In this dissertation I offer a phenomenological approach to a long-standing problem in political theory, which has to do with a divide between theoretical reflections on politics and the world of political practice. I argue that this divide has to do with a fundamental misunderstanding of human practices that begins with our earliest traditions of political theory. Beginning with Plato, there is a tendency to assume that agents must be acting as theorists on the basis of explicit and propositional knowledge in their practices. This assumption is a mistake. Through a reading of 20^th century phenomenologists and Aristotle, I argue that, in fact, our practices rest on prior and pervasive forms of engaged coping that are non-propositional and implicit. The seeming divide between theory and practice, then, rests on the basis of a basic misunderstanding of practices that lies in our deepest, taken-for-granted assumptions concerning political theory and human practices. This (mis)understanding has led political theory to consistently cover over the world of political practice. I conclude that the tension between theory and politics can be overcome only on the basis of a fundamental rethinking of political theory along the lines of phenomenology.