There is a fault-line in the philosophy of the New Right, running along the theme of force and violence. On the one hand, New Right politicians advocate the right to autarchic self-defense. On the other hand, they call for more authority for police and other groups to which force is delegated.By analysing this fault-line conceptually, it is possible to get to the heart of a dichotomy in the democratic state. This dichotomy goes back to the earliest democratic conceptions in Athens, (...) and Aristotle’s Politics helps to illustrate the dialectic of the concepts which constitute the logic of self-reflexivity.With this analysis in hand, it is possible to revisit the theatrical crux of democracy, and its basis in the possibility of an open theatre of contestation. (shrink)