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11. Intervention and Empire: Politics as Usual?
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erika pani Eleven. Intervention and Empire: Politics as Usual? We all have an idea of what a pronunciamiento is. I lose my job and, naturally, the government no longer suits me: I pronounce. I am on half a salary: I pronounce. Disgruntled colonel, retired general, sacked minister, president in waiting: I pronounce, I pronounce, I pronounce. —désiré charnay, Ciudades y ruinas americanas (1863) I n 1863 French explorer Désiré Charnay condescendingly described Mexico’s pronunciamientos as a national pastime, the sport of the unruly, the disaffected, and the dissatisfied, who kept the country in a state of constant unrest. He was in fact describing a recurring phenomenon in Mexican politics after independence . As the nation’s sovereignty became a fundamental legitimizing political fiction, setting up a system that would articulate the “voice of the people” was seen as indispensable. From independence to revolution, suffrage remained relatively broad and elections were held regularly. Only Santa Anna during his last stint in government (1853–55) and Emperor Maximilian (1864–67) dispensed with national elections, and both felt compelled to set up mechanisms for the expression of the approval, if not of the sovereign will, of the people. But while municipal and legislative elections, Intervention and Empire 237 though not devoid of conflict, allowed for the consolidation of local and regional elites, the adaptation of parliamentary practices , and the construction of certain power-sharing schemes, presidential elections appear to have been a dismal failure in that they did not constitute an efficient vehicle for accessing power or implementing regime change.1 Only in 1851 would a president turn the Executive over to his elected successor. All others came to power in the wake of a revolt or as a result of negotiations within the framework of a pronunciamiento. From the Plan de Iguala (1821) to the Plan de Ayutla (1854), the pronunciamiento was a defining element structuring national politics.2 As an instrument for political action, the pronunciamiento did not contribute to the country’s stability. Because its success depended on strength—whether it was actually used or not—it reinforced the importance and the autonomy of those wielding armed force. Understandably, it unhinged those politicians bent on consolidating a modern liberal nation-state, even if they were not above resorting to it when they thought it would advance their schemes. It provoked the derision of foreign observers—and later, of scholars both native and foreign—and contributed to Spanish America’s image as a genetically convulsed continent. But as has been shown by the three-year project (“The Pronunciamiento in Independent Mexico, 1821–1876”) giving rise to this volume, the pronunciamiento should not be dismissed as the natural device of a people lacking political reason yet notorious for their political passions.3 The recurrent, ritualized discourse of sovereignty betrayed and liberties violated “with great scandal,” the procedural formulas and practices for expressing support—pronunciamiento –plan–acta de adhesión—and the relatively contained nature of the violence involved suggest there was logic to the madness, and [52.91.67.23] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 20:08 GMT) 238 Pani that it was intelligible to broad sectors of Mexican society.4 The pronunciamiento did not represent a transgression of established order, which suggests that it was not symptomatic of a lack of legitimacy in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ancien Regime. It is rather the expression of a political culture founded on a radical conception of national sovereignty, in which those who spoke for “the people”—usually army officers, but also local strongmen, parish priests, and town councils—expressed the sovereign’s will, which was beyond institutional representation and above constitutional law.5 Our French archeologist, then, described as offensive what was really a customary way of “doing politics.”6 It seems that he was speaking from prejudice rather than experience, as pronunciamientos were not particularly frequent during the period when he visited Mexico—the early 1860s. In fact, the period of the French Intervention and Maximilian’s empire (1862–67) does not seem, at first, to be the most suited to the study of pronunciamientos. The eleven-volume compilation Planes en la Nación Mexicana does not contain a single plan or pronunciamento from these years. Instead, volume 6 includes a series of manifestoes and proclamations made by different actors—President Juárez and General Díaz, Maximilian and General Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, French commanders , the interim government, and the Regency—and some “Documents concerning the creation...