ABSTRACT
In the case of Stephen Keyter, one can read his ideology as symptomatic of the hystericizing discourse of the Master, explaining his numerous attempts to confront girlfriends and colleagues alike. Once gathered together, the differences registered in the text show the movement from Keyter to the Ambassador –– that is, the shift in narrative perspective, the explicit denial of a Master, and the effectiveness with which Ambassador Van Heerden executes his function –– offering a different form of intersubjective relationship and, subsequently, another form of discourse. Diplomacy can here be situated at the core of the Realist’s turn away from perpetual peace toward an image of the balance of states. In the hands of Realism, diplomacy is provided with a theory that renders it compatible with the ontology of states. The death of the diplomatic subject mirrors the first death of diplomacy as archi-politics.
