It is beyond question that throughout recorded history there has been a connection between politics and coercion. But the source and nature of this connection has been a troublesome issue for political theorists. In this paper I will try both to explicate the source of this connection and to outline the limits within which a defensible politics can involve coercion. My argument here presupposes both that there is a distinguishable realm of politics and that there is a set of elements which any defensible politics must embody. This set of elements can be detected on the basis of clues provided by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty.