SIMULATED SOVEREIGNTY: NATIONAL KNOWLEDGE VS IMPORTED PRESTIGE

This editorial by José Romero appeared in the June 5, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier leftist daily newspaper.

The recent signing of a letter of intent between the Ministry of Economy and the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at University College London was presented as a step toward economic transformation with social justice and sustainability. According to the official statement, this represents a partnership to design mission-oriented public policies, following the approach promoted by Mariana Mazzucato.

However, beyond diplomatic enthusiasm, this gesture reveals a structural problem: the persistent intellectual subordination that conditions public policy formulation in Mexico.

What can this British institute contribute that institutions like the Center for Economic Research and Teaching, El Colegio de México, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or the 26 Public Research Centers can’t? It’s not a question of technical capacity, but of symbolic hierarchies: knowledge validated in English still outweighs decades of critical thinking produced in Mexico.

The paradox is that this is happening under a government that proclaims itself sovereign, progressive, and innovative. It champions a discourse of breaking with the neoliberal past, but repeats the same practices: consulting Harvard yesterday, London today. The difference is one of emphasis, not logic. Epistemic colonialism remains intact, only now it’s disguised as critical modernity.

This is not about denying the current government’s social progress, but rather pointing out that it could be undone if the same pattern of dependence is reproduced, with new language. Because dependence is not only economic or technological: it is also epistemic. Foreign universities are used without even establishing a dialogue with national ones. And, most seriously, more than 46,000 members of the National System of Researchers, many with work and experience in industrial policy, innovation, and development, are systematically ignored. They are not consulted. They are not invited. They do not count.

This is not an anecdote, but rather an expression of academic colonialism, as defined by Boaventura de Sousa Santos: the belief that truly valid knowledge can only come from the global North. This is what Pablo González Casanova and Enrique Dussel also noted: dependency is manifest not only in the productive structure, but also in the way of thinking.

Even the “missions” approach now presented as innovative is nothing new. Since the 1960s, structuralist thinkers such as Celso Furtado, Raúl Prebisch, and Osvaldo Sunkel have defended the strategic role of the state in development. In Mexico, figures such as Víctor Urquidi and José Luis Calva had already put forward similar proposals. But instead of resuming this critical tradition, it is reintroduced with a British accent, without memory or context.

True innovation isn’t decreed or imported: it’s built from history, memory, and intellectual sovereignty. The Revolution of Consciences will only be authentic when we stop asking permission to think for ourselves.

All this occurs within the framework of a supposed “revolution of consciences” that, instead of liberating national thought, redirects it toward the imperial center of knowledge. This revolution, if authentic, would imply breaking with inherited categories, ceasing to think from foreign paradigms, and recovering epistemic dignity. But in practice, the discourse has been emptied of content: models are imported, decisions are subordinated to foreign capital, and the country’s institutional capacities are dismantled.

Even worse: the model they intend to adopt isn’t even being seriously pursued. There is no strategic State committed to reindustrialization, there is no national long-term planning architecture, and the conditions for promoting transformative missions have not been created. Mazzucato’s approach is invoked, but not implemented. Thus, neither national knowledge is consulted nor is the imported model truly applied. What remains is a simulation: an empty choreography that pretends to be modern without addressing the roots of structural dependence.

Meanwhile, Public Research Centers face increasing precariousness. According to the newspaper El Economista (January 27, 2025), these centers have suffered a cumulative reduction of more than one billion pesos between 2018 and 2025, with the 2025 cut being the most severe: 521 million pesos less, which has directly affected salaries, scholarships, and maintenance. The slogan is clear: import discourses and dismantle national capacities.

Collaborating with international institutions isn’t a mistake in itself. The problem is doing so from a position of subservience, ignoring those who have thought about this country from its margins and centers. True innovation isn’t decreed or imported: it’s built from history, memory, and intellectual sovereignty. The revolution of consciences will only be authentic when we stop asking permission to think for ourselves.