Contents -- Introduction: Problems with Reality -- Chapter 1 Desire and Ideology in the Leviathan -- 1. Rational Action -- 2. Reckoning Reason -- 3. Passion and Power -- 4. Hobbesian Ideological State Apparatuses -- 5. The Politicization of Desire -- Chapter 2 Internal Externalities -- 1. The Spirit of the Letter -- 2. Money or Life? -- 3. Stateless Nature -- 4. Universal Oblivion -- 5. Biological Violence -- 6. Persona Non Grata -- Chapter 3 The Return of the Political -- 1. Being All That You Can't Be: The Mirror Stage -- 2. Money or Life: Alienation and Existence -- 3. Signifying Nothing -- 4. The Paternal Metaphor and its Phallusy -- 5. Che Voi? From Separation to Desire -- 6. Traversing the Fantasy -- 7. The Return of the Political -- Chapter 4 The Personification of Democracy -- 1. The Gutting of the Sovereign: Lefort's Democratic Void -- 2. Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemonic Strategy -- 3. Lacan as Theorist of Democracy -- 4. Only an Act Can Save Us -- Conclusion: Against the Personifi cation of Democracy -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- K -- L -- M -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Z.