This article discusses recent developments in South African politics from the perspective of a paradox, even a contradiction, inherent in the democratic project itself. Democracy requires that the people, the source of democratic authority, are considered purely as an ideal. This is precisely what is at work in the notion of ‘human rights’, for example. The specific qualities and character of individuals – their culture, norms, values and history – are stripped away to venerate them simply in their essential humanness, that is as a pure abstraction. The moment, however, democracy is located in a specific state, the people are transformed from abstract and essential humanity into a concrete one, unified on the basis of some or other shared characteristic or norm (commitment to freedom, investment in a particular culture and notion of the good and so on). Yet, if ‘people’ is really a normative term, rather than a descriptive one, then ‘democracy's people’ refers only to those persons who fit this norm. What...