CITIZENSHIP, POLITICAL PARTICIPATION AND THE FORMATION OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN BUENOS AIRES 1850s–1880s

Political space and the space of polities: Doing politics across nations

“…In Argentina, habits of public engagement avoidance actually go back to before twentieth century authoritarianism and its military control of practically all civilian institutions. As many accounts have suggested, because formal political participation was restricted to citizens, because the proportion of immigrants among the Argentinean population was very high, and finally because the procedure for naturalization was very cumbersome and thus rarely picked up, politics in nineteenth century Argentina took the shape of a game between local political factions that left the vast majority of the population indifferent (Rock, 1985;Sabato, 1992). This politico-demographic situation, combined with an oligarchic influence that was always acute even by Latin American standards (Collier & Collier, 1991:129-131), forged a form of citizenship that was somewhat more alienated than elsewhere on the continent.…”

Democratic and Revolutionary Traditions in Latin America

“…3±4, 16± 20, 28±9;Bushnell, 1993, pp. 161±2;Sa bato, 1992): that is to say, parties consisted of narrow coteries of notables and lacked mass membership; elections, though regular and sometimes quite lively, were usually fought between rival bosses (caciques, gamonales, coroneles) and their clienteles; the dominant landlord class, even if it did not provide the bosses, 38 could usually rest secure that the political 35 We should note the exceptional case of Puerto Rico, which, following the final collapse of the last remnants of the Spanish empire in the Americas in 1898, failed to achieve independence, but became an American protectorate. 36 Following the democratic dawn of the 1810 and '20s, the second quarter of the century saw a shift towards more restrictive franchises; and, while this closure was followed by a renewed opening in some states after 1848, the`Indoamerican' republics of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia resisted the democratizing trend: Posada-Carbo (1996, p. 7); Guerra (1996, pp.…”

Las elecciones bajo el caudillismo militar en Bolivia, 1830-1878

“…La interrogante referente a si la existencia del voto define la ciudadania ha llevado a algunos autores a negar la validez de las elecciones como definidoras de la representacion politica en el siglo XIX. Algunos autores, a partir de experiencias locales argentinas - Sabato (1992); Sabato y Palti (1990)-tratan de explicar la contradicion entre la fuerte politizacion de la vida publica y la baja participacion e indiferencia hacia el escrutinio por parte de las elites y de aquellos que se identificaban con la nueva cultura liberalrepublicana. La respuesta reside en que esa instancia representativa no les estaba particularmente destinada; 10 esencial para ellos era la concertacion sobre los candidatos realizada a trave de los representantes de las parroquias y dirigentes de los clubes de opinon.…”