The greatest possible mastery, the greatest possible self-presence of life: Derrida and the Deconstruction of Sovereignty

Rather than the reception of Jacques Derrida's so-called political thought, in question here will thus be a certain internal necessity that, beyond undeniable changes in tone and accent, defies the possibility of a historical periodization. Precisely on this basis, with the guiding thread of this necessity internal to thinking, an entirely other work must be undertaken, namely, an analysis of the concept of sovereignty that brings forth the admirable consistency and uninterrupted perseverance of a discourse that will have always been political, from the very first writings to the posthumous publications. For reasons pertaining to this fundamentally political scope of deconstruction, I do not share the periodizing compulsion of certain readers of Derrida who desperately seek to identify a "before" and an "after," a "first Derrida" and a "last Derrida." Deconstruction responds each time and ceaselessly to the same injunction to resist every principle of power, that is to say, all hegemony that organizes a text or a context.