Popular sovereignty, citizenship, and nation-building in nineteenth century Spanish America: the republican experiment

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the vast and long-term political change triggered by the fall of the Spanish Empire and the wars of independence in Spanish America. After the revolutions, attempts at nation building followed different directions, but all the new polities in the making adopted republican forms of government based on the principle of popular sovereignty. This "republican experiment" entailed a radical change in political norms and institutions, as well as in political practices. By resorting to the category of "citizenship", this essay focuses on one aspect of that vast political transformation, which pertains to political participation and to the borders of inclusion and exclusion from the polity. On the basis of the recent literature on these topics, it explores the institution of citizenship in nineteenth-century Spanish America.