Clohesy, Anthony M. “The Human Rights Act: Politics, Power, and the Law” in Discourse Theory in European Politics. David Howarth and Jacob Torfing (eds). Palgrave: Great Britain. 2005. pp. 170-189.
Derrida’s argument is that signifiers can be repeated because their meaning is, and can never be exhausted. They are, therefore, always subject to rearticulation into other contexts. However, when this rearticulation happens, the meaning of the signifier is modified. This is because meaning is only intelligible in the context of a particular system of differences. Thus, when the context in which the sign appears changes, its meaning also changes. This has important implications for how we understand politics as it allows us to see that political identities and settlements, while appearing natural and necessary, are always the product of this wider system of differences. How is this related to power? The important point here is that the integration of a signifier into a new system of differences is always the result of a specific act of power that excludes other possible interpretations. This is the case whether the attempt to recast the terms of a debate is successful in hegemonic terms or not. … it is because the context in which meaning is derived is always the result of power that it is always then subject to the future exercise of power (180).