Butler insists on using a strong form of the dialectic with highly abstracted sets (subject v power) and in doing so falls into what I think of as a trap. The trap is to be so precise as to become meaningless.
The dialectic is the a partitioning of an undifferentiated class (society) into sets (subject, power) with respective elements (declinations or subsets of subject and power), and binary relations. Under a variety of binary conjunctions, two or more sets are defined through pairwise matching of elements. Then, as two sets are enumerated element by element under a binary operator, each respective set is shown to be dependent on its mate plus the relation plus whatever remains of the class that is not contained in the original partition.
Almost all uses of this sort of overdetermined dialectic yield a highly predictable set of results that can be characterized or found analogous to finite group symmetries. In particular we are lead to discover the symmetric, reflexive, and transitive laws of equivalence relations that typify any binary operator. The process of discovery is not dependent on the meanings attached to the sets but is rather a property of the dialectic. In other words, discovery is a property of the logical system employed. What is discovered are the symmetries of the system as such. In this particular sense then the discourse is conceptually tautological, and can be meaningless.
In less analytic terms, if the dialectic is well constructed, it always works. Somebody said, and I can not remember who, that, 'the problem with dialectical reason is it works too well.'
Since this is discourse and not a logico-mathematical system, there is always room to escape a technical demonstration of circular reasoning, through a nuance or development of meaning. In analytic terms, this escape amounts to extending the elements of the sets through developing definitions for further subsets. This is accomplished, usually by drawing from the undifferentiated and original class--in this case, society.
Butler is certainly not the only one to fall into this trap since it was so well laid out by Hegel. As far as I am concerned, it is an art to dance on the jaws without getting caught when they snap shut. Maybe she dances later, I don't know yet. So far, I don't think so.
Chuck Grimes