This article examines the "politics of difference," a phrase now almost synonymous with postmodernism and the critique of the Enlightenment. The article provides a post-structuralist take on this critique arguing that a critique of Enlightenment values can lead to a deepening of democracy and using Foucault's notion of governmentality to elucidate the way political reason links the form of liberal government with the self-governing individual. It also examines emergent forms of post-coloniality with its emphasis on philosophies of difference and encounters with the Other and borrows the concept of the "multitude" from Hardt and Negri, to talk about Derrida's "coming of world democracy." (Contains 5 notes.)