Wilson's formulation of the problems associated with popular sovereignty reveals an even more remarkable parallel with Foucault's analysis. The advantage of a reformer working within an autocratic form of government, Wilson (1887) notes, is that the "sovereign's mind [has] a specific locality ... contained in one man's head" (p. 206). But in the United States, the "reformer is bewildered by the fact that the sovereign's mind has no specific locality" (p. 206). And like Foucault, Wilson realized that dealing with a beheaded king required specialized tactics: "Whoever would effect change in a modern constitutional government . . . must first make public opinion willing to listen and then see to it that it listens to the right things" (p. 206).
In a subsequent essay on democracy, Wilson (1969) offers a somewhat more precise phrasing of this point.