Democratic Sacrifice.

Democratic politics necessarily involves the experience of loss on the part of its citizens. The degree and kind of such loss varies from a loss of private time or money in the interest of public service, to a loss of health or even life in the protection of one's state. Contemporary ethical and religious pluralism exacerbates this question by extending the realm in which this loss occurs from the material into the ideational. This paper begins with a discussion of the different ways in which political theory has traditionally dealt with questions of loss. I describe two basic ways in which this has been done: first, through a combination of appeal to some other (presumably higher) value, coupled with an appeal to a particular understanding of identity; and second, by interpreting loss within an economic context as a cost which can be compensated. I present a clarification of these approaches to loss with examples drawn from both traditional political theory literature (e.g. Plato and Rousseau), as well as contemporary political events. I then present a critique showing how each of these approaches fall short when it comes to understanding and addressing loss in the contemporary democratic context. In response to these shortcomings I suggest an examination of the concept of sacrifice as an alternative way to deal with questions of loss. Finally, a tentative research design for such an investigation is then proposed which includes analyses of different theories of sacrifice from a variety of thinkers including Danielle Allen, Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, Jacques Derrida, and Soren Kierkegaard. Although each of these authors presents differing understandings of this concept, each also provides theoretical tools that help respond to the shortcomings of the traditional approaches to loss. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]