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In this article, I defend Jacques Derrida's assumptions about language and discourse from three immanent critiques of poststructuralism. I refer to these as the ethical, metaphysical and political critiques. At the heart of Derrida's approach is an emphasis on the terrain of signification, understood as a precondition of our perception of/engagement with 'the world'. This is encapsulated in his statement that 'there is no(thing) outside of the text', and the ethical, metaphysical and political critiques turn on what can or cannot be said about this 'nothingness' that marks the limit of the discursive terrain. I examine the assertions that the extra-discursive 'nothingness' is (a) the source of an inscrutable ethical demand, (b) can be understood as a material realm of 'vital forces' and alternatively (c) that nothing positive can be said about this limit point of the discursive, but 'it' nonetheless becomes manifest within the terrain of signification in the form of a disruptive event. While I reject the ethical and metaphysical responses, I feel sympathy for the political critique of deconstruction. Indeed, I argue that politics unfolds in a tension between the manifestation of the event and the kinds of manoeuvres that are possible within the field of signification.

William Connolly has made important interventions in Political Theory over a period of four decades, and the past few years have seen a surge in recognition of his contribution. Those who are familiar with Connolly's ideas will know the role that continental theorists-especially Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze-have played in the development of his thought, and more recently the uses he has made of advances in the natural sciences, for example in complexity theory, in the work of the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, and the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Ilya Prigogine. With reference to these innovations, a consensus has emerged in recent discussions, that there is a basic discontinuity between Connolly's 'postmodern' theory of pluralism and the 'old' pluralism of the generation of post-war political scientists. By way of contrast, in this essay I outline the congruity between Connolly's ideas and earlier iterations of pluralism. I trace the essential continuities between Connolly and the leading post-war writers, especially Robert Dahl, Charles Lindblom, David Truman, and David Easton, and also his proximity to a tradition of pluralism that flourished in the early part of the twentieth century and was exemplified in the work of Arthur Bentley. Indeed, I make the case that Connolly's work is best understood as the resumption and enhancement of a distinct canon of pluralism in American political thought. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

William Connolly has made important interventions in political theory over a period of four decades, and the past few years have seen a surge in recognition of his contribution. Those who are familiar with Connolly's ideas will know the role that continental theorists—especially Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze—have played in the development of his thought, and more recently the uses he has made of advances in the natural sciences, for example in complexity theory, in the work of the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, and the Nobel Prize–winning chemist Ilya Prigogine. With reference to these innovations, a consensus has emerged in recent discussions, that there is a basic discontinuity between Connolly's "postmodern" theory of pluralism and the "old" pluralism of the generation of post-war political scientists. By way of contrast, in this essay I outline the congruity between Connolly's ideas and earlier iterations of pluralism. I trace the essential continuities between Connolly and the leading post-war writers, especially Robert Dahl, Charles Lindblom, David Truman, and David Easton, and also his proximity to a tradition of pluralism that flourished in the early part of the twentieth century and was exemplified in the work of Arthur Bentley. Indeed, I make the case that Connolly's work is best understood as the resumption and enhancement of a distinct canon of pluralism in American political thought.

In the context of multiculturalism and identity politics the concept of 'pluralism' has become the common sense of our times. Here, I mark out the distinctiveness of William Connolly's approach to pluralism vis-à-vis the neo-Kantian perspectives of John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas. Unlike the neo-Kantian perspectives, Connolly's account of 'network pluralism' denies the possibility of any element of transcendence from the plurality of forces that make up the world. Having explored the role that 'agonistic respect' plays in Connolly's version of pluralism, I make the case that his thought retains traces of (Spinozan pan-) theism, in the sense that he imagines that forms of regularity tend to emerge spontaneously from the immanent movement of social forces. The paper concludes with intimations of an alternative account of social regularity, one that emphasises the transcendental moment understood as necessary/impossible.

In a recent article in Political Studies I presented a critical overview of Paul Hirst's theory of 'associative democracy' ( Wenman, 2007 ). I emphasised his proximity to English pluralism and especially to the work of G. D. H. Cole. I argued that — like Cole — Hirst's theory moves in a contradictory fashion between an advocacy of pluralism and the assumption of a unified social purpose which is manifest in his defence of functionalism and corporatism. In their response, also in this journal, Jason Edwards and Kelvin Knight claim that I 'overstate' the 'intellectual continuity between Hirst and the English pluralists' and so my reading misrepresents the 'character' and 'intent' of associative democracy ( Edwards and Knight, 2008 ). They make numerous substantive points in support of this view; I address each of them in turn.