Legitimacy, fear and instrumentalization of tuberculosis during the first years of construction of franco’s totalitarianism, 1936-1944

A biopolitical perspective

Abstract

This article analyzes the instrumentalization of tuberculosis as a tool for legitimizing the early Francoist regime (1936-1939), from the biopolitical perspective of Foucault and Agamben, drawing on various primary sources. The study argues that the New State used health control—particularly the anti-tuberculosis campaign—to build political and social legitimacy after the military coup, through disciplinary mechanisms that appropriated the citizen’s body as a political resource. The National Antituberculosis Board thus became an effective propaganda device, articulated around the discourse of «health justice» and a «healthy race,» which were fundamental components of totalitarianism in Spain.