This article focuses on fugitive democracy. Democracy is one among many versions of the political but it is peculiar in being the one idea that most other versions pay lip-service to. The notion of boundaries is a rich and complex one. Boundaries proclaim identity and stand ready to repel difference. Both as container and excluder, boundaries work to foster the impression of a circumscribed space in which likeness dwells, the likeness of natives, of an autochthonous people, or of a nationality, or of citizens with equal rights. Likeness is prized because it appears as the prime ingredient of unity. Unity, in turn, is thought to be the sine qua non of collective power. During the nineteenth century, however, boundaries were associated with collective identity defined in historical and cultural terms and identified with a nation. The crucial institution is the Presidency. As chief executive he symbolizes the modern hope that politics may be regularized as policy and rationalized as administration; at the same time he is, as the textbooks constantly remind, the one politician elected by the whole body of the people.