This book critiques the relation between sovereignty and democracy. Across nine theses, Vardoulakis argues that sovereignty asserts its power by establishing exclusions: the sovereign excluding other citizens from power and excludes refugees and immigrants from citizenship. Within this structure, to resist sovereignty is to reproduce the logic of exclusion characteristic of sovereignty.

In contrast to this "ruse of sovereignty," Vardoulakis proposes an alternative model for political change. He argues that democracy can be understood as the structure of power that does not rely on...