Derrida and the Political reassesses for the first time the political implications of deconstruction, whilst also being a reading of Derrida's philosophy through political philosophy. Such a reading is apposite, not simply because it is in line with current trends to reconsider the political application of philosophy, but because it responds to Jacques Derrida's own recent shift towards political theory, particularly in his evaluation of the "new world order" in Spectres of Marx . Richard Beardsworth's study opens the political implications of Derrida's thought in terms of a philosophy of time. Beardsworth focuses on the political dimension of the Derridean themes of aporia, invention and the lesser violence; he considers these motifs in the context of untying time from logic. He argues that in order to articulate the "and" between Derrida's philosophy and the political, this untying calls for a reinvention of the relation between political organisation and temporality. Such a reinvention can only be understood by tracing Derrida's negotiation with political modernity, specifically with Kant and Hegel, and with the political fates of two attempts to leave this tradition - the philosophies of Heidegger and Levinas. For sympathisers of deconstruction, this book is political without politicizing deconstruction; for non-sympathisers, it rearticulates deconstruction's relation to philosophical modernity. Derrida and the Political is designed for upper level, undergraduate students of philosophy, politics and critical theory.