Abstract

MORELLI, Federica. Towns, Mayors, and Municipalities: Local Justice in the Hispanic World between the Ancien Régime and Liberalism. hist.crit. [online]. 2008, n.36, pp.36-57. ISSN 0121-1617.

The main goal of this article is to explain the central role that municipalities played in the Hispano-American world throughout the nineteenth century. Although in recent years the importance of the frst Spanish liberal regime has rightly been stressed in the historiography, it is not possible to understand the important part played by municipalities in the era of Independence without analyzing some clues frmly rooted in the beliefs and discourse that structured the political order of the ancien régime. These values stem from a legal culture, common to the whole Hispanic world, in which the transition from a jurisprudential model of the administration of justice to a one based on the rule of law would be very long and complex.

Keywords : Justice; Municipalities; Ancien Régime; Liberalism.

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