Ciudadania y representacion en el Perù, 1808-1860. Los itinerarios de la soberania

The volume focuses both ob the Peruvian laws defining the citizen with the right to vote as well as the electoral process and on the praxis resulting from the enactment of such measures. As the examination of the documentary sources reveals, the pivotal dynamics in Peru were those that ensued from the enforcement of the Constitution of Cadiz. The latter introduced a broad definition of political citizenship, enfranchising a sizeable cohort of the Indios, as well as an indirect electoral system that drew upon the traditional territorial constituencies. The constitutions and laws of the new Republic basically reproduced these features. The most dynamic factor was the great number of elective municipalities, whose establishment was endorced by the Cadix text and the subsequent republican measures. Against the backdrop of the power vacuum resulting from both the crisis of the monarchy and the weakness of the new independent State, the municipalities managed to exploit the liberal citizenship as an unprecedent mean of protecting and legitimizing their own political syncretism and traditional fields of autonomy. Consequently, at the same time, they slowed and hindered the road to modern political representation and to the construction of a new national political space.