The gift of the political.

What produces the ability within us to face the possibility of dying for a cause to which we adhere? Such political commitment backs onto the issue of sacrifice, which, in turn, inhabits the world of a gift economy. The gift of the political opens onto a series of questions tied to different traditions of the sacred and of the clan. From biblical parables through to Confucian rites, the paper traces the various pathways enabling the emergence of the gift of the political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]