Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of figures -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Part I What is politics? -- 1 Politics and power -- 1 A first definition of politics -- 2 Power and political power -- 3 Operating areas, instruments and modus operandi of political power -- 4 Political power and the others -- 5 Objections and consequences -- 6 Politics and power, a fatal connection? -- 2 The subjective side of politics: legitimacy, identity, obligation -- 1 Legitimacy and legitimation -- 2 Political identity -- 3 Political obligation -- Excursus 1: What is political philosophy? -- Part II How politics works -- 3 Order, institutions, models -- 1 What does order mean in politics? -- 2 Rules, institutions and the regulation of fear -- 3 Historic models of political order -- 4 The state -- 1 The state and sovereignty -- 2 The rise of the modern state in Europe -- 3 State and society -- 4 State and nation -- 5 The state and the law -- 6 State and values -- 5 Government and democracy -- 1 Democracy one and two -- 2 From representation to national democracy -- 3 Democratic government -- 4 How is democracy possible? Does it have alternatives? -- 5 Democracy and capitalism -- Part III World politics and the future of politics -- 6 The states: power, peace and war in anarchical society -- 1 The anarchical international society -- 2 War -- 3 Restraints to war, or peace? -- 4 The pacification of Europe -- 7 The globalised world: a challenge to politics -- Part I: Globalisation and global governance -- 1 What is globalisation? -- 2 Globalisation and politics -- 3 Global governance? -- Part II: Global/lethal challenges: politics after modernity -- 4 The two present challenges -- 5 What to do with future generations? -- 6 Politics after modernity: another definition -- 7 Global troubles for democracy -- Excursus 2: Politics and death