CIAO DATE: 12/99

Rethinking the Legacy of the Liberal State in Latin America: The Cases of Argentina (1853-1916) and Mexico (1857-1910)

Gabriel L. Negretto and José Antonio Aguilar Rivera

Rights Versus Efficiency Paper #6
April 1999

Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University

 

Delivered at the second meeting of the Working Group on Authoritarian Legacies in Latin America and Southern Europe in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in August 1998. The event was co-sponsored by Columbia University in the City of New York and Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Please do not cite without authors’ permission.

 

Abstract

Predominant interpretations of nineteenth century Latin America see the failure of constitutional democracy in the region in terms of the inability of liberal elites to break with an authoritarian past. Against these views, we argue that the divorce between liberalism and democracy in Latin America was the unintended outcome of the institutions created by the liberal elite in response to the problems of territorial fragmentation and factional conflict that emerged after the fall of the Spanish empire. Using the cases of Argentina and Mexico, we demonstrate this proposition by focusing on the creation of a centralized form of government and a system of official control of elections as the main factors that through time prevented the evolution of the liberal regime into a competitive democracy.

 

 

There is no good faith in America, nor among the nations of America. Treaties are scraps of paper; constitutions, printed matter; elections, battles; freedom, anarchy; and life, a torment.

Simon Bolivar

 

Introduction _*

During the second half of the nineteenth century, liberal elites in Latin America succeeded in introducing the notions of constitutionalism and modern representative government in the context of traditional political systems. Elected presidents with legally defined powers replaced the rule of absolutist monarchs and the idea of citizenship emerged for the first time as the basic principle of legitimate government. Most liberal regimes in the region, however, were unable to achieve the gradual incorporation of opposition parties and the expansion of political representation that characterized successful constitutional democracies in this century. After a more or less extended experiment with popular government, different forms of authoritarianism generally replaced liberalism as a model of government. What factors account for this result?

A conventional view of nineteenth century Latin America traces the failure of the liberal project to the inability of liberal elites to break with authoritarian mental patterns and practices inherited from the colonial period. Against this interpretation, we argue that the divorce between liberalism and democracy in Latin America was the unintended outcome of the formal and informal institutions created by the liberal elite in the process of consolidating national unity and reducing the levels of conflict in the competition for power among elites. Using the cases of Argentina and Mexico, we suggest that the realization of political order in a context of territorial fragmentation and conflict for the control of state resources led to the creation of a centralized form of government and a system of official control of elections that through time prevented the evolution of the liberal regime into a stable constitutional democracy. This failure sealed the course of a process of democratization that perhaps to this day finds it difficult to reconcile the legacy of the liberal tradition with the principles of democratic pluralism and popular participation.

This essay will be divided into four sections. Section I presents a critical overview of the different interpretations of Latin American liberalism. Section II analyzes the ideological and institutional foundations of the liberal-constitutional project in Argentina and Mexico. Section III compares the implementation of the liberal project in both countries. Section IV explores the different and similar conditions that led to the fall of the liberal regime and the legacy it created for the future process of democratization. We briefly conclude by summarizing the central points of the essay.

 

I. The nature of liberalism in nineteenth century Latin America

The predominant interpretations about the nature of liberalism in nineteenth century Latin America may be seen as different versions of a single thesis: the inability of liberal institutions and values to break with the colonial past. According to one of these versions, liberalism was an “exotic” import, an ideology of limitation of powers and individual rights unable to take root in a cultural and social milieu dominated by the principles of the centralist-corporate state inherited from Spain. A second version poses, instead, that there was no duality between liberal doctrines and institutions adopted from the great revolutions of the late eighteenth century and a political reality anchored in the mental patterns and practices of the ancien regime. In this perspective, Latin American liberalism was just a particular form of political authoritarianism very much in touch with the non-democratic tradition of the colonial empire. Both views, we believe, are mistaken in their foundations and conclusions.

Claudio Véliz, a well-known representative of the first view, considers the adoption of liberalism the result of an obsessive attitude of imitation of everything foreign that characterized Latin American elites in the aftermath of independence. The institutions of modern representative government and free-market capitalism were part of what he calls the liberal “pause,” a period during which the legacy of the centralist and mercantilist state inherited from Spain seemed suspended. But only in appearance, because this tradition, says the author, would remain in force until its re-emergence in the first decades of this century. ₁ Richard Morse, who argues that behind the rhetoric of liberal constitutionalism the pervasive reality was that of the patrimonial state inherited from Spain, takes a similar position. Liberalism, in his view, was a disruptive ideology that simply aggravated the loss of authority and legitimacy left by the fall of the Spanish Empire. The proof of this assertion, according to Morse, is that only conservative Chile, which in the 1830s re-created a patrimonial state under republican form, escaped the political conflicts and struggles that characterized most Latin American nations after independence. ₂

It is an oversimplification to see in Latin American liberalism a mere imitation of foreign institutions. On the one hand, at least since the 1840s, there is a clear tendency among Latin American elites to abandon the idea that foreign institutions and models can be simply “transplanted.” Whether it was the doctrine of republicanism, federalism, or division of powers, the process of constitution-making in Latin America experienced a learning process in which foreign institutions were constantly re-adapted to fit specific local conditions. ₃ On the other hand, as most countries entered a phase of increasing political stability after the mid- nineteenth century, the observance of constitutional norms and liberal values became essential to understand the different conflicts facing the political elite. Major political controversies in Mexico, for instance, turned around the interpretation and application of the constitution of 1857. ₄ The same happened in Argentina following the creation of the constitution of 1853. Why would an irrelevant piece of paper be at the center of political conflict?

However difficult the application of notions like republican government or constitutionalism was in an environment shaped by the influence of a centralist and patrimonialist state, these norms gradually acquired a symbolic dimension that changed traditional models of political legitimacy. In most countries, the liberal-constitutional movement not only replaced the authority of hereditary monarchs with elected presidents but also provided a solid background for the development of notions of citizenship that were absent during the colonial period. Contrary to the assertion of Morse, the case of Chile is indeed the best example of the break that liberal institutions and values produced with the colonial legacy. Since its creation, the Chilean 1853 Constitution was the framework of one of the most successful experiences of institutionalization of political competition and progressive inclusion of the electorate in Latin America. ₅ In other countries, like Argentina or Mexico, where the practice of the liberal regime more clearly denied the principles of representative government, the constitution served as a weapon in the hands of democratic parties seeking the opening of political space and the effective implementation of universal suffrage.

A different but related version of the same thesis is represented by the recent work of Brian Loveman. According to this author, the liberal-constitutional movement in nineteenth century Latin America was from the very beginning a peculiar form of authoritarianism that simply provided legal foundations to arbitrary rule. The pervasive inclusion of constitutional regimes of exception that gave presidents the power to suspend constitutional rights and the recognition of the military as protector of the political system created what he calls the “constitution of tyranny.” As he puts it:

In practice, liberalism and authoritarianism merged; dictators and constitutional presidents executed opponents, sent adversaries into exile, censored the press, jailed and abused authors and publishers, and confiscated property-in short, ruled their nations with virtually absolute authority. They usually did this, however, in accord with the constitutions that purportedly guaranteed civil liberties, civil rights and popular sovereignty. ₆

This perspective may have the merit of indicating that the institutions created by Latin American liberals were not irrelevant to understanding the political development of the region. As we will argue in the case of Argentina and Mexico, it seems true that constitutional regimes of exception over time had a negative impact on the process of democratization in the sense that they were used to marginalize and prevent the emergence of political opposition. It is a unilateral view, however, because the constitutionalization of emergency powers was also a reaction against the arbitrary use of these powers in political contexts plagued by factional conflict and internal strife.

Whereas dictators like Rosas were able to execute political opponents with no other limits than their own will, Argentine presidents after the 1853 Constitution could resort to emergency measures only under the conditions and limits established by the law. The legalization of emergency powers also prevented the de-legitimation of the constitution when the government was forced to use those powers outside the constitutional framework. This, for instance, was the primary reason why the Mexican Constitution of 1857, by all standards one of the most liberal constitutions of the time, included provisions for emergency measures that were absent in previous documents.

We should emphasize, of course, that Latin Americans did not invent emergency powers. While the relationship between these provisions and liberal constitutionalism is a troubled one, many classic liberal authors recognized that extraordinary powers are necessary during emergencies. In a passage of the Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu recognized that there were cases in which a “veil should be drawn for a while over liberty, as it was customary to cover the statues of the gods.” ₇ Likewise, Locke, the father of classic liberalism, admitted that there were many things “which the Law can by no means provide for, and those must necessarily be left to the discretion of him, that has the Executive Power in his hands to be ordered by him, as the public good and advantage may require...” ₈ Moreover, these theoretical premises were perfectly consistent with the historical reality of the liberal state. As Neumann has observed, the liberal state “was precisely as strong as it needed to be in the circumstances. It acquired substantial colonial empires, waged wars, held down internal disorders, and stabilized itself over long periods of time.” ₉

The main aspiration of Latin American liberals was the creation of a republic, a form of constitutional government ruled by representatives chosen by the people. While this ideal was certainly borrowed from the American and French revolutions, Latin American liberals soon discovered the need to reformulate the available republican models to fit the peculiar political conditions they faced in the aftermath of independence. The attraction exercised by the American model was due to the fact that Americans, who just like creoles broke with a colonial empire, provided the only visible case of a stable and prosperous republic. No models of this type were available in France. The plebiscitary dictatorship of Napoleon, the restoration of traditional Monarchy and the constitutional Monarchy of Louis Philippe subsequently followed the brief and quite unhappy experience with a parliamentary republic in France.

Yet the American model, as Latin American elites soon learned, could not be simply reproduced. While the federalist ideal was certainly attractive to liberal intellectuals and provincial leaders, it proved unable to solve the problems that the consolidation of national authority presented in the context of the territorial fragmentation and institutional vacuum left by the fall of a centralist and absolutist monarchy. After an early experience with loose federal structures, most countries started to adopt either unitary forms of government or centralized forms of federalism in which the central government was invested with different instruments to control political autonomy in the provinces. Something similar happened with the system of distribution and division of powers in the central government. While early liberals preferred a presidential system with checks and balances, sometimes even providing greater powers to the legislature, the pervasive factional struggle to control state resources and policies gradually created the need to strengthen executive authority, often by means of emergency powers.

In terms of ideology, Latin American liberals were deeply affected by the task of creating an effective state authority and usually placed the values of order and stability above the idea of political liberty. They created, in the language of Merquior, a conservative brand of “nation-building” liberalism whose main concern was the creation rather than the limitation of political power. ₁₀ This, however, does not turn Latin American liberalism into an insidious form of authoritarianism. Just like the American founders, Latin American liberals were opposed to despotic and arbitrary rule and sought an effective protection of civil rights. They simply wanted a strong legal authority for exceptional times, trusting that the progress of civilization would reduce the need to restrict the sphere of political liberty in the future. Ultimately, their concern with strengthening state authority was no different from the ideology of post-revolutionary French liberals, such as Constant or Guizot, who also wanted a balance between popular sovereignty and political liberty, on the one hand, and effective order and authority, on the other.

We must note, however, that the liberalism of Latin American elites was no less adverse to democracy and popular participation than was the liberalism of the fathers of the modern liberal republic. Just like Madison or Siéyes, Latin American liberals used the terms “republic” or “representative government” in the sense of rule by an elected aristocracy. As Manin points out, this form of government not only rejected the idea of rule by the people but it also presupposed that, with or without voting qualifications, the elected representatives would always form a separate political class distinguished by virtue of its superior culture and social position. ₁₁ In this sense, the fact that most liberal regimes in nineteenth century Latin America evolved as oligarchic regimes, with sharp divisions between rulers and ruled in terms of wealth, social position, and even race, does not lead to the conclusion that those regimes were only liberal in name. Perhaps with less pronounced distinctions, a similar separation between rulers and ruled could be seen in European liberal regimes at the time, like the British, which later evolved into stable constitutional democracies.

Moreover, it is possible to argue that, in some sense, Latin American liberals were more receptive to the principles of popular participation than were their European counterparts. Recent historical studies on comparative elections in the early nineteenth century show that one of the peculiarities of Spanish America was the precocious adoption of modern forms of representation and universal suffrage when restrictions to vote were predominant in Europe. ₁₂ Even later, when different voices were raised in Latin America to introduce voting qualifications, universal suffrage was generally maintained as a principle. This shows that the manipulation of electoral results by the ruling elite, one of the most criticized contradictions of liberal regimes in Latin America, was not simply aimed at consolidating an oligarchic regime. They could have always secured this form of rule by means of voting restrictions.

If Latin American liberal regimes produced a real change in the inherited notions of political legitimacy and we also cannot trace any radical ideological difference with other liberal regimes that later evolved into stable constitutional democracies, we have, then, a puzzle. From an historical perspective, this puzzle can be formulated like this: why did most liberal regimes in Latin America fail to introduce gradual competition among elites and participation of the population in elections without disruption of constitutional mechanisms? Using the cases of Mexico and Argentina, we attempt to show in the following sections that this result was a by-product of the centralized form of government and official control of elections created to consolidate a national state and reduce the levels of political conflict among the elite.

 

Ideological and institutional foundations of the liberal project

Just like in other parts of Latin America, the fall of the Spanish Empire inaugurated a period of political turmoil in Argentina and Mexico. A centralist monarchy disappeared but no local institutions had sufficient legitimacy or stability to substitute its role. In this context, opposing groups struggled with each other in an attempt to organize the state according to their different material interests and opposing views of the world. At the center of conflicts was the creation of a new constitutional order that, all hoped, would introduce a new era of political stability and material progress.

The struggle for the constitution in Argentina is the story of four decades of conflict between Buenos Aires, opposed to a federal government, and the rest of the provinces, which found in that system the best protection for their economic and political interests. Only in 1853, after the military defeat of Buenos Aires by the governor of Entre Ríos, a coalition of provincial governors managed to organize a convention that produced a federal constitution supported by the majority of the provinces. Although conflicts of interest remained and Buenos Aires resisted its integration until 1860, the 1853 Constitution was the expression of a deep political consensus about the institutions that could best fit the historical conditions of Argentina. This consensus was formed around a conservative version of liberalism represented by the majority of delegates at the constitutional convention. Juan Bautista Alberdi, the jurist who prepared the draft constitution adopted in 1853, articulated the main elements of this particular liberal view.

According to Alberdi, the main mistake of early liberal elites in Latin America was their excessive reliance on the principle of popular sovereignty and their desire to curb the colonial legacy of absolutism through the creation of weak executive authorities and strong legislatures. These systems, in his view, could not provide an adequate measure of authority in the midst of the process of territorial and institutional disintegration that followed independence from Spain. Governments fell in the face of internal conflict, constitutions changed according to the ruling faction and dictatorships emerged as the only apparent solution to the problem of political order. In the light of this experience, Alberdi found in the stability of the Chilean Constitution of 1833 the secret formula that could help Argentina to escape the permanent cycle of anarchy and despotism that was the norm in the rest of Latin America. ₁₃

There were three main components in this formula: a centralized form of federation, a vigorous executive endowed with strong emergency powers, and restrictions on popular participation by means of voting qualifications. These institutions integrated the concept of what Alberdi called a “possible” republic, that is, a republic that though formally consistent with the idea of popular election of representatives, would place a strong emphasis on the principle of order over the exercise of political liberties. It was a restricted, though genuine, version of liberalism whose main objective was not so much the limitation as the regularization of state authority by means of a fundamental law.

Alberdi proposed that the provinces should be able to elect their own authorities, create their own constitutions and participate in the formation of the national government through a senate with two senators per province elected by state legislatures. At the same time, however, he sought to counteract the endemic political instability and centrifugal tendencies in the provinces by making the national government superior to local governments. The most formidable power of the central government in this respect was that of intervention in the provinces, even without the request of local authorities, in cases of internal conflict or external attack. Also crucial was the power of Congress to revise provincial constitutions before their approval. At the convention, the delegates accepted and even strengthened this form of disguised centralism, including the right of the national congress to impeach provincial governors and the intervention of the Supreme Court in conflicts between different branches of provincial governments. ₁₄

The convention also adopted the system of division of powers proposed by Alberdi. While based on the idea of separation of functions, Alberdi’s model rejected the notion of checks and balances of the American constitution, making the president the centerpiece of the national government. ₁₅ The president was elected by an Electoral College for a period of six years and could not run for immediate re-election. ₁₆ He did not require legislative approval to appoint cabinet ministers, had the power of legislative initiative, could sign international treaties without intervention by Congress and was able to declare a state of siege during the recesses of Congress, which remained in session for only five months. The president could observe the whole or parts of a bill, subject to a two-thirds override majority in Congress. Congress was composed of a Senate, with two senators per state elected for nine years by state legislatures, and a Chamber of Deputies, integrated by deputies directly elected by the people for periods of 4 years. In addition to the process of impeachment, the Congress could exercise control over the executive by calling ministers of the cabinet to report in person on particular areas of policy.

In one crucial respect, however, the constitution-makers of 1853 departed from the model of “possible” republic proposed by Alberdi: restrictions on the right to vote and to stand for office. While Alberdi did not establish any property or literacy qualifications on the right to vote in his draft constitution, he relied on the imposition of those restrictions by provincial constitutions and electoral laws. ₁₇ The 1853 Constitution, however, established that a national law would regulate the election of deputies and electors for president. This law was passed in 1857 creating a system of universal male suffrage. The intention to impose this principle over contrary provincial regulations was made clear when the national congress rejected a few provincial constitutions that attempted to introduce voting qualifications. ₁₈ The framers also relaxed some of the requirements to stand for office. While maintaining property restrictions for senators and presidents, the 1853 Constitution removed those requirements for elected deputies, thus making the Chamber of Deputies an authentic center of popular representation.

The new constitution was accepted by all the provinces except Buenos Aires, which formed a separate state until its final integration in the federation in 1860. One of the conditions for the incorporation of Buenos Aires was a constitutional reform that would protect the interests of this province by eliminating some of the centralist features of the original model. Sarmiento, a firm supporter of Alberdi’s model but on this a doctrinaire federalist, proposed the general lines of reform. The reform eliminated the revision of provincial constitutions by the national congress, its right to impeach provincial governors, and the power of the federal judiciary to intervene in conflicts between different branches of provincial governments. With some modifications, however, the most important instrument of control of the central government was maintained. The central government could intervene in the provinces to guarantee the republican form of government and, upon the request of local authorities, in cases of internal rebellion.

The acceptance of these reforms by a national convention made possible the application of the constitution at a national level and the gradual pacification of the country. Crucial issues, like the federalization of the city of Buenos Aires as capital of the nation or the maintenance of provincial armies, remained unresolved until 1880. But it was as of 1862 that the 1853 Constitution became the basic framework of reference in a new era of increased political stability, protection of civil rights and economic progress. Though valuable in themselves, these achievements were all the more impressive if measured against a past characterized by factional conflict, violence and despotism. Provincial rivalries for power were slowly eliminated, internal conflict reduced, and presidents succeeded one another observing the principle of no re-election. In addition, a relatively independent judiciary, particularly at the federal level, began to assert its presence as the guardian of individual rights and moderator of political conflict.

As in the case of Argentina, the 1857 Mexican Constitution was the product of a generation of liberals committed to the creation of a modern republic that would halt the flood of rebellions and dictatorships that characterized the history of this country since independence. ₁₉ Different from Argentina, however, is that the central institutions of this project expressed the ideas and interests of only a fraction of the political elite. Since independence, Mexican politics were affected by a sharp division between conservative and liberal groups with opposing views across different institutional issues. Not only did conservatives support centralism while liberals favored federalism, but also the former were advocates of maintaining the system of colonial corporate privileges that liberals sought to destroy. In this sense, the triumph of the liberal coalition that defeated the conservative and centralist dictatorship of Santa Anna in part foreshadowed the period of civil war that would follow the creation of the new constitution.

The composition of the Constituent Congress formed in 1856 was not plural: conservatives were systematically excluded from the delegation. Whereas Ponciano Arriaga, a radical, was elected president of the Congress, the committee in charge of drafting the new constitution was composed of radical and moderate liberals. The Congress as a whole, however, was more radical than the drafting committee. Thus, the project presented to the Congress was amended in significant ways to accommodate the radical convictions of most deputies. These views can be easily traced in the position taken by the constituent Congress in three key areas: federalism, balance of power among the branches of government, and the electoral system.

The 1857 Constitution restored federalism in Mexico. Different from the centralized version of federation adopted by the Argentine Constitution, the Mexican charter established a loose federation in which states were allowed to conduct their own business as they saw fit. Federalism was seen in Mexico not so much as a concession to the demands of provincial leaders as an integral part of a democratic project to distribute and limit the exercise of power. The constitution lacked institutional devices to counteract centrifugal tendencies and moderate political conflicts in the provinces. While the institution of federal intervention was included in very general terms, in no case could the national government intervene in the provinces without the request of local authorities. The Union could provide aid to the states if, and only if, it was requested by the state legislature, or the governor in case the legislature was not convened. The fact that the states had no representation as such in a unicameral legislature was probably one of the reasons further powers of intervention were denied to the central government.

Just like Argentine constitution-makers, Mexican framers rejected the American doctrine of checks and balances, or the idea of a self-enforcing equilibrium between the different branches of government. They did so, however, to assert not the superiority of the executive but rather that of a model closer to a parliamentary constitution. In this, Mexican liberals departed from a very well established trend in Latin America at the time toward the strengthening the powers of the executive. Mexican framers eliminated the senate created in the previous constitution and created a unicameral legislature whose powers indeed resembled a parliamentary form of government. ₂₀ The mention of an unspecified “Council of Ministers” in the charter furthered this interpretation. The Mexican Congress had the authority to determine the initiation and extension of its sessions and was potentially able to intervene in the appointment and dismissal of any official in the administration. The president had a veto, but this could be overridden by a simple legislative majority. While emergency provisions were included in the constitution, such powers had to be granted to the president by Congress. Only its independent election and the possibility to be reelected after periods of 4 years guaranteed the relative autonomy of the executive.

In terms of electoral rights, the Mexican constitution was more explicitly democratic than its Argentine counterpart. The constitution included a long Bill of Rights and a declaration that sovereignty resided in “the people.” The definition of citizen rights was expansive. The assembly rejected the proposal of the drafting committee to restrict voting rights to literate citizens as “unfair and undemocratic.” A property qualification was not even considered by the committee. Peasants were not to be blamed for their ignorance, according to deputy Peña y Ramírez, but rather governments, for not having provided them with adequate public instruction. ₂₁ In this view, a literacy restriction would constitute an undeserved form of punishment. ₂₂ Once this restriction was eliminated, the article was approved by a unanimous vote. In a similar fashion, restrictions (other than age and residence) on being elected deputy or president were also absent from the constitution. The only non-democratic feature of the electoral system devised by the framers was the provision for indirect elections for Congress. However, this article passed by a tight vote after a long and heated debate. Many deputies, and the more prominent members of the Congress, opposed the provision.

While the constitution followed the general principles of liberal constitutionalism, it was, like the 1853 Argentine Constitution, an original creation. The unicameral organization of the legislature in the context of a federal state broke with the models adopted by the vast majority of the constitutions at the time. Innovations also included the juicio de amparo, a form of judicial review, and the inclusion of emergency powers, which previous constitutions had omitted. Likewise, some key features of the French and American models were thrown out by the Mexican framers, such as the senate, trial by jury and veto powers. The provisions of the constitution were designed to cope with specific problems: just as emergency powers were needed to deal with chronic political instability, the unicameral Congress was intended as a safeguard against executive despotism. These were perceived not as abstract principles but as tailor-made solutions for real problems.

A central aspiration of the new constitution was the elimination of the traditional social order, which for Mexican liberals found its expression in the corporate rights and special jurisdictions (fueros) of the military, the Catholic Church, economic guilds and Indian communities. The most powerful of these corporations, particularly the military and the Church, soon became allies in the violent offensive initiated by the conservative opposition. Shortly after the enactment of the charter, the foes of the liberal regime issued the Plan Tacubaya in 1858. For three years, from January of 1858 until January of 1861, liberals and conservatives killed each other with unseen ferocity. Even then president Ignacio Comonfort was among the enemies of the constitution and fought on the side of the rebels. In light of Comonfort’s defection, the Chief Justice, Benito Juárez, became president. Juárez fled to the seaport of Veracruz, from where he fought the civil war. The Reform War (or Three Years War, as it is also called) ended when the conservatives were defeated in January 1861.

Yet, the opposition had not been eliminated and its members sought other means to destroy the liberal regime. The conservatives attempted to re-establish monarchical rule in Mexico. Conservative pleas found an echo in Emperor Napoleon III of France, who wanted a Latin empire. Maximilian, an Austrian prince, made himself available for the adventure and was recruited by Mexican Monarchists. Maximilian, however, had little more success than the dozens of caudillos before him. Even his own local supporters turned against him when Maximilian, like the liberals, tried to maintain secular control in the face of ecclesiastical pressures. Widespread civil disobedience lurked in the background of the Hapsburg court in Mexico City. In October 1866, when Prussia became a threat to France, Napoleon recalled his troops from Mexico. Without foreign military support, the empire collapsed.

For a decade after the fall of the French Empire, Mexico experienced an era of liberal hegemony. The liberal Reform became a reality. Laws that had been issued during the Reform War, such as the nationalization of Church property, the separation of Church and state, the secularization of society, and the forced sale of corporate property, were now backed by a legitimate government acting in the name of the 1857 Constitution. As we will see, however, the experience of the civil war and foreign intervention deeply affected the perception of the liberal elite about the institutions that could finally stabilize the country. As if following the advice of Alberdi, the leaders of the Mexican republic would soon experience the need to abandon the model of parliamentary sovereignty and decentralized federalism in favor of a centralized system of presidential hegemony.

 

III. Practice and consolidation of the liberal regime

From a political point of view, two interrelated factors may explain the success of the 1853 Argentine Constitution. First, the formal institutions created by the constitution proved to be adequate in solving the problem of national integration and consolidation of state authority. After the incorporation of Buenos Aires, Argentine presidents effectively used the power of federal intervention and state of siege to eliminate regional rivalries, reduce internal political conflict in the provinces and defeat the few caudillos that still challenged the national government. Second, the gradual stabilization of the system was also dependent on the moderation of political competition by means of a system of agreements among the elite about the circulation of political power. In a system where the prize of winning the presidency was so coveted, the consolidation of this mechanism of sharing power by consensus was a key element in reducing the levels of conflict in the struggle to control the national government.

There was, however, a reverse side to this success. On the one hand, while the formal powers of the president and the central government were effective in enforcing the constitution at a national level, they also increased the capacity of the government to shape the balance of political forces in the country. Whether in the provinces or at a national level, no group could either compete or remain in power without the blessing of the central government. As a result, the possibility for the emergence of internal or external dissent and opposition was drastically reduced. On the other hand, while the system of sharing power by consensus reduced the stakes of political competition, it also produced an increasingly visible contradiction between the principles and practice of republican government. Whether they were local elections, elections of national deputies, or the selection of electors for presidents, these processes remained under the control of provincial governors, who influenced the results according to previous agreements among local elites and between them and the national government. Consequently, authentic popular participation in elections was low and political groups had no incentive to organize parties to mobilize electoral support.

To understand the meaning and evolution of these practices we need to look at the conditions under which the 1853 Constitution was born. The federal constitution was the outcome of an implicit pact of mutual protection between the central government and regional elites. According to this pact, the president would protect the authority of provincial governors in their local spheres of influence as long as governors collaborated in supporting the president in office. The sustainability of this political transaction was intrinsically dependent on the powers of the president. A strong executive power with authority to intervene in the provinces and suspend constitutional guarantees in cases of exception was a guarantee against the emergence of internal and external challengers to the status quo in the provinces. Given the extreme political instability in the provinces, provincial leaders could rely on the central government every time they faced an internal rebellion or the threat of an external invasion from other provinces. At the same time, the president could also use his powers to impose discipline among those governors who did not agree with the policy of the government. ₂₃

It was also implied in this pact that the central authority would tolerate the control that provincial governors traditionally had over local elections. This practice not only made possible the formation and perpetuation of local oligarchies but also provided a reliable source of political support to the president. On the one hand, it could give the president a stable majority support during his term in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. On the other hand, given the participation of the provinces in the election of president, local control of elections could also sustain a national system of control of presidential succession.

Urquiza (1854-60) was the first president who controlled his own succession by appointing Santiago Derqui (1860-62) as the president who would complete the task of national unification. The growing conflicts between Urquiza and Derqui, however, led to the disintegration of the federalist coalition that sustained Urquiza’s government. Neither Mitre (1862-68) nor Sarmiento (1868-74) were able to reestablish a stable alliance with provincial governors in order to control the mechanism of presidential succession. With the election of Avellaneda (1874-80), however, this alliance was again put in place and was able to overcome the dissent of some members of the elite, like Mitre, who protested the manipulation of electoral results. By the 1880 election of Roca, the alliance between central government and a majoritarian coalition of provinces had already became the symbol of a hegemonic system of oligarchic domination known as P.A.N. (National Autonomist Party). ₂₄ The leaders of this system could be easily identified by both their monopoly over the state and their prominent social position as members of the landowning elite.

As we already said, the existence of informal agreements between regional oligarchies and the central authority about the rules of political competition played a strategic role in the observance of constitutional rules for the transmission of power. While neither presidents nor governors could be reelected, the mechanism of electoral control provided them with an influence over their successors that reduced the temptation of an extra-legal continuation in power or the promotion of constitutional reforms to establish the possibility of re-election. At the same time, once they left power, a large number of governors and several presidents also found a place in institutions, like the Senate, where they could continue exercising political influence or wait until they could be reelected. ₂₅ In this sense, while the whole mechanism prevented a real alternation in power between different parties it did facilitate a limited circulation of power among different fractions of the elite.

The relationship between presidents and provincial governors was not one of equal partners. In the first place, presidents had at their disposal important economic and political resources to co-opt regional elites. Given the weak economic position of many provinces, for instance, the central government often used the distribution of subsidies as an instrument to penalize opposition or reward loyalty. A similar use was made of the distribution of offices in the national administration. ₂₆ Most crucially, Argentine presidents had powerful instruments of coercion for those cases when persuasion would not work. From 1862 to 1880, the federal intervention and the state of siege were applied 27 and 15 times, respectively, in most cases by executive decree. ₂₇ The general aim of these measures was the elimination of old-style provincial caudillos, who defied the authority of the national government or attempted the creation of regional hegemonies by invading or intervening in the local affairs of other provinces. This process culminated by 1880 with the "federalization" of the city of Buenos Aires, after which no single province remained as a center of autonomous power.

From 1880 to 1916, the use of coercive powers by the president acquired a different dimension. While the use of state of siege provisions was more sporadic, federal intervention was declared 40 times, now by law in most cases. ₂₈ The greater involvement of Congress in cases of intervention, however, suggests not so much a decrease in the power of the presidency as its greater command over stable legislative majorities during the period of the P.A.N. domination. As Botana has observed, following the analysis of Sommariva, the use of federal intervention in this period played a more central role both in the control of potential oppositions within the coalition of provinces that supported the president and in the regulation of local conflicts. ₂₉ In the latter cases, intervention was not always designed to preserve the existing authorities and, in fact, in most cases where they were declared without prior request, the federal government tended to support the opposition. ₃₀ This use of federal intervention, in which the central government reserved for itself the role of arbiter, indicates a more effective use of the institution as an instrument of political manipulation.

Through time, the practice of electoral fraud and the distribution of offices by negotiations among the elite acquired the force of an unwritten convention that coordinated the actions of all the actors involved. Most cooperated out of self-interest, although some did so for fear of the sanctions that would follow from deviation from expected behavior. No single agent seemed to be in control and the system worked like an impersonal machine. It is perhaps for this reason that president Julio Roca (1880-86) thought it credible to say in a speech of 1886 that “the government is not responsible for the actions and behavior of all the officials of the republic who intervene in the electoral mechanism...” ₃₁ In a way, he was right: passive acquiescence was all that was necessary to reproduce the current state of affairs.

The comparison between the experience of the Mexican and the Argentine Republics may show how, in the face of similar political conflicts, both institutional systems moved toward some basic points of convergence. Towards the end of the French Intervention it became increasingly clear to Mexican liberals that the strengthening of presidential power was a necessity. When Juárez entered Mexico City on July 15, 1867, after four years of exile in the North, he did so in the name of the 1857 Constitution. For a decade, however, this constitution was a dead letter. Both the Reform War and the French Intervention made it impossible to govern with a political structure in which the Congress was supposed to be the central nerve of the national government. As the leader of the government in exile, Juárez was the only authority with the capacity to act under emergency conditions. In this sense, one of the major legacies of the years of civil war and foreign intervention was a "tradition of unrestricted presidential power and a desire for swift and unchecked decision-making. All the major reforms that the single Chamber of Deputies had been set up to perform had, in fact, been accomplished by an omnipotent president.” ₃₂

According to Rabasa, between 1863 and 1867, Juárez substituted for Congress in enacting laws and even the people itself, by extending his term in office for the time that was necessary. ₃₃ While the amount of power concentrated in Juárez’s hands had been unsurpassed, he used such power vigorously and successfully to fulfill his high purposes. But with the Constitution, Rabasa asserts, “Juárez never ruled.” ₃₄ Authority had become centered in the presidency, although officially it resided in Congress.

The republic was finally restored in 1867 and power was returned to Congress. The state of siege was lifted and all the laws restored. Yet, Juárez was not ready to relinquish all the powers he had acquired in the preceding period. The problem of political order was far from settled. Political turmoil was widespread and local bosses, road bandits, kidnappers and small bevies of rebels challenged the authority of the national government. In this context, an institutional conflict emerged between the desire of the president to obtain greater powers and the formal structure of the constitution. As Sinkin asserts, the constitution had been written in reaction to the centralized and absolute dictatorship of Santa Anna and, as such, “made certain that the presidential office would never be able to exercise the kind of aggressive leadership Santa Anna had displayed. Yet this was exactly the kind of leadership Juárez came to regard as essential for the survival of the nation.” ₃₅

On August 14 of 1867, the government issued the convocatoria, a document that established the dates for the elections of President, Supreme Court and Congress. The document also contained several proposals for constitutional change. Article 9 of the convocatoria called for a referendum on five constitutional amendments. In the first place, one amendment called for the creation of a senate to represent the provinces, decide on federal issues and counteract the power of the House of Representatives. At the same time, the proposals contained a visible enhancement of presidential authority. The president would acquire effective veto power, cabinet ministers would be exempted from the duty of making personal appearances before Congress to deliver their yearly reports, and the power of Congress to convene special sessions by itself would be eliminated. ₃₆ One last piece of the amendment aimed to resolve the problem of alternation in power by fixing the line of succession to the presidency.

In asking for this referendum and appealing directly to the people, the government sidestepped the existing amendment procedure that gave Congress the sole power to amend the constitution. The government claimed that the normal process would be too slow. The strategic reason for this move was obvious. Given that the main purpose of the government was to create a second chamber, it predicted the natural opposition that this reform would create in the legislature. The division of the single chamber, the government argued, would change the legislature from a radical convention to a deliberative body. The proposed reform, according to Sinkin, “was a logical and dramatic move in the direction of modern politics; given the strength of the Constitution of 1857 as a national symbol, however, it was doomed to failure.” ₃₇ The convocatoria was assailed from all sides. Opposition to the reforms was such that the government was forced to yield and withdrew the proposal.

Since constitutional reform was impossible, the government attempted the use of emergency powers and federal intervention to expand its capacity of action. Just like Argentine presidents in the initial period of the Republic, Juárez faced periodic challenges to central authority and endemic political conflict in the provinces. Unlike them, however, Juárez had no independent authority to resolve these problems. He was successful in obtaining from Congress regular concessions of extraordinary powers to punish federal crimes and control cases of rebellion against the constitutional government. In this way, he circumvented ordinary procedures in order to rule. Juárez had a more difficult time, however, obtaining broad powers of intervention in the provinces. One of the key problems was the existence of factional rivalries to control state governments. ₃₈ While governors tended to establish bureaucratic machine factions loyal to them, opposition groups often found no option but to resort to violence. In these cases, the government was unable to intervene without the request of local authorities and congressional approval. In 1870, Juárez sent a law to Congress to regulate and expand the institution of federal intervention; ₃₉ the initiative was never approved.

The most serious conflicts faced by the Restored Republic, however, was that affecting the ruling elite itself. Although liberals gained the upper hand on the political scene, they did not form, like in Argentina, a more or less unified elite able to agree on the rules of political competition. This situation created intense conflicts in the competition for power, particularly at times of presidential elections. In the presidential elections of 1871, three leaders of different liberal factions competed for power: Juárez, the incumbent president, Lerdo de Tejada, the chief of justice, and Porfirio Díaz, a popular and successful General of the Army. Although Juárez finally obtained re-election thanks to the support of Lerdo’s faction, Díaz rebelled against the government under allegations of electoral fraud. The rebellion was quelled and Juárez continued in office until he died of heart failure in 1872. However, the problem of presidential succession was far from being solved.

In the absence of agreement among the elite, elections did not provide an acceptable mechanism for the distribution of power. Just like in Argentina, elections in republican Mexico were subject to constant manipulation by local political leaders, sometimes in alliance or under pressure of the central government. Given the absence of direct elections in Mexico, the key issue was the selection of electors, who gradually became a political class unto themselves. ₄₀ The relative weight of a state vis-a-vis the federation depended not only on the number of deputies it provided but also on the proportion of second-degree electors it contributed. A presidential election could be won if a candidate carried the seven states that had more than 500 electors. The federal authorities sought by all means to influence the nomination of candidates to Congress and the Supreme Court in order to select individuals loyal to the president. Local authorities, in turn, did all they could to select candidates loyal to the interests of their states.

Although the national government was initially unable to create a stable system of local alliances to control elections, Mexican presidents, like their Argentine counterparts, attempted to obtain local leaders’ compliance by strategically using emergency powers. Whenever the president obtained authorization to resolve political conflicts in the provinces, the use of federal intervention and emergency powers was seldom neutral. Juárez, for instance, ignored requests for federal intervention made by factional enemies, even when Congress ordered the national government to provide aid. At the same time, he supported his local allies by decreeing states of siege to allow electoral manipulation. These resources allowed the executive to secure the selection of sympathetic electors, conduct electoral fraud, establish political alliances and exercise other forms of influence. ₄₁ It was for this reason that the opposition in Congress rejected Juárez’s demand in 1870 to increase the legal powers of the executive to intervene in the states. ₄₂

The control of a majority of electoral votes was paramount in a political system ridden by deep cleavages. Two axes of conflict overlapped — national political rivalries (between leaders such as Juárez and Lerdo) and local factional struggles. If electoral tinkering could not be performed by means of emergency powers and federal intervention, an absolute majority of electoral votes was not likely. A majority of electoral votes was particularly crucial during presidential elections. The 1871 election evidenced this point. Opposition to Juárez in Congress led to the abrogation of emergency powers earlier that year. Thus, the federal executive was prevented from securing favorable political conditions in several key states before the election took place. The result was that none of the three candidates — Juárez, Lerdo and Díaz — obtained an absolute majority of electoral votes.

During the presidency of Lerdo, who succeeded Juárez in 1872, a new phase in the strengthening of governmental power was inaugurated. The turning point was the restoration of the Senate in 1874. The Senate was empowered to declare the “disappearance” of state powers. However, the executive regarded this recourse as too slow. The Senate, while not inimical to the president, was relatively independent from him. Thus, Lerdo’s supporters in Congress attempted to pass a law that would have given the executive a stronger hand over the senate. The initiative, however, was not approved by Congress. Since electoral manipulation could not be carried out by means of federal interventions, Lerdo resorted once more, like Juárez, to the use of emergency powers. But they proved insufficient to solve the levels of conflict caused by the issue of presidential succession. Lerdo called for new presidential elections in 1875. He won at the polls but, in the midst of allegations of electoral wrongdoing, Porfirio Díaz again rebelled in the town of Tuxtepec. This time, the revolt was successful, Lerdo was ousted and Díaz became president in 1876.

Díaz, the self-proclaimed heir of the liberal revolution, would be responsible for the final stabilization of the liberal regime. He came to power with the promise of giving genuine effect to the 1857 Constitution, in his view violated by the corrupt electoral practices of ambitious presidents and provincial governors. The secret of his success, however, resonated closely with the Argentine formula — the concentration of all power in the executive branch and a solid system of alliances between the central government and regional elites to control the competition for power. After a decade of intense political conflict, Díaz managed to co-opt disperse fractions of the elite into what was initially a relatively inclusive oligarchic regime. As we will see, however, Díaz implemented this formula in a way that, through time, made impossible the peaceful adaptation of the regime to new political conditions.

 

IV. The decline and fall of the liberal republic

By the 1880s, the liberal regimes of Argentina and Mexico resembled each other in important aspects. After abolishing the rule of presidential re-election, Díaz managed, with the support of local leaders, to appoint a successor under his control. Once he returned to power in 1884, he also succeeded in eliminating all centers of institutional and political opposition, and dominating the provinces by means of economic inducements and political sanctions. Just like in Argentina, the outcome of this process was a gradual stabilization of the political system and the acceleration of the process of economic growth and modernization. In spite of these similarities, however, each regime started to experience different political dynamics with the emergence of a democratic opposition.

It was not until 1890, in the midst of a deep economic crisis, that a more or less organized opposition to the oligarchic regime emerged in Argentina. This is not surprising, given that the regime consolidated in the 1880s was increasingly reliant on the economic prosperity of the country to hide the weakness of a political legitimacy still based on the fulfillment of the liberal project. The opposition movement, named Civic Union (Unión Cívica), was originally led by members of the elite marginalized from the current state of affairs. While the movement criticized the government for the corruption of electoral practices and the concentration of power in the central government, the tone of the vindication was fully consistent with the liberal tradition. As Leandro Alem, one of the main leaders of the Civic Union, put it: “...we are not the revolutionaries, properly speaking; we are the conservatives...”. ₄₃ The essential goal of the movement was not to replace but to make real the promise of a representative republic contained in old liberal constitution.

The initial response of the regime, particularly in the face of a national civic-military uprising promoted by the movement, was a coercive one. Between 1890 and 1893, as the rebellion spread throughout the country, the government repeatedly used the state of siege and federal intervention to restore order and protect the status quo. The movement was defeated. Repression, however, was in the end limited. The main leaders of the movement remained free and even reached and maintained official positions in the senate, like Leandro Alem and Bernardo de Yrigoyen. After the resignation of president Juárez Celman (1886-90), the government clearly searched for a negotiated solution, trying to include the dissenting elite without an abrupt change in electoral practices. Part of the movement did in fact respond to this call producing, in 1891, a split between two factions: the National Civic Union, partisan of an inclusive oligarchic regime, and the Radical Civic Union, supporter of nothing less than free and clean elections.

After 1893, the political situation was controlled and the government seemed to recover confidence in the possibility of an internal and gradual reform of the regime. The belief in the capacity of allowing for a loyal opposition was grounded in the stability acquired by the constitutional rules of succession. Although the oligarchic regime in Argentina prevented an effective alternation in power among different elites, the observance of the principle of no immediate re-election of the president and governors created through time an acceptable degree of inclusiveness of different fractions of the ruling class. As we will see, this was a crucial difference with the Mexican regime, which only found stability in the personalization of power.

In 1898, Julio Roca, the most powerful representative of the liberal-oligarchic regime and leader of the P.A.N., returned to the presidency in order to accomplish the reformist task. In 1902, his Minister of Interior Joaquín V. González presented an electoral law aimed at securing greater control of voters over the selection of representatives and the gradual elimination of fraudulent practices. The proposal maintained the existing principles of universal suffrage but introduced two important changes. First, the vote would be secret instead of public to avoid the possibility of coercion over the voter. Second, seats for national deputies and electors for president would be distributed not by a single list of multiple candidates but by single-member districts. Though not designed to produce a drastic change, the reform did intend to deprive provincial governors of centralized control over the candidate lists. The reform, however, was a failure. Electoral manipulation continued, to some extent, because during the discussion of the law, the House of Representatives rejected the secrecy of the suffrage. ₄₄

In the meantime, opposition to the regime was growing. In 1896, the Socialist party was founded, making effective universal suffrage and competitive elections one of the main principles of its political platform. It was the radical Civic Union, however, now under the leadership of Hipólito Yrigoyen, that was winning the most popular support. Yrigoyen rejected any negotiation with the government or even participation in electoral processes until a real reform was passed to give the opposition a credible chance to win. In his view, just as the liberal regime had become a synonym of corruption and democratic illegitimacy, the Radical Party was evolving as the true interpreter of the nation and popular will. ₄₅ This is perhaps the first seed we can trace of the anti-liberal and plebiscitary interpretation of democracy that would later predominate in Argentina.

After the failure of the reform of 1902, it was clear that the regime was unable to reform from within and that, at a minumum, a change of leadership was necessary to order to make possible a transition to democracy. In 1905, the Radical Civic Union organized a new national uprising against the regime, now with a more important and dangerous participation of the military than in 1890 or 1893. This event, along with the sudden death of Manuel Quintana (1904-1906) and the accession of reformist vice-president Figueroa Alcorta to the presidency (1906-10), paved the way for the transition. Given its open reformist orientation on a political scene still dominated by the old guard of the P.A.N., the presidency of Alcorta was perhaps the first, and not very happy, experience with divided government in Argentina. At the same time that Alcorta initiated negotiations with Yrigoyen, Congress became the main center of opposition to the president. The highest point of this conflict was reached in 1908, when the president decided to use public force and temporarily close the Congress in the face of congressional opposition to the budget.

In the midst of this struggle, Argentina was approaching, in 1910, the celebration of one hundred years of independence. It was an opportunity taken by different intellectuals and publicists to re-evaluate the legacy of the liberal project and the origins of the current state of affairs in the country. According to Joaquín V. González, for instance, the main factor behind the absence of effective elections in Argentina was the failure of civic education to break with the authoritarian habits and political practices inherited from colonial times. ₄₆ Other interpreters, like Matienzo, paid more attention to political institutions. In his view, the corruption of republican principles resided in the absolutist power that a façade of federalism left in hands of provincial governors. In his view, Argentina should return to the constitution of 1853, both to diminish the power of governors as well as to distribute more evenly the power to control the provinces among the different branches of government. ₄₇

Another observer, Rodolfo Rivarola, accurately saw the origins of the current situation in the conditions under which the liberal regime was created. He argued that the existing regime was, in fact, a derivation of the original pact made in 1852 between Urquiza, the leader of the federalist coalition, and provincial governors. In his view, this pact contained the seeds of a hidden centralist organization of power and a system of mutual protection between governors and presidents based on the official control of elections. ₄₈ Attributing to the governors a merely passive role in the system, he argued for the abolition of the federation and the creation of a truly centralist system.

Such broad projects of constitutional reform, however, were not on the agenda of political actors. The central objective of negotiation was the crafting of a new electoral law. The growing threat of revolution helped Alcorta to impose Roque Saenz Peña as the president who would lead the transition. In 1912, an electoral law was passed establishing the secret and obligatory character of the vote, a centralized registry for all the voters, and a system to distribute votes that combined simple plurality and proportionality. ₄₉ Different safeguards to protect the interests of the liberal-oligarchic elite made this institutional compromise possible. In the first place, the law restricted the right to vote to native citizens or naturalized residents. Since a large portion of the male population was made up of non-naturalized residents and most of them belonged to the working class, this was a crucial guarantee for the regime that its power basis would not be significantly challenged in the coming elections. ₅₀ Second, the Senate, whose served for nine years with the body renewed every three, remained untouched by the reform. Third, and most importantly, the government did not expect an immediate elimination of the traditional electoral machinery. As Minister Indalecio Gomez made clear in his exposition in Congress, the government would not intervene in the provinces to guarantee the purity of suffrage. It is perhaps for this reason that he was so sure that the majority of representation would remain in hands of the traditional elite for a relatively long time. ₅₁

Contrary to these predictions, however, instead of a gradual transition in which the new elites would be integrated as a legal opposition, the ancien regime experienced the abrupt end of their hegemony. Because of the new laws, the opposition rapidly won positions in the midterm elections of 1912 and 1914, while in 1916 the leader of the Radical Party, Hipólito Yrigoyen, won the presidency. Among the main factors that helps explain this result was the greater autonomy of the voters, the organizational capacity of the Radical Party to mobilize them and, most crucially, the failure of the regime to create a national conservative party organized under the support of the president. ₅₂

By the 1920s, the traditional parties had lost their majority in the House of Representatives and were gradually losing power in the Senate. Worst of all, the executive, now invested with democratic legitimacy, turned the use of presidential power against the old parties that still dominated the provinces. ₅₃ Nineteen interventions were declared, most by executive decree, in Yrigoyen’s first term (1916-22) alone. ₅₄ Ironically, this use of presidential power did not depart from a very well established practice. What was novel, however, was the interpretation that Yrigoyen made of the meaning of his powers. Being the first president elected by free elections, Yrigoyen saw in his election a popular “mandate,” a foundational plebiscite of the people to eradicate the remnants of a corrupt regime. ₅₅ Through this interpretation, hostility to the liberal-oligarchic regime eventually turned into hostility to the liberal tradition itself. ₅₆ The very idea of dividing power or subjecting political power to legal limits was implicitly challenged by the notion that the president was the incarnation of the unitary will of the people.

While the election of Alvear (1922-28) implied a certain return to the traditional politics of compromise, it was clear that the old elite was unable to control the government any more. With the return of Yrigoyen in 1928 all hopes to restore a more equilibrated transition were lost. Just as the democratic opposition in the past was marginalized and impotent under the rule of a powerful oligarchic president, now a similarly powerful democratic president displaced the old elite. Being unable to win elections by legal means, they decided to resort to illegal measures. In September of 1930, a military coup backed by members of the old regime overthrew Yrigoyen and restored the old liberal regime under conditions of electoral control.

If we compare the decline and fall of the Argentine and Mexican liberal republics, we observe a curious phenomenon. By the 1890s, the regime of Díaz experienced even greater contradictions than the liberal regime in Argentina. Díaz promised effective suffrage and no re-election. Yet, the corruption of electoral practices were consolidated during his government and, in 1887, he promoted a new constitutional amendment to make possible his own re-election in 1888. On the other hand, while departures from the formal constitution occurred in Argentina, the hegemony of the president was very well within the desires of the architects of the 1853 Constitution. Díaz, however, gradually created a system of presidential domination that was totally at odds with the formal structure of powers established by the constitution of 1857. Yet, in spite of these glaring contradictions, the regime of Díaz faced no organized opposition until the turn of the century. The reason for this late crisis of the regime as well as for its violent end in the 1910s must be found in the peculiarities of the system of domination built by Díaz.

The main effort of Díaz after the seizure of power was aimed at resolving the problems that caused the crisis of the liberal republic during the period 1867-1876. Rather than initiating a policy of persecution and oppression of opposition groups, he invited them to participate in the regime as long as they provided support to the new order. He also exploited the conflicts created by the re-election rule by initially promoting a constitutional amendment that prohibited the immediate re-election of presidents and provincial governors. At the local level, the re-election rule was not an efficient solution. Local factional struggles did not cease, but instead exploded. ₅₇ The result of the ban on re-election was, according to Carmagnani, that “between 1878 and 1887 factional struggles in the federation and, above all, in the states were turned loose.” ₅₈ The principle of no re-election, however, initially provided Díaz with substantive benefits. While the ban on re-election allowed him to replace unfriendly governors, it also made credible his supposed commitment to allow alternation in power.

At the beginning, much like his predecessors, Díaz attempted to obtain greater formal powers of intervention in the provinces. Because the senate was not subservient to the executive, Díaz intended to annul its constitutional faculty to “disappear” local powers and transfer to the president a more direct power of federal intervention. The proposal never went through Congress, and Díaz had to rely instead on an alliance with the Senate in order to conduct federal interventions. Such interventions were carried out six times between 1878 and 1887. ₅₉ After 1880, however, the use of federal intervention lost importance as an instrument to control local situations.

The new system of domination was based on personal compromises and alliances between Díaz and provincial governors. Díaz exchanged loyalty for relative local autonomy. He allowed governors to nominate substitute candidates for Congress and the federal judiciary. Hence, local powers started to play an effective role in national politics. State executives freely nominated the candidates to local legislatures as well as to the state judiciary. Interference in local affairs by the national government became rare, since political equilibria now rested on reciprocal relations of trust between Díaz and state powers. In exchange for their compliance, displaced local elites were permitted to enrich themselves and to conduct their businesses with great autonomy. In return, provincial caudillos accepted political defeat and did not revolt. It was in this new context that Díaz, elected president again in 1884, promoted a new constitutional reform to re-establish the possibility of re-election for president and governors.

The principle of re-election critically altered the incentive structure of all political actors. On the one hand, it allowed powerful local families to retain the control of state governments for extended periods of time. Most provinces came under the permanent rule of gobiernos de familia (“family governments”) with wide networks of clientelistic relations on which the president could rely to secure political control over the territory. On the other hand, since no group could have access or retain power without the personal support of Díaz, he could also count on the support of regional oligarchies to obtain consecutive re-elections after the end of each presidential period. Through time, the relationship of mutual dependence between regional oligarchies and the president became even stronger than it was the case in Argentina. Since neither Díaz nor the gobiernos de familia were able to remain in power without the support of the other, they each had a common interest in effectively preventing the emergence of any organized opposition in the country.

As in the case of Argentina, however, the Mexican president was able to reserve for himself the upper hand in the system of domination. While allowing the hegemony of certain families in state politics, it was of the utmost importance for Díaz’s strategy to keep all factions “duly represented and in constant opposition.” ₆₀ The existence of latent rivalries among local elites allowed Díaz to play one against the other according to his own interests. Depending on the situation, he threw his political weight in one direction or the other to tip the political balance. Knowing this, displaced elites often requested Díaz’s intervention on their behalf or used personal connections with the president to pressure concessions from local governments. Apart from the traditional distribution of offices in the national administration, Díaz was also able to obtain the compliance of regional elites by using his personal influence to guarantee or obstruct business opportunities to different groups. The growing expansion of investment and commercial activities in the 1880s and 1890s was in this sense an invaluable resource to secure the hegemony of the president.

Through time, particularly starting with his second term in office (1884-88), Díaz gradually eliminated all independent institutions in the country. While the president controlled the governors, they, in turn, controlled all other provincial institutions. The relative strengthening of the governors allowed them to encroach on municipal governments. These had been elective until state constitutions were reformed in the early nineties. The jefes políticos, regional officials designated by governors to control municipalities, would now appoint township authorities. As state governors gained autonomy, jefes políticos ceased to be accountable to the central government and became creatures of the governors. By the same token, since the state congress and the judiciary were packed with governors’ allies, the independence of those branches of government was seriously curtailed.

By the late 1880s Díaz had neutralized the most central institution created by the constitution of 1857 — the national congress. Given the strict control of elections, Díaz prevented any opponent from winning a seat in Congress. As a result, Congress went from being an arena of intense bargaining in key areas such as the approval of the budget or the authorization of emergency powers to a mere rubber stamp of presidential decisions. ₆₁ Economic power thus shifted from the states toward the national executive. Interest groups, for instance, started to negotiate directly with the finance minister rather than with deputies or senators. The result was that Mexico City’s share in public expenditures grew and those of the states decreased.

From a political point of view, the Achilles heel of the regime was its growing exclusionary character. In spite of the appearance of stability, by the 1890s, the regime of Díaz experienced a gradual but steady decline. Díaz had already exhausted his mechanisms of co-optation and was increasingly reliant on open oppression to prevent the emergence of opposition. The circulation of local elites was scarce and Díaz’s maneuvers to preserve political equilibria among factions were not always as successful as they had been in the past. Between 1889 and 1893, different revolts occurred in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Guerrero. Aggrieved elites were now likely to rebel if political access was denied to them. At the same time, the absorption of most resources by the central government and the multiplicity of pressures to satisfy contradictory economic demands diminished through time Díaz’s capacity to maintain the redistributive pattern that had initially enabled the sharing of the benefits of economic growth.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Díaz regime faced multiple centers of opposition. The first serious opposition came from an old strand of liberalism that idealized the days of the Restored Republic and criticized the growing corruption and lack of political liberty under Díaz. This opposition was not unified in a political movement or party, like the Civic Union in Argentina, but was instead represented through several Liberal “clubs” with connections in the progressive press. The core of the critique was the distance between liberal principles and the actual practices of the regime. The ills of the country, they argued, could be traced to a single source — the cancellation of the individual and political rights established by the 1857 constitution. In this view, peonage, peasants, Indian poverty, and ethnic wars, all existed because these rights have been neglected. ₆₂ After two years of tolerance toward liberal clubs, Díaz finally acted against them in 1902. The leaders were arrested and organizations disbanded.

The repressive action of Díaz occurred in the midst of growing political radicalization. While Mexico experienced an important process of economic modernization and development in the 1880s, social inequalities actually increased. While the liberal regime in Argentina, like in Mexico, supported a process of land concentration in few hands, Mexico had a much lower land-labor ratio than Argentina and a labor surplus. This situation worsened the economic conditions of thousands of peasants whose lands were expropriated by the regime. A growing working class, struggling for better labor conditions, soon joined peasants in their demand for social justice. In this context, social reform, not just effective suffrage and political liberalization, became one of the crucial issues of most opposition movements. The Mexican Liberal Party (P.L.M.), for instance, became in the 1900s one of the main political organizations in opposition to the Díaz regime. It was, however, liberal in name only because the P.L.M. embraced the principles of anarchism.

A liberal-democratic opposition emerged around the figure of Francisco Madero, who created an anti-re-electionist party aimed at preventing a new election of Díaz in 1910. As Díaz showed no intention of guaranteeing a competitive election, an armed movement was formed to force his resignation and support the rise of Madero to the presidency. Madero, however, was unable conciliate the contradictory demands of the coalition that brought him to power. While Madero wanted to emphasize the strengthening of civil liberties and political rights, his radical allies placed the need to distribute wealth and initiate a radical social reform as the top priority of the new democratic government. The army, still dominated by old Porfiristas, took advantage of this situation and overthrew Madero in a futile attempt to restore the old regime.

The project of reactionary forces failed but so did the liberal-democratic transition desired by Madero. The political scene was soon occupied by the leaders of a social revolution that in 1917 put an end to the liberal project. A new constitution was created with a broad charter of social rights and a scheme of division of powers that finally replaced the model of parliamentary government and loose federal structures with a strong presidential system and a centralized federation. While the liberal reform era was vindicated, the new regime clearly placed the social and economic objectives of the Revolution above the ideals of limited government and democratic participation that once inspired the framers of the 1857 Constitution.

 

Conclusions

Rather than a mere imitation of foreign trends or a particular form of authoritarianism, liberalism in Latin America was a conscious project that sought to introduce the notions of constitutionalism and modern representative government into the reality of still traditional societies. By the end of the nineteenth century, the impact of this project was not negligible. On the one hand, ideas such as the separation of powers, rule of law, and respect for individual rights became patterns of legitimacy that effectively replaced the colonial legacy of absolutist rule, patrimonialism, and corporatism. On the other hand, the ideal of republican government — the rule of representatives elected by the people — introduced the first notions of citizenship and popular participation in the context of a political tradition that emphatically denied self-rule or democratic autonomy. There were contradictions, of course, between the liberal project and political reality. But these contradictions should be found not so much at the level of ideology as in the specific political conditions under which Latin American liberals were constrained to act.

The fall of the centralist structures of the Spanish Empire created everywhere in Latin America a process of territorial fragmentation that paved the way for decades of conflict between different regional elites to define the unitary or federal structure of the national state. These conflicts, in turn, were often intensified by the presence of deep material and ideological cleavages. By trial and error or by imitation of more successful cases in the region, liberal elites gradually found the solution to the problem of national integration and political order in constitutional models based on centralized forms of government and strong executive authorities. The different starting points of Argentina and Mexico may prove this point. Different from their Argentine counterparts, Mexican liberals created a model of parliamentary sovereignty with a weak executive and loose federal structures. However, persistent conflicts between central authority and local powers and among national leaders themselves led to the adoption of a model of centralized federation and strong presidentialism very close to the one created by Argentine constitution-makers.

The most severe obstacle for the liberal project turned out to be the promise of representative government. While representative government in the nineteenth century was in contradiction with oligarchic rule, it did require the use of popular elections for the distribution of office. As the cases of Argentina and Mexico show, however, liberal elites in these countries gradually replaced popular elections by systems of official control of elections that distributed office according to informal agreements between the central authority and local leaders. It would be a crude simplification to think that the essential aim of this system was to contain the challenge that popular participation could have created for the consolidation of oligarchic rule. Popular participation might have been limited, like in Europe at the time, by introducing strict voting qualifications. The fact that liberal elites in Argentina and Mexico rejected this solution suggests a different interpretation — circulation in power by compromise rather than by electoral competition was a mechanism to prevent and resolve conflicts about the distribution of state resources that plagued the first decades of independent political life.

Just like the liberal regime in Argentina, the regime of Porfirio Díaz in the 1880s achieved political stability through the formula of centralized government and sharing power by consensus. Both, however, were victims of their own success. The centralization of power in the president and the system of electoral control were functional for achieving national integration and political order. But they also prevented the emergence of an active electorate that could have provided incentives for the gradual creation and incorporation of alternative parties in the system of representation. Political opposition eventually emerged, but only once it was no longer possible to reform the regime without displacing the old elite.

The fact that the liberal regime in Argentina experienced a peaceful transition to democracy in the 1910s while the Mexican regime was terminated by a violent revolution was due to the different form in which each regime solved the problem of transmission of power among the elite. An early agreement about the rules of succession made possible in Argentina a limited but effective circulation in power among different fractions of the elite. In Mexico, however, persistent conflicts about the rules of succession among the liberal elite were resolved only in the late 1880s by the perpetuation in power of Díaz and his local allies. In this sense, while the leaders of the liberal regime in Argentina were able to think about including a new party within the rules of the oligarchic regime, for Díaz a compromise with the opposition was impossible without affecting the basis of his power. Accordingly, revolution rather than reform was the only viable alternative for the democratic opposition.

In both cases, the experience of the liberal republic left a contradictory legacy for the process of democratization initiated in this century. In Argentina, the democratic movement made effective the promise of popular participation contained in the liberal project. It did so, however, by adopting a plebiscitary interpretation of democracy that implicitly denied the possibility of compromise or the sharing of power with the old elite. In Mexico, the Revolution vindicated the struggles of the liberal period against conservatism and the colonial social order. However, in achieving the goals of social reform and economic redistribution, the revolutionary regime postponed the realization of the representative republic desired by the framers of the 1857 constitution. As in most other Latin American countries, democratic movements in Argentina and Mexico received from the liberal republic the legacy of a powerful presidency and a strongly centralized system. The reform of these institutions should be perhaps the priority of a process of democratization that has yet to re-invent a liberal tradition more compatible with the values of pluralism, limited government, and political autonomy.

 

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Endnotes

*: ILAIS would like to acknowledge editorial assistance provided by Jude Sunderland  Back.

Note 1: Veliz, Claudio, The Centralist Tradition of Latin America (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 163-88  Back.

Note 2: Morse, Richard M., “The Heritage of Latin America,” in The Founding of New Societies, edited by Louis Hartz, New York, 1964, pp. 163-64  Back.

Note 3: Safford, Frank, “Politics, Ideology and Society in Post-Independence Spanish America,” in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 358-61  Back.

Note 4: Hale, Charles, “The Reconstruction of Nineteenth Century Politics in Spanish America: A Case for the History of Ideas,” Latin American Research Review, No 8 (Summer 1973): 65  Back.

Note 5: Valenzuela, Arturo, “Chile: Origins, Consolidation and Breakdown of a Democratic Regime,” in Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, Vol. 4, p. 173  Back.

Note 6: Loveman, Brian, The Constitution of Tyranny. Regimes of Exception in Spanish America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993), p. 6  Back.

Note 7: Spirit of the Laws, Book XII, Chap. 19  Back.

Note 8: John Locke, Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), Second Treatise, Chap. XIV  Back.

Note 9: Franz Neumann, “Approaches to the Study of Political Power,” in The Democratic and the Authoritarian State (London; Free Press, 1964), p. 8  Back.

Note 10: Merquior, J. G., Liberalism Old & New (Boston: Twayne, 1991), pp. 75-80  Back.

Note 11: Manin, Bernard, The Principles of Representative Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 94  Back.

Note 12: See, Guerra, Francois-Xavier, “The Spanish American Tradition of Representation and Its European Roots,” in Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 26, 1994. Also Posada-Carbó, Eduardo, Elections Before Democracy: The History of Elections in Europe and Latin America (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1996), p. 6  Back.

Note 13: See Bases y Puntos de Partida para la Organización Nacional, ed. by Jorge Mayer (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1969), Ch. XIII, pp. 227-30  Back.

Note 14: See Asambleas Constituyentes Argentinas (Buenos Aires: Peuser, 1937), Vol. IV, pp. 520-22Back.

Note 15: “It is an illusion,” said Alberdi citing Juan Egaña, “the equilibrium of powers.” See Bases, Ch. XXVI., p. 354  Back.

Note 16: One period of six years should pass before the president could be reelected  Back.

Note 17: See Perez Guilhou, Dardo, El Pensamiento Conservador de Alberdi y la Constitución de 1853 (Buenos Aires: Depalma, 1984), p. 86  Back.

Note 18: See Cantón, Dario, Elecciones y Partidos Políticos en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 1973), p. 20  Back.

Note 19: As Ponciano Arriaga, the president of the Constituent Congress, asserted, “For years the Mexican people—suffering the dreary consequences of civil war, the extorsions of despotism, the evils of anarchy, the disasters of personalism and the bad faith of petty rulers—hoped that someday...a constitution would rule.” See Francisco Zarco, Crónica del Congreso Constituyente, 1856-57 (México: El Colegio de México/Secretaria de Gobernación, 1979): 30-32  Back.

Note 20: Frank A. Knapp, “Parliamentary Government and the Mexican Constitution of 1857: A Forgotten Phase of Mexican Political History,” Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 33, no. 1, 1953.  Back.

Note 21: Zarco, Francisco, Historia del Congreso Constituyente de 1857 (México, INEHRM, 1987): 304  Back.

Note 22: Zarco, Crónica: 304.  Back.

Note 23: See Negretto, Gabriel, “The Making of a Latin American Republic: The Case of Argentina,” New York, Columbia University, 1997, unpublished manuscript  Back.

Note 24: On the formation and consolidation of this system, see Botana, Natalio, El Orden Conservador: La Política Argentina entre 1880 y 1916 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1985), p. 74-5  Back.

Note 25: See Botana, Natalio, El Orden Conservador,. Op. cit., pp 110-12  Back.

Note 26: See Oszlak, Oscar, La Conquista del Orden Político y la Formación Histórica del Estado Argentino, Buenos Aires, Estudios CEDES, 1982, pp. 33-36  Back.

Note 27: See Botana, Natalio, “El Federalismo Liberal en la Argentina: 1853-1930,” in Marcello Carmagnani (coord.), Federalismos Latinoamericanos: México, Brasil, Argentina (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1993) p. 235. Also Molinelli, Guillermo, in Presidentes y Congresos en la Argentina: Mitos y Realidades (Buenos Aires: Grupo Editor Latinoamericano, 1991), pp. 130-37  Back.

Note 28: Molinelli, Guillermo, ibid.  Back.

Note 29: See Botana, Natalio, op. cit., p. 131  Back.

Note 30: Botana, Natalio, op. cit., p. 133  Back.

Note 31: See Gallo, Ezequiel, and Botana, Natalio, De la República Posible a la República Verdadera (1880-1910) (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1997), p. 200  Back.

Note 32: Richard N. Sinkin, The Mexican Reform, 1855-1876. A Study in Liberal Nation-Building (Austin, University of Texas Press, 1979), pp. 86-87.  Back.

Note 33: Rabasa, Emilio, La Constitución y la Dictadura. Estudio Sobre la Organización Política de México (México: Porrúa, 1990), p. 99  Back.

Note 34: Ibid. p. 102  Back.

Note 35: Sinkin, Richard, op. cit., p. 82  Back.

Note 36: According to the existing system, the Permanent Deputation, a body representing Congress when it was not in session, was in charge of convening the assembly for special sessions when it was necessary to treat some urgent issue.  Back.

Note 37: See Sinkin, Richard, op. cit., p. 88  Back.

Note 38: On this issue, see Laurens Ballard Perry, Juárez and Díaz. Machine Politics in Mexico, De Kalb, Northern Illinois University Press, 1978  Back.

Note 39: See Aguilar Rivera, José Antonio, “Oposición y Separación de Poderes: La Estructura Institucional del Conflicto 1867-1872, in Metapolítica, Vol. 2, No. 5, pp. 69-92  Back.

Note 40: See Israel Arroyo García, “El péndulo: consenso y coacción a través de la intervención federal en México, Brasil y Argentina,” El Colegio de México, unpublished manuscript, 1997.  Back.

Note 41: See Laurens Ballard Perry, Juárez and Diaz. Machine Politics in Mexico, op. cit.  Back.

Note 42: According to Arroyo, the central strategy of Juárez was to obtain legal powers of intervention to reduce the use of emergency powers for partisan purposes. Israel Arroyo García, “El péndulo: consenso y coacción a través de la intervención federal en México, Brasil y Argentina,” art. cit.  Back.

Note 43: Ibid. , p. 276  Back.

Note 44: See Botana, Natalio, “El Marco Histórico Institucional: Leyes Electorales, Alternancia y Competencia entre Partidos,” in Botana, Natalio et al., La Argentina Electoral (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1985), p. 17  Back.

Note 45: Gallo, Exequiel, and Botana, Natalio, op. cit., p. 118  Back.

Note 46: González, Joaquín V., El Juicio del Siglo (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1979), p. 119  Back.

Note 47: Matienzo, José Nicolás, El Gobierno Representativo Federal en la Argentina, Buenos Aires, 1910, pp.338-41  Back.

Note 48: Rivarola, Rodolfo, Del Régimen Federativo al Unitario, Buenos Aires, 1908, pp. 50-4  Back.

Note 49: The system was called “incomplete” list and consisted of the distribution of two thirds of the seats to the party that won a simple majority of the votes and one third of the remaining seats to the second most voted party.  Back.

Note 50: See Smith, Peter, “The Breakdown of Democracy in Argentina,” in Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 10-11  Back.

Note 51: See Gallo, Ezequiel and Botana, Natalio, op. cit., p. 688  Back.

Note 52: See Botana, Natalio, in El Orden Conservador, op. cit., pp. 334-35  Back.

Note 53: See Anne L. Potter, “The Failure of Democracy in Argentina, 1916-1930: An Institutional Perspective,” in Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. XIII, May 1981  Back.

Note 54: See Botana, Natalio, “El Federalismo Liberal en la Argentina,” op. cit., p. 500  Back.

Note 55: For the views of Yrigoyen on the use of presidential power, see Mustapic, Ana María, in “Conflictos Institucionales Durante el Primer Gobierno Radical: 1916-1922,” Desarrollo Económico, V. 24, No. 93 (April-June 1984)  Back.

Note 56: See Romero, José Luis, Argentine Political Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963), p. 221  Back.

Note 57: Marcello Carmagnani, “El federalismo liberal mexicano,” in Marcello Carmagnani, (ed.), Federalismos latinoamericanos: México/Brasil/Argentina, Mexico, El Colegio de México/FCE, 1993.  Back.

Note 58: Ibid.  Back.

Note 59: Manuel González Oropeza, La intervención federal en la desaparición de poderes, Mexico, UNAM, 1983.  Back.

Note 60: Romana Falcón, “La desaparición de jefes políticos en Coahuila. Una paradoja porfirista,” Historia Mexicana, xxxvii: 3(1988):434.  Back.

Note 61: See Katz, Friedrich, “The Liberal Republic and the Porfiriato, 1867-1910,” in Bethell, Leslie (ed.), Mexico Since Independence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 81  Back.

Note 62: Francois-Xavier Guerra, Mexico: del Antiguo Régimen a la Revolución (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991), Vol. 2, p. 30  Back.