This conclusion presents some concluding thoughts on key concepts covered in this book. The book raises a number of methodological issues concerning the object of analysis and the degree of contextualism and genealogy that an empirical research on the friendship of utility can afford to remain relevant to contemporary debates about international politics. It combines contextualist analysis with a diachronic perspective on conceptual usage and change, but this combination could not have been achieved at no cost to both components. Nevertheless, it demonstrates that contextualism and conceptual history can effectively address questions pertaining to international relations (IR) and international political theory. The change in the concept of friendship was predicated on seventeenth-and eighteenth-century debates on the nature of the state, the state of nature and human society. Studying conceptual change across contexts requires paying attention to incremental changes in the use of relevant terms in less personalised and routinised contexts.

Early modern discourse of and about international politics contained a paradoxical combination of at least two language games prescribing the rules for using the concept of friendship. One game embedded friendship in a normatively loaded discussion, while the other associated the concept with pragmatic contexts of establishing juridical and political regimes in inter-state relations. Given these ideological differences, as well as the decline of the French and Dutch colonisation projects in North America, this chapter considers two paradigmatic examples of British colonial expansion. It focuses on the use of friendship in the establishment of colonies in North America and negotiating with people unfamiliar with European legal customs and constitutions of political societies. The chapter also considers the use of friendship in a qualitatively different setting, namely diplomatic exchanges with the rulers of India and the acceptance of a position of inferiority in existing hierarchies and organised political societies.

Scholars have increasingly focused on the role of gender in international relations and in particular the role of gender in conflict and peacebuilding. Chapter six explores the important role gender plays in the context of the Northern Ireland peace process. IR scholars have increasingly recognized that women experience insecurity differently from men and participate in conflict resolution and peacebuilding differently as well. This chapter links the latest research on gender and security with developments in Northern Ireland, contending that the peace process has privileged the masculine, marginalizing the role of women. The chapter’s findings highlight the historic small role women played as elected representatives in Northern Ireland. When women attempted to assert themselves as actors forming the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition (NIWC) in 1996, their failure to become part of the formal political process meant that a decade later the organization dissolved, a victim of the continuing male dominated structures that shape post-Agreement Northern Ireland.

This chapter focuses on two outstanding issues, each central to an understanding of security; America’s relations with the Islamic world, and weapons of mass destruction. It argues for the West to understand the dynamics of the Islamic world. It addresses the need to address the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to reinvigorate alliances.

The issue of gender, not to mention feminism, in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe remains complicated and fraught. Prior to 1989, the 'woman question' was largely considered to have been resolved throughout the region on an official level, with gender equality a stated priority of socialist governments. Performance art was a preferred genre among feminist artists in North America during the 1960s and 1970s, a time of political activism, when such work was embraced as a platform by both male and female artists. This chapter provides a comparative analysis of examples of performance art addressing gender-related issues from across the socialist and post-socialist East without sacrificing the specificity of each local context. It focuses on themes addressed by the artists of various generations, providing local cultural and historical references in the discussion of works addressing gender, beauty, women's sexuality and the challenging of traditional notions of gender.

This chapter describes the origins of the Northern Ireland Centre for Trauma and Transformation (NICTT). It briefly outlines the philosophical and theoretical foundations of the Centre and the evidence base upon which its mission and work was developed. The chapter also describes the role of a not-for-profit agency working in conventional public sector funding and administrative structures in the context of the Troubles. The development of ideas about recognising the mental health impact of the Troubles, and responding effectively, was part of a wider debate about addressing the adverse impact of the years of violence on individuals, families and communities. The original Omagh Community Trauma and Recovery Team had involved practitioners from a wide range of roles and disciplines and was directly linked into the wider range of services provided by the Sperrin Lakeland Trust.

This chapter analyses how Les Portuguais infortunes pays special attention to the ritual suffering of the Portuguese to show how this play not only explains the cultural phantasm of the 'wild' (le sauvage) but also criticises it. It shows that this play puts the colonial relationship between Portugal and the African continent in a complex and nuanced perspective and at the same time, via Portugal, comments on the colonial exploits of the French. The chapter explains how the play questions categories such as 'exotic' and 'not exotic'; and also shows how the author literally reverses the colonial relationship and therefore also the accompanying theatrical view. Finally, it shows in what way Les Portuguais infortunes fits in a broader cultural framework in which man tries to find a place for himself in an ever-expanding world.