In the past few decades, much political-philosophical reflection has been dedicated to the realm of "the political." Many of the key figures in contemporary political theory--Jacques Ranci re, Alain Badiou, Reinhart Koselleck, Giorgio Agamben, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj iek, among others--have dedicated themselves to explaining power relations, but in many cases they take the concept of the political for granted, as if it were a given,...