Expiation and renunciation: sacrifice in contemporary politics: el sacrificio en la política contemporánea

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the centrality of the sacrificial dimension in contemporary political identifications, using libertarian activism in the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires as an empirical case study. Drawing on the theoretical tradition of the sociology of religion, we argue that adherence to this political project is articulated through processes of sacralization that imbue political action with moral meaning rather than utilitarian calculations. To this end, we propose an analytical distinction between two complementary and interconnected forms of sacrifice: expiatory sacrifice and renunciatory sacrifice. The former manifests itself in the construction of a scapegoat whose expulsion and punishment are perceived as indispensable requirements for purging impurity from the social body and restoring order. The latter refers to the willingness to accept economic hardship and adjustment as a necessary and virtuous offering for the redemption of the nation.

Through participant observation of campaign events and in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025, this article seeks to demonstrate how these two facets of sacrifice operate together to consolidate a intense political identity. The findings are interpreted as indicators that present suffering is reinterpreted as a test that validates membership in a moral community and that violence against its adversaries functions as a mechanism of internal cohesion. This study aims to contribute to an understanding of how the Argentine radical right constructs moral legitimacy, establishes antagonisms, and produces political meaning through sacrificial mechanisms that combine expiation and renunciation, thus complicating our view of the affective repertoires that underpin political commitments. In this way, the libertarian phenomenon can be seen as a case study of the effectiveness of political processes that operate through the establishment of a mythical justice, where expiation and renunciation are the vectors that allow the transition from chaos and crisis to the promise of a purified nation.