The role of external powers and international bodies in efforts to break patterns of conflict and to install stable and durable peace settlements is well known. This book focuses on an unusual case where the sovereign state and a neighbour state help broker an agreed settlement in a disputed and conflictual region. It analyses the roles of the British and Irish governments in pursuing political stability in Northern Ireland, a disputed region of the United Kingdom over which the Irish state has had a territorial claim.

The book focuses on the changes in the British state, whose writ...