Gregorio Alonso

Corporations, subjects, and citizens: the peculiar modernity of early Hispanic liberalism

Abstract The varying degrees of political novelty and continuity brought about by the arrival of Hispanic constitutionalism are assessed in this article. It sheds light on the adaptations and the role played by pre-existing discourses and rituals in the articulation of the self-proclaimed “liberal” institutions, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the new independent Latin American territories. The tensions between individualistic and collectivistic representations of political power are at the centre of the analysis. The text thus seeks to make an original contribution to current debates in historiography regarding the emergence of a liberal subjectivity in the early nineteenth century and its limits.

‘A Great People Struggling for Their Liberties’: Spain and the Mediterranean in the Eyes of the Benthamites

Summary This article examines the relationship of Jeremy Bentham and some of his disciples within Romantic Liberalism in the Mediterranean in the early 1820s. By studying the content of Benthams correspondence with his collaborators and some Spanish political leaders, the text sheds light on Benthams ideas on constitutional rule, the independence of Latin America and religious tolerance.

Sujetos frágiles: the fragility of the liberal subject in the modern Hispanic world

Recent sociological and historical inquiries in Hispanic Studies have continued to analyse the public and private spheres in relation to the formation of personal identity and subjectivity historically. The unified, self-constituted, and supposedly unitary self – an individual adhering to one national concept, displaying one set of class allegiances, and performing one clear set of gendered attributes accrued over time – described in most nineteenthand early twentieth-century philosophy, history, economics, and sociology has, as these studies have shown, turned out to be a mirage, or a project rather than a fait accompli. Instead, the very fragility of this multifaceted subject needs to be accounted for in its own historicity (Holguín 2002; Quiroga 2007; Varela and Álvarez-Uría 1989). Our aim in this edited monographic collection of articles is to make a timely contribution to the explanation of overlapping and often contradictory identities that unfolded over a period of time, the long nineteenth century, and a geographical space, the Hispanic world, where they acquired particular characteristics under specific conditions. The project enshrined by the four papers that follow constitutes an attempt, therefore, to analyse a historical problem: the contested processes whereby a supposedly coherent liberal subject emerged as the repository of individual rights which were sanctioned by means of a process of legal tutelage established in the early nineteenth century in light of the various constitutions and other legislative corpora written in Spain and numerous Latin American countries. Those rights were determined by assemblies of chosen representatives who embodied the collective entity called the nation that was deemed to be sovereign and that expressed its will through these constitutions and a renovated concept and practice of Public Law. Where does the individual stand in this process? What processes of subjectivity are called into action as a result? Our contribution, both historiographical and epistemological, attempts to set the scene for a wider debate on the extent to which the promise of the creation and maintenance of “liberal subjects” failed to materialize, or materialized with difficulty, in the Hispanic world. In order to provide a successful focus for our approach, the research undertaken here has relied on a number of salient lines of inquiry. First and foremost, the comparative nature of the contributions is a major characteristic of this monograph. Dealing with the historical development of both Modern Spain and Latin

Imaginando a Fernando VII, rey católico y felón

The public image of King Ferdinand VII (1784-1833) was built through a process of exaltation and sacralization as a result of the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula that started in the fall of 1807. This article tackles the mechanisms put in place in order to achieve such a target. It also unravels the ways in which wide sectors of the Catholic clergy collaborated in the identification of the King’s image with that of the Spanish nation in danger. The text also sheds light on the American dimensions of the divinization of kingship and their limits in a period of rapid and violent change in the colonies.