Deconstruction and political action: Strategies of interpretation and rupture

Abstract

Jacques Derrida was, without doubt, one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, and, in many cases, such as the American one, his reception was great¬er in university departments other than the philosophy ones, such as critical legal departments. One of the most frequent critiques raised against Derrida’s thought involves the notion that deconstruction, as proposed by him, privileged interpretation over action. In this paper, we propose to refute that hypothesis by presenting deconstruction as a thinking that has in it a dimension of rupture, of interruption and of material action that, having nothing to do with language, materializes precisely its crisis. To do that, we shall discuss the relation between law and violence, the relation between interpretation and force, the possibility of a rupture with legal power, the relation between negotiation and radicalness concerning strategies of rupture, and the possibility of change and transformation in a legal system. In dealing with such problems, we hope to present a particular take on Derrida’s thought, as well as on the kind of consequences it brings to legal thought.

Keywords: institutions, interpretation, deconstruction.