“El hombre no es libre en la naturaleza”: Justo Sierra and the Persistence of Sovereign Power

Abstract

In The Birth of Biopolitics and Society Must be Defended, Michel Foucault explores European liberalism in the nineteenth century as undergoing a transition between sovereign and biopolitical power. In this essay, I read Foucault's thought in the context of the transformation of Mexican liberalism in the late nineteenth century in order to develop an explanation for the persistence of sovereign power in Mexico. Through readings of Mexican thinker and the “Maestro de América” ​​Justo Sierra, this essay attempts to locate the roots of on-going state-sponsored forms of violence in the critical period of the late nineteenth century.