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"This innovative new book argues that diplomacy, which emerged out of the French Revolution, has become one of the central ideological state apparatuses of the modern democratic nation-state. The book is divided into four thematic parts. The first presents the central concepts and theoretical perspectives derived from the work of Slavoj Žižek, focusing on his understanding of politics, ideology, and the core of the conceptual apparatus of Lacanian psychoanalysis. There then follow three parts treating diplomacy as archi-politics, ultra-politics, and post-politics, respectively highlighting three eras of the modern history of diplomacy from the French Revolution until today. The first part takes on the question of the creation of the term 'diplomacy', which took place during the time of the French Revolution. The second part begins with the effects on diplomacy arising from the horrors of the two World Wars. Finally, the third part covers another major shift in Western diplomacy during the last century, the fall of the Soviet Union, and how this transformation shows itself in the field of Diplomacy Studies. The book argues that diplomacy's primary task is not to be understood as negotiating peace between warring parties, but rather to reproduce the myth of the state's unity by repressing its fundamental inconsistencies. This book will be of much interest to students of diplomacy studies, political theory, philosophy, and International Relations"--

This article approaches a potential tension in the work of Slavoj Žižek between his critique of communist ideology and his endorsement of the communist idea. The aim is to show how this endorsement, in effect, emerged out of Žižek's sustained engagement with communist ideology. The article captures this transformation by focusing on his understanding of the notion of the idea and the ways in which ideology can be transgressed. The conclusion drawn is that in moving from a Kantian to a Hegelian notion of the idea, Žižek also leaves behind his initial Beckettian Leninism in favor of an understanding of revolution that no longer depends on the heroic act of a subject, but on the immanent logic of the communist idea.

This essay seeks to approach the current tensions within the European Union through the lens of the philosophy on perpetual peace. Beginning with Kant's pamphlet On Perpetual Peace and his depiction of it as "an infinite process of gradual approximation", the text moves through Hegel's concept of the necessity of war in order to develop an understanding of the emergence of war between modern nation states. Finally, it approaches Derrida's critique of both Hegel and Kant as well as his own understanding of the conditions for peace in Europe, in an attempt to provide an explanation for the tensions haunting the EU during the last two decades.