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Although political communication and propaganda have long been considered as one and the same, there are grounds for a reassessment this commonplace observation to envisage communication as the symbolic dimension of matters political, and as the means of developing the codes and languages that are essential in forging links between politicians, the existence of a public sphere and the expression of identities. The expression of identity as conveyed by politicians is at once the essence and the substance of public debates, and it is through their communication practice that politicians represent their commitments, articulating as they do so the real dimension of their relationship with power, the imaginary dimension of their goals and the symbolic dimension of their representation. Political communication and commitment cannot exist outside the sphere of public debate. Debates then take shape in four different but interconnected ways: expressions of the identity of those taking part, attempts to secure the support of others, exclusion of those who disagree with the discourse and aesthetic sublimation of the political goal. These multiple forms of public debate endow political commitments with a genuinely democratic dimension by grounding them in the demos logic of shared political identity.