This is due in part to German prickliness about fully integrating a foreign minority.

ECONOMIST: Post-wall German fiction

Turkey's growing influence has fostered a new national confidence that has replaced decades of paranoia and prickliness.

ECONOMIST: Turkey's referendum

One cross-border merger is hard enough: two look like recklessness especially given France's prickliness over both job cuts and foreign raiders.

ECONOMIST: Aluminium

The challenge to Mr Tusk comes from PiS, which blends patriotic conservatism and prickliness to foreigners with socially minded Catholicism.

ECONOMIST: Polish politics

More broadly, she argues, much of China's perceived prickliness is actually a gaucheness at being thrust into new global leadership roles.

ECONOMIST: Banyan

But his reaction also illustrates the prickliness of Chinese leaders when foreigners presume to pronounce on the eternal verities of Chinese culture.

ECONOMIST: America and China

At Google Ms Mayer had a reputation for prickliness, but also for nurturing talent and helping staff to cope with heavy workloads.

ECONOMIST: Marissa Mayer takes on one of the toughest jobs in tech

With mutual prickliness running high, the stand-off looks set to continue.

ECONOMIST: A new tribute to the Parthenon

The United States was not the only country to fall foul of a new assertiveness in Chinese diplomacy, and a prickliness in dealings with the world.

ECONOMIST: Banyan

According to Mr Gevisser, the extreme prickliness Mr Mbeki commonly shows when faced with criticism is also the result of the terrible frustration he feels at being unable fully to deliver on the impossible expectations of his fellow South Africans.

ECONOMIST: Thabo Mbeki

Persian prickliness, even paranoia, is understandable.

ECONOMIST: Iran and the world