Contents -- Introduction: Democracy as Self-Subverting -- 1. "More than Kings yet Less than Men": Tocqueville on the New Extremes of Democratic Society -- I. The Dualism of Democratic Society -- II. Democratic Degradation: Equality, Mediocrity, Domestication -- III. Democratic Grandeur: Openness and the Absence of Hierarchy -- 2. Civilization without the Discontents: Tocqueville on Democracy as the Social State of Nature -- I. Freedom, Equality, Power -- II. The Freedom of Openness -- III. Norms of Association in Democracy -- 3. The Regime of Revolution: Claude Lefort on History, Nature, and Convention after the Democratic Revolution -- I. Democracy as Natural -- II. The Revolutionary Phenomenon of Opening -- III. Democracy as the Historical Society par Excellence -- 4. Political Phoenix: Sheldon Wolin on the Limits and Limitlessness of Democracy -- I. The Economic Polity -- II. Liberal Democracy: The Abstract "We" -- III. Archaic Democracy: The Communal "We" -- IV. Fugitive Democracy: The Revolutionary "We" -- Conclusion: Despotism and Democratic Silence -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.