Paper short abstract:

Pronunciamientos forwarded proposals for laws and constitutions in the texts of their political plans. This paper looks at how the discourse of rights in the texts of pronunciamientos and constitutions launched and inaugurated between 1821 and 1876 related to the construction of political legitimacy.

Paper long abstract:

In liberal revolutionary Spain and Mexico, the pronunciamiento a form of "forceful negotiation" or political petitioning with armed backing, became the most commonly used, accepted and therefore legitimate means of effecting political change, a "necessary evil" which enabled the traditional corporate identities established over the Ancien Regime to blend with the new Liberal constitutional rules of the game. From the first pronunciamiento of Rafael Riego in 1820 pronunciamientos became the standard procedure for expressing political opposition. Pronunciamientos were considered legitimate due to the existence of the concept of the right to revolution or insurrection and the right to petition. Pronunciamientos were potentially a fast track to Liberal constitutional revolution or "controlled revolution" although the majority of those launched in the period served to petition to negotiate political change. Through the analysis of the discourses in pronunciamientos launched in Mexico between 1821 and 1876 this paper will look at the ways in which nineteenth century Mexican political actors used arguments relating to rights. It will discuss how the discourses about rights in pronunciamientos and political plans related to the constitutions of the period. It will analyse those political actors' understanding of political sovereignty, social contract and the rule of law, how this related to the construction of legitimacy for particular governments, laws and political actions and what that meant for nineteenth-century Mexican political culture.