Derrida's deconstruction of Marx(ism)

This article is an assessment of the arguments between Derrida and his critics over his commentary on Marx and Marxism in Specters of Marx. In order to make the assessment as balanced as possible Derrida's deconstruction of Marx(ism) is mapped out in some detail. It is argued that, although in Derrida's response to his Marxist critics he was correct in indicating that they had often misread and misunderstood his account of what can be termed the 'onto- political' and the 'haunto-political', how these two categories of analysis can be combined remains an open question.     

Laclau and Mouffe's Hegemonic Project: The Story So Far

This paper seeks to do two things: first, to map out in a broad way Laclau and Mouffe's intellectual development, since the publication of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy in 1985, and how they have created a following within academia; and second, to evaluate their 'hegemonic' endeavours so far. I argue that there is a place for a post-structuralist approach to the study of political ideologies and the 'political', but that the project as a whole is unlikely to achieve its intellectual and political ambitions.