Authority of the State and Autonomy of the Municipality in Liberal Spain. The Effects on the Territory of a Legal Norm about Town Clerks Appointment (1853-1868)

Abstract

The Spanish liberal state in the middle of the 19th century needs an incisive presence in all the territory and it forces the local balances of power, in an unknown way until then. In this context, and due to the fact that many town clerks were noticed to be poor-competent, and due to the considerable unemployment of its own employees, the cesantes, the state dictates a series of legal norms. Among these legal norms stands out the one of the 19th of October 1853 which promotes the transfer of the cesantes to become municipal secretaries. In this article it is studies how this legal norm affected the territory, especially its effects in Catalonia. We will analyze the difficulties and the conflicts of its applications, the role played by civil governors and municipal councils, as well as how the cesantes took part in the bidirectional center-periphery flow. The Spanish State is compared to the Italian one, and in some specific points it is questioned the real existence of a fierce centralism in Spain.