The image of the citizen as a prospective or potential absolute ruler emerges clearly from the following thought-experiment. It takes us to a modern Western-style democracy in which the legislative power is both formally sovereign and for all practical purposes absolute. Moreover, it is a regime in which the parties of the parliamentary majority also, by custom or law, form the government while still retaining all the rights of a parliamentary party (including voting rights in plenary sessions and commissions). The same party (or coalition of parties) controls the government and the parliament. In other words, the so-called separation of powers is reduced to a sham, at least where the legislative and the executive powers are concerned. Here is the thought-experiment: Suppose an election is held but that every voter but one stays at home. The one voter who does show up at the ballot box and casts his vote ex hypothesi determines which party will occupy all the seats in parliament and therefore form and control the government. His vote, and his vote alone, is decisive. He is in the same position as an absolute king, who would have been able to pick his own ministers and council. Obviously