary ones to ensure they can live fulfilling lives while respecting tradition.

This chapter explores why African countries, except those in the West African bloc, are reluctant to participate in the initiative to conclude an agreement on investment facilitation within the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the consequences of nonparticipation. The study discusses the core principles of the investment facilitation framework as contained in the leaked Easter Text and finds some of them concerning, including market access being within the scope of the agreement, potentially undermining states’ sovereignty through international cooperation and streamlining of administrative processes, and the lack of development aspects such as the incorporation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The author is concerned about Africa’s nonparticipation, as they will continue to be rule-takers instead of shaping the discussion in their favor. Nonparticipation in the agreement creates a bad signal to investors, threatening investor confidence.

The Ottoman Empire, spanning the Eastern Hemisphere and connecting three continents, encountered a diverse range of geopolitical configurations throughout its six centuries of existence. Interaction with various polities, from medieval kingdoms to nineteenth-century colonial empires, led to unique modes of relationships based on the prevailing balance of power and institutional context. As economic, military, administrative, social, and personal realities shifted, the Ottomans’ visions and divisions of the world evolved. The principles, institutions, and techniques of Ottoman diplomacy were shaped by the aggregation of these factors within specific configurations and periods. Adaptability and ingenuity were key factors contributing to the empire’s longevity, as sultans adroitly forged strategic and enduring alliances through commercial and military partnerships from the fourteenth century until World War I. This chapter explores the key periods in and significant institutions for Ottoman diplomacy, providing an introductory overview of the sources relevant for studying this subject.

Chapter 6 is a history of emancipation in New York that stresses the combined importance of economic and legal pressures on slavery in areas of Dutch control. The gradual legal freedoms slaves gained after the Revolution served as a foot in the door towards eventual emancipation. When slaves were routinely given the ability to choose new masters, to seek work on their own, and to make money on their own (with some repayment to the slave owners), they made a crucial first step into a world of freedom. Voluntary slave manumission and self-purchase emancipations were the result of a process of negotiating the terms of slavery’s demise one person at a time. This dispersed, on-the-ground struggle was shaped by statutory law, as others have recognized, but, arguably, it was the common law that demonstrated and determined New Yorkers’ changing attitudes about slaveholding. Courtroom decisions about interpreting the states’ laws on slavery guaranteed that the freedoms won through slaves’ negotiations with their enslavers would be protected by the courts.