Popular Political Participation and The Democratic Imagination in Spain From Crowd To People 1766 1868 Pablo Sanchez Leon Full Chapter PDF

Popular Political Participation and the
Democratic Imagination in Spain: From

Crowd to People, 1766-1868 Pablo
Sánchez León
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/popular-political-participation-and-the-democratic-ima
gination-in-spain-from-crowd-to-people-1766-1868-pablo-sanchez-leon/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Political Participation in Iran from Khatami to the

Green Movement 1st ed. 2020 Edition Paola Rivetti
https://ebookmass.com/product/political-participation-in-iran-
from-khatami-to-the-green-movement-1st-ed-2020-edition-paola-
rivetti/
The Democratic Sublime: On Aesthetics and Popular

Assembly Jason Frank
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-democratic-sublime-on-
aesthetics-and-popular-assembly-jason-frank/
Rethinking Civic Participation in Democratic Theory and

Practice 1st Edition Rod Dacombe (Auth.)
https://ebookmass.com/product/rethinking-civic-participation-in-
democratic-theory-and-practice-1st-edition-rod-dacombe-auth/
Appealing to the Crowd: The Ethical, Political, and

Practical Dimensions of Donation-Based Crowdfunding
Jeremy Snyder
https://ebookmass.com/product/appealing-to-the-crowd-the-ethical-
political-and-practical-dimensions-of-donation-based-
crowdfunding-jeremy-snyder/
From Allies to Enemies. Spain, Japan and the Axis in
World War II Florentino Rodao
https://ebookmass.com/product/from-allies-to-enemies-spain-japan-
and-the-axis-in-world-war-ii-florentino-rodao/
Beyond the People: Social Imaginary and Constituent

Imagination Zoran Oklopcic
https://ebookmass.com/product/beyond-the-people-social-imaginary-
and-constituent-imagination-zoran-oklopcic/
The Oxford Handbook of Political Participation Marco

Giugni
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-political-
participation-marco-giugni/
The Utopian Dilemma in the Western Political

Imagination 1st Edition John Farrell
https://ebookmass.com/product/the-utopian-dilemma-in-the-western-
political-imagination-1st-edition-john-farrell/
Brilliant employability skills : how to stand out from

the crowd in the graduate job market 2nd Edition
Trought
https://ebookmass.com/product/brilliant-employability-skills-how-
to-stand-out-from-the-crowd-in-the-graduate-job-market-2nd-
edition-trought/
Popular Political Participation
and the Democratic
Imagination in Spain
From Crowd to People, 1766–1868
Pablo Sánchez León

Popular Political Participation and the Democratic
Popular Political
Participation and the
Democratic
From Crowd to People, 1766–1868
Centro de Humanidades (CHAM)
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Lisbon, Portugal
Translated from
Spanish by Igor Knezevic
ISBN 978-3-030-52595-8 ISBN 978-3-030-52596-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52596-5
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Artokoloro / Alamy Stock Photo
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To “los López” and the people of the AEF from the students strike of ’87
and thereafter, where all this started
For León, in transit from adolescent plebe to young people
Preface
The writing of this book was not the outcome of a long-premeditated plan
but rather the result of a fortunate discovery. In the summer of 2016 I
happened to re-read several conference papers I had written over the pre-
vious seven years for international meetings on a variety of themes. Reading
them again it occurred to me that a common thread run through them
despite focusing on different topics and beyond the fact that they all dealt
with the period from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century.
Once this became clear to me, I was able to sketch the outline of a book
that was originally projected as a series of independent albeit chronologi-
cally overlapping chapters. I presumed that by filling several lacunae they
could provide a general picture of the conceptions of political exclusion
and popular participation over a century of Spanish history. I was wrong,
as it became much harder to construct an overall hypothesis, and eventu-
ally I acknowledged the need of further reflection and research if the goal
was to offer a single interpretive scheme. This has left its imprint on the
structure of the book. Most of the chapters are either profoundly trans-
formed versions of earlier papers or combinations of two different papers
with significant alterations and additions. Only Chap. 5 is entirely new,
designed to give cohesion to the overall argument, though it also bene-
fited from an introductory study for another publication. The introduc-
tion and conclusion were written for this book.
The process of partial rewriting, revision, and re-assembling of the
chapters obviously extended beyond my original previsions. But the
project also ran into an unexpected roadblock. When I had sketched a
provisional table of contents and could submit an outline of the
vii
viii PREFACE
introduction and a more or less final version of one of the chapters, I sent
the project to a Spanish publisher. This took place in a context of great
political expectations that I was also partaking of, and which seemingly
imbued a part of the publishing sector with an ideological bias. The fact is
that, after a long wait, the project was rejected with scarcely any justifica-
tion or an opportunity to send an alternative proposal. It is only much
later that I understood the severity of the blow, as I used to have an inti-
mate bond of solidarity with the publisher. Despite half of the book being
ready, this setback led me to postpone the project indefinitely: there were
other issues consuming my attention, and my invariably precarious job
situation made it difficult to leave time for finishing a work that seemed
not to be fulfilling its destiny.
The landscape changed dramatically when in early 2019 I started work
at the Centro de Humanidades (CHAM) of Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
For the first time in my career I enjoyed a degree of job stability and envi-
able working conditions, and was able to benefit from a policy of support
for international publications—something I had not profited from before.
Moreover, as an émigré I could shed the label of being a “Spanish histo-
rian” (one that I have never been much fond of) and take on the role of a
“hispanist”—which my colleague and friend Sebastiaan Faber used to
tease me about—that is to say, someone who offers to the global commu-
nity the results of his research on the history of Spain. Consequently, I
decided to re-configure the project in English and to send it to a few
international publishers along with the same sample chapter. In contrast to
my experience with the Spanish publisher, the proposal was received with
interest by Palgrave, and the editor Molly Beck quickly solicited two eval-
uations from colleagues, to whom I am indebted to for their insightful
comments on improving the proposal, resulting in a more coherent and
comprehensive publication. Also thanks to Pedro Cardim from CHAM. I
contacted Igor Knezevic, who has dedicatedly translated my baroque
Spanish into English. Maeve Sinnot and Lakshmi Radhakrishnan have
since continued with the work of aligning the book with the publisher’s
standards.
Lisbon, Portugal Pablo Sánchez León

Acknowledgements
The author of a book that is the product of research and writing extending
over several years incurs too many debts to be recalled or properly
acknowledged.
Some however are impossible to forget or omit. I would like to express
my deepest appreciation to the small but industrious research group that I
was a member of between 2010 and 2018 at the University of the Basque
Country. Directed by Javier Fernández Sebastián, its core was initially
composed of Luis Fernández Torres and Cecilia Suárez Cabal, and later
reinforced with the addition of Nere Basabe, Kirill Postoutenko, Marcos
Reguera, and David Beorlegui, all of whom have contributed to accom-
plishing the various projects of the group that in turn resulted in the ear-
lier versions of the chapters of this book. Other members of the Grupo de
Historia Intelectual de la Política Moderna—Javier Tajadura, Gonzalo
Capellán de Miguel, Iñaki Iriarte, Pedro Chacón, and Carmelo Moreno—
also participated in its seminars together with colleagues from the Leioa
campus such as Noé Cornago. A second set of acknowledgements is for
the active members of the History of Concepts Group, an international
network organizing annual conferences, where I have presented most of
the original texts of the chapters. I wish to mention Jan Ifversen, Helge
Jordheim, Margrit Pernau, Michael Freeden, Jani Marjanen, Willibald
Steinmetz, Martin Burke, Gabriel Entin, and Sinai Rusinek among other
European, American, and Asian colleagues. I would like to extend my
gratitude to the members of Iberconceptos, an interrelated network I have
been involved in since 2013, as a member and coordinator of a team of
researchers on the “mixed constitution.” I enjoyed especially fruitful
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
collaborations and exchanges with Fabio Wasserman, Gabriel Entin,

Clement Thibaud, Noemí Goldman, José Javier Blanco Rivero, Francisco
Ortega, Georges Lomné, and Elias Palti.
Still at the level of institutional acknowledgements, a special mention
must be made of the rather chaotic but deeply rigorous group Hicoes
(Historia constitucional de España) that I was invited to participate in
from 2016—a challenging proposal that proved to be extremely enrich-
ing, especially thanks to exchanges with Marta Lorente, Txema Portillo,
and Carlos Garriga. I am extremely grateful to François Godicheau, my
colleague and long-standing friend, who now from his base in Toulouse
remains an indefatigable intellectual companion, and to Rubén Pérez
Trujillano for inviting me to give a talk on issues related to several chapters
of the book.
There are several others with whom I have been sharing and debating
my ideas on representation and participation in theory and history. Germán
Labrador from Princeton University stands out as a frequent and invaluable
interlocutor on the relations between cultural and political identities—and
we also jointly contributed to the publishing of a chronicler analysed in
Chap. 5. Miguel Ángel Cabrera from Universidad de La Laguna invited me
to a seminar when the book was in its final stages, subsequently reviving a
conversation begun some time ago on the relations between discourse and
action in accounting for modern citizenship. I had another opportunity to
present the manuscript in Buenos Aires, in a seminar hosted by Noemí
Goldman at the Instituto Ravignani, and another one organized by the
group Política, Institucions i Corrupció a l’època contemporània (PICEC)
at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Finally, several colleagues have
read the manuscript in its entirety, providing me with insightful comments:
Pablo Fernández Albaladejo, Joanna Innes, Guy Thomson, María Sierra,
and Txema Portillo.
This book project was shaped in a political context that I cannot fail to
acknowledge, as a co-founder of the small group of professors of Political
Science and Sociology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid that
was a precursor of the Unidas Podemos party—“La Promotora” was its
original name, to which was later added the rather pedantic tag “de pensa-
miento crítico” (“the promoter … of critical thought”). Despite the par-
ty’s later achievements, I wish that this emerging generation of leaders had
committed themselves to thinking historically about the conditions of
their own irruption into the political scene, marked as it was by their reli-
ance on a corrupted academic space that they have endorsed rather than
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi
critically transformed. In compensation, I have closely witnessed the way

representation and participation relate to each other in a most original
social movement born out of Spanish democracy—the so-called memori-
alist movement, committed to the identification and exhumation of mass
graves of those killed following the 1936 fascist coup d’état. My status as
a participating observer in this movement owes much to regular commu-
nication with Emilio Silva, Manuela Bergerot, Marina Montoto, and other
activists. Another connection I wish to acknowledge is with Iñaki Bárcena
and Izaro Gorostidi from the project Parte Hartuz (Participate) at the
University of the Basque Country, who led me to captivating and always
instructive conversations on current political events. Bridging these two
groups is Ariel Jerez, who for over twenty-five years now has been sharing
his ceaseless ponderings on the question of how to integrate participation
in the political cultures from the Left in dialogue with the issue of repre-
sentation in parties, organizations, and institutions.
Leopoldo Moscoso always offers invaluable criticism of my reflections
and writings, and we have been debating on politics and knowledge for
years now. Never-ending conversations with Dardo Scavino, Celicia
González, and Gloria Vergès during my visits to Aránzazu Sarría Buil in
Bordeaux were another singular contribution to my learning process. I am
also much indebted to Manuel Pérez Ledesma, thanks to whom I became
interested in the historical approach to citizenship as a means of overcom-
ing the shortcomings of classic social history and to whose innovative and
dissident stances I still owe a lot. My sincere thanks also to my first mentor
Reyna Pastor: after all, I think with this book I have merely expanded
upon her original Resistencias y luchas campesinas, but on a different his-
torical context.
A long time ago, Julio Pardos, probably the best interpreter of Spanish
historiography I have ever met, pointed out to me that historians never
abandon the topic that initially captured our imagination. In this case, my
first essay for the master’s programme supervised in 1988 by Pablo
Fernández Albaladejo, and elaborated together with Leopoldo Moscoso,
was on representative institutions in England and the Crown of Aragón
between the Middle Ages and the early modern period; and the first paper
I presented at a conference in the same year dealt with “political integra-
tion in the program of Enlightened reforms, and its limits,” where the
term “integration” tried to rather unconsciously and inaccurately embrace
the spheres of representation and participation. Finally, for several years at
the end of the 1990s, I coordinated together with Leopoldo and Jesús
xii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Izquierdo an informal seminar at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

with the telling title, “Social Order and Representation: Fragments for a
Theory.” Yet Julio’s insight (above) notwithstanding, I must confess that
while writing this book I was not aware I was going back to my first steps,
so to speak. Avoiding a Nietzschean misinterpretation, I justify myself by
saying that we are always in the company of the same issues; it is only we
who change and address them differently to the point of not recognizing
their earlier forms—because we have forgotten who we were.
The original versions of the texts that make up the book were drafted
between 2009 and 2015—quite a long time span—and between Madrid,
Oyarzun, and Bilbao. The final versions were written and revised between
2016 and 2019 in either Madrid, Bordeaux, Buenos Aires, or Lisbon. In
spite of the geographic distance, these places have been experienced as one
whole, united by the galactic connection I maintain with Aránzazu Sarría
Buil, without whose presence even in physical absence this book would
not exist.
This book had the support of CHAM (NOVA FCSH/UAc), through
the strategic project sponsored by Fundaçao para a Ciência e a Teconologia
(FCT) (UID/HIS/04666/2019).
The book is part of the output of the project “RESISTANCE: Rebellion
and Resistance in the Iberian Empires, 16th–19th Centuries”
(778076-H2020-MSCA-RISE-2017) Universidade de Evora—
Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Contents
1 Introduction: Historizing the Language of Modern

Citizenship 1
2 Order: From Plebeian Disorder to Popular Citizenship—

Constitutional Imagination Between Contexts, 1766–1814 29
3 Subject: Education, Taxed Wealth, Capacity, Roots—

Citizenship Criteria from the Enlightenment to Liberalism,
1780s–1840s 91
4 Space: The Spectre of Plebeian Tyranny—Popular

Participation, Radical Leadership, and the Revolutions
of 1848135
5 Time: The Fatalist Loop—Historical Culture and Popular

Empowerment in the Mid-Nineteenth Century173
6 Identity: Enraged Citizens or Subaltern Crowd? Popular

Mobilization, Representation, and Participation in the
Spanish Revolution of 1854211
7 Recognition: Vulgar as a Political Concept—Discourse

and Subjects of Corruption in the Public Sphere of
Limited Suffrage253
xiii
xiv Contents
8 Epilogue: Decline and Fall of the Liberal Monarchy,

1865–1868295
9 Conclusions: Studying Modern Citizenship as Historical

Condition311
Index333
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Historizing the Language

of Modern Citizenship
Representation and Participation at the Crossroads

With the march of globalization, democracy has become generally estab-
lished as the one legitimate form of government that guarantees citizen
rights.1 As part of the same process, however, new challenges are imperil-
ling the capacity of citizens to collectively determine our own destiny.
While in the twentieth century tyranny in the form of despotic regimes
rendered the advance of democracy precarious, in the twenty-first century
it is mainly the unbridled economic powers and actors who stand accused
of threatening hard-won rights and corroding citizenship values. In such
a context, it has become commonplace to speak of a crisis of political rep-
resentation within systems based on universal suffrage.2
Crises of representation are inherent to parliamentary democracy: they
originate in disjunctions between the ideological, social, or cultural identi-
ties of citizens and the organizational and institutional framework for the
channelling of interests.3 When such fracture becomes very marked, the
1
For a long-term perspective on globalization as linked to the worldwide diffusion of
democracy, see Robertson (2005).
2
For the case of Spain, see an essay based on polls in Urquizu (2016); focusing on recipes
and alternatives, see Politikon (2014) and Garrorena (2015). For an overview with general-
izations drawing on the Spanish case, see Inerarity (2019).
3
See an example from the 1980s in Köchler (1987). For a historical overview of the com-
plex relations between political parties and the representation of interests, see Pizzorno (1981).
© The Author(s) 2020 1

P. Sánchez León, Popular Political Participation and the Democratic
Imagination in Spain,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52596-5_1
2 P. SÁNCHEZ LEÓN
established order is subjected to criticism, and possible alternatives are

proposed that may affect the constitutional order itself. Over the last
decades, various initiatives have come under discussion in this regard, such
as changes in voting legislation aimed at introducing proportional repre-
sentation, limitations and revocation of mandates, open candidate lists,
reforms in party financing, and so on.4
Interestingly, however, the current sense of crisis has not translated into
disaffection among citizens. Although not entirely absent, nowadays pub-
lic disaffection is usually spasmodic rather than sustained. In part this may
be due to the fact that globalization has also deepened the public sphere,
making the manipulation of public opinion by the media easier and more
likely while at the same time also empowering citizens. In any case, it is not
possible to speak of political participation—an essential feature of citizen-
ship—as diminishing. Quite the contrary, it is precisely this domain that
has witnessed major experimentation in recent decades. From the end of
the Cold War, and especially in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis
and the ensuing economic downturn, participation has expanded its
semantic field to include a whole new set of practices and procedures:
primary elections in organizations and parties, consultative and binding
referendums, participatory budgeting, and so on, along with the entire
range of political communication and activism channelled through the
social networks.5
Although many of these initiatives are being implemented in cities or
small urban quartiers rather than in the national or international political
arena, they amount to a new conceptualization of democracy: the emerg-
ing sense is that of deliberative democracy, which places emphasis on the
role of citizens in decision-making.6 This stress on participation leaves the
act of voting in a contradictory situation: on one side, it now appears as a
rather simple, primitive, and even obsolete mechanism; on the other, there
are demands for its introduction in organizations and institutions where it
has not featured hitherto. The same may be said about the election of
4
All these proposals and measures seek to increase transparency and render accountability
effective; see a pioneering survey in Przeworski et al. (1999).
5
For a view from the Occupy movement, see Sitrin and Azzellini (2014); a study of some
of these developments, in Bobbio (2010).
6
For an overview of debates on deliberative democracy, see Dryzek (2000). On the new
conceptual consensus on “deepening democracy,” as applied to different instances and insti-
tutions, see Fung and Wright (2003). It is also referred to as “participatory democracy”; see
an overview of experiences in Bherer et al. (2018).
1 INTRODUCTION: HISTORIZING THE LANGUAGE OF MODERN CITIZENSHIP 3
representatives: while called for in new settings and in formerly resistant

organizations, the figure of the representative is being questioned from
the perspective of a reinvigorated discourse on direct democracy.7
Something similar is occurring with the concept of populism, deployed in
public debates with increasingly contradictory meanings that reveal the
tensions shaping the current entanglement of participation and
representation.8
Representation is an inherent feature of the parliamentary system as
much as participation is inextricably tied to political citizenship. Yet their
relations are not normative or structural but rather historical and contex-
tual. For a start, many of the current practices and procedures of civic
participation are hardly new, and have in fact marched in step with the
history of citizenship. In the case of Spain, for example, during the transi-
tion to democracy in the late 1970s newly empowered citizens engaged in
a whole range of activities, from street protests to neighbourhood assem-
blies, individual and collective petitions, and so on.9 Officially, however,
participation was reduced to the casting of votes in ballots, so that all other
types of political engagement were indistinctively designated as “infor-
mal” and classified as part of the repertoire of social movements, even as
forms of protest, and mostly placed outside the system.10
The example reveals that political-institutional changes affect the mean-
ing of participation and its relationship to representation. Much the same
can be said of collective social and political mobilization, which in turn
touches upon the distinction between order and disorder. The re-
fashioning of the conceptual universe linking representation, participa-
tion, and mobilization leads to the re-evaluation of hitherto informal and
marginal practices, which now are perceived as significant and
7
On the revival of the debate on direct democracy, see Bookchin (2015) and Matsusaka
(2005). For a historical perspective on alternative practices of democracy founded on plural
sovereignty instead of a monopoly by the State, see Tomba (2019).
8
Populism has become a fetish term in the context of the current crisis in representation.
For a definition emphasizing its intrinsic relation to democracy and its capacity for renewing
it, see Laclau (2007) and Panizza (2005). On the turn in discourse towards negative con-
notations of the term, see Stavrakakis (2018). For an overview of current debates and issues,
see Kapferer and Theodossopoulos (2019); in Spain, see Villacañas (2015).
9
In fact, the practices and procedures shaping the demands for popular democracy in Spain
after Franco’s regime were highlighted as a model of grassroots citizen participation; see the
classic by Castells (1983): 213–88. See an overview of participatory practices up to the pres-
ent, albeit seen from the usual perspective of social movements, in Alberich (2015).
10
See Maravall (1982).
4 P. SÁNCHEZ LEÓN
consequently formalized. In fact, many such practices had existed previ-

ously but were dismissed as dysfunctional or radical, and so deemed
incompatible with the parliamentary system. At present they are being
discursively re-categorized as part of the established order.
This book’s basic epistemological assumption is that historical phenom-
ena acquire a new dimension when they are rooted in language. Many
political, social, or cultural phenomena, though empirically observable, do
not always attract the attention of ideologues, opinion makers, or scholars,
who only take them into consideration once they have been duly incorpo-
rated into a conceptual framework that renders them meaningful. Other
phenomena do not even feature in the discursive vocabulary of a culture,
or lack a commonly recognized name. In the absence of formal conceptu-
alization, phenomena cannot be included in discourse and subject to com-
peting interpretations in the public sphere, without which they can scarcely
become an object of public debate or scholarly study. Above all, conceptu-
alization may serve as an indicator of their social diffusion as well as a fac-
tor in the empowerment of established or emerging actors whenever
capable of appropriating their meanings for effecting political, social, or
cultural change.11
As much as scholars devote efforts to defining and refining analytical
categories, historical perspectives are usually acknowledged as crucial for
understanding and explaining social phenomena—despite historical narra-
tives too often end up naturalizing them in the past. In this respect,
addressing phenomena by studying their history should be clearly distin-
guished from another, more ambitious and radical activity of “historical
thinking” or historizing. The former assumes that the phenomena under
study already existed in the past, though maybe in an embryonic or limited
form, under another name or in the guise of a different but equivalent
phenomenon, and reduces the task of the historian to tracing its trajectory
from its origins until the present, usually through a linear narration shaped
by present-day commonplaces. Historizing a phenomenon is however a
very different quest: it implies taking a critical distance towards the cur-
rently dominant interpretations by contrasting these with the discursive
status of a phenomenon in other historical contexts, when it may not even
have had a name, or conversely may have been even more pervasive than
today, though with a different labelling, content, or acknowledgement. In
11
On the understanding of concepts as both indicators and factors of historical change, see
Koselleck (1990) [1979].
this latter way of tackling knowledge about the past there is no linear his-
tory to be narrated, and discontinuities between contexts are assumed to
affect the meaning of historical phenomena.
Changes in their conceptualization shape political participation, repre-
sentation, and mobilization as social and institutional practices. In the
advent of representative government, between the second half of the eigh-
teenth century and throughout a good part of the nineteenth century,
procedures such as universal suffrage were seen not just as being outside
the system but antithetical to freedom: considered as deeply menacing to
the emerging parliamentary system and a harbinger of disorder, the mere
demand of voting rights for (male) adults passed for a radical claim that
threatened to unsettle the social order as a whole. However, democracy
was not itself stigmatized. This apparent paradox originated in democracy
being primarily conceived as a legitimate dimension of any well-ordered
political system while rejected as a self-sufficient form of government
except by radical ideologies, or for very specific polities such as city-states.
Even in these cases, language embraced a conceptualization as “pure”
democracy to denote an extreme, exclusive, and unbalanced version com-
pared to the hegemonic, eclectic, and functional definition. For their part,
assemblies and other deliberative practices and procedures, despite voting
rights being restricted to a social minority, were not excluded or deni-
grated but often retained certain legitimacy as legacies from the past, and
this facilitated the redefinition of their status in times of political crisis.
On the whole, the semantic referents of representation, participation,
and mobilization were different and scarcely comparable to their modern
counterparts, and not because they were unrefined or primitive versions
pending of evolution into present forms. The aim of this book is to study
those referents and their meaning for a better understanding of the rela-
tions between representation, participation, and mobilization in a context
of epochal changes.
The Differentiation Between Representation

and Participation as a Modern Phenomenon
Modernity is identified with diversification and specialization, both func-

tional and semantic: the separation of the spheres of the political and the
economic, between public and private, the state and civil society, the tran-
sition from privileged estates to social classes equal under the law, or from
6 P. SÁNCHEZ LEÓN
the subject to the citizen. All these transformations have been the object
of scholarly analysis and intellectual inquiry, and out of this activity have
emerged the main categories of the social sciences. The complexity of the
modern world derives precisely from the translation of social processes
into the language from which the categories for understanding and
explaining social phenomena are devised; yet at the same time the seman-
tic resources for constructing those categories are drawn from the avail-
able language as inherited from the past.
The abruptness and the depth of the passage from the Old Regime to
modern society has imbued the discourse of modernity with dichotomies:
as the changes involved entail a deep and enduring divide, usually they are
given meaning through concepts developed as counterpoints to tradi-
tional terms. However, modern concepts are sometimes themselves inher-
ited from the cultural tradition of the Old Regime, which had its own
conceptions of politics, representative institutions, and the subject; conse-
quently, modern redefinitions are by necessity tainted by old semantics. As
a result, scholarly work risks confusion due to the overlap of institutional
processes and linguistic terminologies. Debates about changes and conti-
nuities often get entrenched as researchers address historical phenomena
through categories superimposing modern and traditional meanings, or
resort in their accounts to a distinction between form and content which
is itself a legacy from the philosophical tradition of the Old Regime.
This study offers an alternative framework for dealing with the transi-
tion from the Old Regime. It does so however by extending even further
the above-mentioned reflection on differentiation and specialization char-
acteristic of modernity. Its focus is on another genuine feature of modern
cultures: the distinction between representation and participation. This
conceptual pairing is anything but novel in political science: it is well
rooted in the discipline, where it has customarily epitomized the cleavage
between the constitution of the state and the political articulation of civil
society. The current crisis of democracy seems to entail a further disen-
gagement from each other attracting the attention of experts as part of a
wider concern with the legitimacy of constitutional systems. However, not
much effort has been undertaken to observe their mutual interaction his-
torically as a means to contributing to current debates on the future of
democracy.
A historical perspective on the dichotomy representation/participation
should not limit itself, however, to describing their mutual relations in
changing historical contexts, nor to gauging their relative significance in
discourse through different periods. Instead, the aim here is to analyse

jointly some of the qualitative changes in meaning that occurred in that
pair of concepts in the passage from the Old Regime to Liberalism, and in
connection to the semantics of mobilization from outside the system.12
This goal raises a number of questions: Was there an increase in the auton-
omy of participation vis-à-vis representation as provided by professional
politicians? Was it simply a phenomenon of functional differentiation, or
did the shift in the boundaries of their respective semantic fields impose a
hierarchy between them? To which extent were the semantics of represen-
tation and participation influenced by waves of collective mobilization that
in turn altered the boundaries established between order and disorder?
The answers to such questions differ depending on whether a norma-
tive approach or a historical one is adopted; in turn, any response also
depends on whether the chosen approach is a prospective or rather a ret-
rospective one. In any case, a common point of departure is that represen-
tation and participation have attracted very uneven attention from
historians.
It is well known that in Antiquity forms of urban self-government
developed that were based on direct citizen participation, whereas repre-
sentative institutions remained rather limited. From the Middle Ages
onwards, however, a great variety of forms of representation flourished
that were to endure throughout the Old Regime.13 As a result, the study
of representation has been undertaken assuming that modern constitu-
tions imbued traditional forms of representation with a new legitimacy
based on popular sovereignty.14 Accordingly, scholars have tended to
embrace a restrictive definition of the category of representation that suits
modern constitutional frameworks—representation as a formal means for
channelling the interests of pre-constituted individual subjects. However,
before the advent of Liberalism the concept was endowed with meanings
drawn from other semantic fields. Overall, representation enjoyed the
12
The literature on representation has been dominated by analyses on its relationship with
consent; see Monahan (1987) and Hwa-Yong Lee (2008). The relation between representa-
tion and local self-government has also been addressed; see Ertman (1997).
13
For the issue of civic participation in the Ancient city-states, the essential reference is
Hansen (1991); see a perspective on this from popular political culture in Wood (1988). For
a comparative approach to the issue of political participation between Antiquity, the Middle
Ages, and the early modern period, see Sánchez León (2000).
14
On this issue, see the classic works by Hintze (1975a) [1902] and (1975b) [1931].
8 P. SÁNCHEZ LEÓN
status of a sort of meta-concept transversal to traditional European cul-

ture.15 More specifically, the proliferation throughout the Old Regime of
various forms, mechanisms, and procedures of representation provided
the term with significant contents that encompassed the functional
together with the performative, even amounting to a constitutive under-
standing of subjection.16
By contrast, there has been much more limited interest in the historical
forms of participation, especially in traditional communities lacking an
instituted conception of citizenship. Recently, studies have started to
flourish on practices and procedures of participation from pre-modern
times, including the appointment to offices by lot, election by voting, or
the exercise of the right of petition.17 Yet these findings actually contribute
to underscore the absence in the language of Old Regime of an overarch-
ing definition comprising them all.
Indeed, in the Old Regime one single semantic field in principle encom-
passed the spheres of participation and representation, the former being
inherent in membership in communities or corporations as much as the
latter was inextricable from the recognition and inclusion of subjects in
political communities.18 Accordingly, representation and participation
15
As a result of this, and compared to other concepts which have eventually become cate-
gories in the social sciences—such as state, politics, subject, status, and so on—representation
has not attracted much theorization among modern scholars. For decades it was hardly an
object of reflection, and actually the definition provided by Pitkin (1967) remains hege-
monic; see renovated approaches in Rosanvallon (1998) and Ankersmit (1996). For critical,
more sophisticated usages, see Duso (1988). See an overview of theories of representation in
Sintomer (2013). For an account of political representation in Spain from the Old Regime
to the parliamentary system that tackles many of these issues, see Fernández Albaladejo (1998).
16
Studies of the works of relevant medieval jurists, such as Marsilius of Padua, have ques-
tioned the notion that representation in the Old Regime was an embryonic form of the
modern one; see Lee (2008): 9. See a perspective on the constitutive character of representa-
tion in relation to agency in the Old Regime in Sánchez León (2007). On the psychosocial
foundation of participation, see Honneth (1996); a theory of identity as founded on recogni-
tion and representation, in Pizzorno (1986).
17
On designation by lots, a practice abandoned with the advent of Liberalism, see Sintomer
(2011); on its recent revival in party organization, see Feenstra (2017), and from a radical
perspective, see van Reybrouck (2016). On voting practices before political suffrage, see
Christin (2017). On petitioning as a flexible and complex practice from the Old Regime to
Liberalism, focusing on the case of Spain, see Palacios Cerezales (2019).
18
The formula quod omnes tangit at the basis of all parliaments in the Old Regime implied
not only representation but also participation; on this issue for the case of Portugal in the
early modern period, see Cardim (2020). At the institutional level, the notion of plena potes-
featured in a hybridized form both in language and in institutions, mutu-

ally dependent on each other though also conflated in separate, particular
spheres.19 Certainly, parliaments enjoyed a degree of universality and gen-
erality in the Political Body; however, their status was not the same as
nowadays, being at most keystones in a wider universe of concurring
instances of representation lacking autonomy.
This hybrid configuration of representation and participation at once
reflected and conditioned conceptions of the subject. The anthropologi-
cal imagination of the Old Regime empowered primarily collective sub-
jects, not individuals.20 Social roles for their part did not usually include
citizenship, a form of subjection only exceptionally developed and con-
signed to the urban world: in the Spanish peninsular kingdom of Castile,
aside from that of subject to the king, the more common status of vecino
(literally: neighbour) consisted mainly in duties and certain associated
rights, which were usually local and communitarian in nature and scope.21
Overall, inequality under the law allowed members to enjoy different
rights of participation in the same corporation, based on their status.22
At the same time, certain forms of representation did not ensure
tas—the great innovation in the technology of representation in medieval legal culture—

involved participation in the designation of representatives; see Lee (2008): 37.
19
These hybrid forms of representation and participation extended throughout political
communities profiting from a conception of time as aevum, which allowed for their continu-
ity beyond the limited lifespan of their members; see Kantorowicz (2016) [1957].
20
See Gurevich (1985) [1972]. Individual identity was subsumed in membership in any
wider community—of kinship, craft gild, confession, territory, and so on—and individuals
only obtained recognition as representatives of third parties—of lineages in time through
patterns of inheritances, and of domestic units in space as pater familias. In fact, family and
kinship provided the imagination for a whole representation of the social order and its gov-
ernance; see Frigo (1985) and Agamben (2011): 17–184.
21
On the relation between duties and rights of vecindad in the Hispanic world during the
early modern period, see Herzog (2003), 43–63, and Carzolio (2002).
22
Numerous stipulations enshrined in law presented obstacles to equal rights of delibera-
tion and election among members of corporations. In the case of parliaments, representatives
did not act as delegates of the community as a whole but of the electors in their communities,
and were not full representatives but were segmented by privilege; an overview of these issues
in Graves (2013): 159–221. Moreover, procedures of designation changed not only in space
but also in time. The case of Republican Florence is illustrative: it combined designation by
consensus, by lot, by candidates, or by majority depending on periods and contexts; see
Keller (2014).
10 P. SÁNCHEZ LEÓN
participation, while participation in the designation of representatives

did not always entail deliberative capacities.23
These broadly sketched relations between representation and participa-
tion may be traced to the institutions of numerous Western states through-
out the early modern period. However, the case of the Spanish Monarchy
is especially significant and interesting in this general picture given the
range of constitutional settlements it established with different principali-
ties and jurisdictions.24 Expanding into a transoceanic colonial empire, its
domains comprised territories in Europe and America sharing a common
legal and political framework throughout the Old Regime.25
Democratic Imagination in the Passage to Modernity

How did the shift occur from the framework of representation and partici-
pation outlined above to the one we identify with parliamentary systems
and representative government? No doubt, the promulgation of nation-
wide constitutions from the end of eighteenth century and throughout
the nineteenth century was decisive, as it based legitimacy on popular sov-
ereignty, defined citizenship rights, and established election by suffrage.
Yet this overall realignment in the relations between representation and
participation was preceded by other discursive shifts that contributed to
alter the meaning of some fundamental political concepts.
23
Not all the organs of a body politic had legal capacity to represent, that is, not all were
corpus representans, but often they were represented by third entities, thus functioning as a
persona representata; on this issue for the case of Castile, see Pardos (1988). In deliberative
capacity, representatives experienced an unsolved tension between plena potestas and binding
mandate; see the classical studies on the Iberian world by Post (2015) [1964], and a reap-
praisal, in Decoster (2016). Parliaments or Cortes for their part were not sovereign, their
summoning being a prerogative of the head of the principality, who usually gathered them
for counselling and fiscal purposes. In sum, parliamentary representation in the Old Regime
differed from its modern counterpart with regard to who was represented, how, and for what
purposes; see Lee (2008): 37–38.
24
On this issue, as framed by the category of “composite monarchies,” a label especially
suitable for the monarchies of the Iberian peninsula, see Elliott (2009): 29–55. For the
related and more recently developed notion of “polycentric monarchies,” see Cardim et al.
(2014): 3–8.
25
A growing number of scholars refer to it as the Catholic Monarchy due to the interweav-
ing of political and meta-political or religious languages in its legitimating discourses and
aims; see Fernández Albaladejo (1997); see a masterful account of its performance during
the seventeenth century from this perspective in Fernández Albaladejo (2009).
Some aspects of this process are quite well known. Beginning with the
Renaissance and throughout the early modern period, as part of the asser-
tion of an increasingly autonomous space for politics, important discursive
elaborations allowed subjects to be imagined as citizens dedicated to fur-
thering collective over particular interests.26 The Enlightenment for its
part gave greater autonomy to culture and its power to effect historical
change: the emergence of the public sphere on one side and the notion of
the subject as a self-referential individual on the other are two essential
preconditions for the transformation of the relations between representa-
tion and participation.27
The great revolutions of the last quarter of eighteenth century unques-
tionably represented the irruption of a distinctly new social order—and yet
the political crises of the Old Regime did not bring about genuine re-
conceptions of political participation. To begin with, few political crises of
the period resulted in major transformations of the constitutional frame-
work or the inherited language of politics. Aside from France, the majority
of European states did not experience radical alterations in the social order
between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and even less
frequently were these the result of the mobilization of former subjects.28
In colonial domains the process was only different in the United States
and in very circumscribed territories like Haiti: in the illustrative case of
the Spanish empire, both the metropolis and its domains in the New
World retained an important part of the vocabulary on representation
from the Old Regime, and their respective constituent processes and
struggles for independence were no less indebted to the juridical legacy of
the Catholic Monarchy than they were inspired by new principles of popu-
lar sovereignty.29
26
See Pocock (1975). On the definition of the concepts of power and politics from the
Renaissance onwards, see Duso (2009).
27
See Taylor (1989) and Guilhamou (2011).
28
On the roots of modern political language in the French revolution, see Reichard
(2002); on the frameworks for political participation in revolutionary France, see McPhee
(1986); on the transformation in the conceptions of representation following 1789, see
Baker (1990): 224–51.
29
On the process on both sides of the Spanish Atlantic, see Portillo (2006a). For the case
of the United States, focusing on conceptions of representation, see Reid (1989); for prac-
tices of citizen participation in the context of the rise of democratic imagination in North
America, see Wilentz (2005). See a general synthesis for England from 1688 to the end of
the American Civil War in Kloppenberg (2016).
The Spanish case is notable for being an amalgam of apparent changes

and continuities. The 1812 constitutional settlement, though certainly
influenced by foreign revolutionary experiences, followed a singular pat-
tern of its own. The power vacuum in the wake of the invasion of the
peninsula by French troops in 1808 led to the formation of self-governing
local units—so-called juntas—that assumed sovereignty in the monarch’s
absence, first locally but later attaining nationwide coordination. In the
domain of participation, the movement of urban juntas affirmed the role
of assemblies with deliberative capacity while rejecting vetoes or social
distinctions.30 Regarding representation, as the summoning of the old par-
liament or Cortes abandoned the tradition of gathering by estates, count-
less (male) taxpayers were granted voting rights through a system of
indirect or dual suffrage.31 Finally, the constituent process culminating in
the 1812 Constitution promulgated in the city of Cádiz combined inspira-
tion in transnational conceptions of natural law with vernacular histori-
cism as sources of legitimacy.32
This ambiguity has resulted in a rather schizophrenic historiography,
with scholars either emphasizing changes or underlining continuities.33
The lack of dialogue between them has generally limited the advancement
of knowledge about the transition to Liberalism, and more particularly is
an obstacle to addressing of the central historical questions at the core of
this book: How were the relations between representation and participa-
tion conceptualized from the crisis of the Old Regime, and how did they
influence the overall shaping and development of Spanish Liberalism?
Those scholars who see an essential discontinuity do not sufficiently take
into account that corporate bodies in their entirety, such as the clergy, the
merchant, and artisan gilds were not suppressed in the post-revolutionary
setting: To what extent were they exposed to the emerging understanding
30
The classic study along these lines is Artola (1973); see a more recent iteration in Colón-
Ríos (2019).
31
On representation in this context, see Portillo (2006b).
32
For a comparative perspective, see Fernández Sarasola (2000).
33
Notable among the former is Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (2011) [1983]; for a more
nuanced approach in this vein, see Fernández Sarasola (2011). Among those who argue that
in Cádiz early liberals “gave constitutional form to a series of key elements from the culture
and institutions of the old Catholic Monarchy adapting them to a new understanding of poli-
tics,” see Garriga and Lorente (2007): 16, emphasis in the original; see also Portillo (2000).
On a study on revolutionary France that adopts a similar perspective on the issue of political
participation, see Edelstein (2015).
of representation? On the other hand, those who stress continuity have

not paid enough attention to the evolution of the political culture of Cádiz
after 1812: Did the experience of political participation upheld by this
culture decline with time or endure in memory? In this latter case, to
which extent did its revival influence the overall dynamics of nineteenth-
century Spanish Liberalism and, conversely, how much was it transfigured
by changing political contexts?
Answering this set of questions entails analysing the shifts of status in
the semantic fields of representation, participation, and mobilization in
discourse. This in turn requires a multi-disciplinary approach drawing at
the very least from a critical combination of the history of social move-
ments, of constitutional law, political history, and the history of thought.
Needless to say, to account for the discursive relations between representa-
tion, participation, and mobilization in the demise of the Old Regime
requires an epistemological, theoretical, and methodological framework
capable of accounting for epochal transformations from a single set of
categories; in turn, these analytical categories must be validated by specific
concepts recorded in historical discourse. Fortunately, this latter condition
is met by invoking the repertoire of the mixed constitution or government.
The mixed constitution was originally an ideal combination of the fea-
tures of the three pure forms of government—monarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy—in an equilibrium and mutual check that was meant to ensure
political stability. Reasserted since the Renaissance, its successful diffusion
owed much to The Spirit of Laws (1748) by Montesquieu, a work in which
the mixed government, rather than an abstract and ideal political model,
is for the first time distilled as a constitutional vein running through
Western history.34 This modern history of the mixed constitution proceeds
from the middle of eighteenth century: as the issue of citizen self-
government was posed in the following decades, the conceptual repertoire
of the mixed constitution began to take centre stage in the political debate
34
The ideal of mixed constitution was distilled from the works of the great philosophers of
Antiquity: in trying to overcome the natural tendency of human institutions towards degra-
dation, especially in the Roman world authors such as Polybius and Cicero were among the
first to imagine government as a combination of the most valuable features of each of the
pure forms, and balancing them to slow down the so-called anacyclosis or circular substitu-
tion of forms; see Carsana (1990) and Morrow (1998). Recovered in the Renaissance, its
“recurring presence” in legal and political debates up to the Enlightenment has been noted,
though not mush studied; see Gaille-Nikodimov (2005): 7.
as an overall frame increasingly adopted by all kinds of observer-participants

throughout all the ancien régimes engulfed in an overriding crisis.
Seen from this perspective, the mixed constitution has been an essential
repository for the socialization of political language in the context of the
rise of modern constitutionalism and citizenship.35 Its cultural endurance
relies on its remarkable flexibility as a framework of semantic ordering.
The mixed constitution is not a product of Old Regime culture but a
trans-historical artefact subject to re-interpretations in changing contexts.
Neither a strictly juridical construct nor just an ideological or purely intel-
lectual product, it overflows the framework of conventional conceptual
history, introducing a whole vocabulary into discourse, not in a piecemeal,
concept-by-concept fashion, but rather wholesale and as an interrelated
cluster. In turn, each of the three concepts—monarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy—involves an abstraction, which makes them translatable into
the language of the social and political sciences: monarchy is the element
or dimension giving unity and coordination to the whole, and so crucial
for establishing the dividing line between order and disorder; aristocracy
brings discerning judgement and moral quality, a set of competences
essential for the exercise of representation; and democracy endows the
system with collective force by sheer quantity, assuring its universal legiti-
macy and capacity for self-defence. Finally, their mutual balancing ideally
limits the infringement of one element upon the others and prevents deg-
radation into any one of their respective obverse forms, as defined by the
counter-concepts of tyranny, oligarchy, and demagogy or anarchy.36
From this perspective, beyond a political ideal the mixed constitution
resembles a social imaginary, in Charles Taylor’s definition: “not a set of
ideas” but “rather what, by giving them meaning, makes possible the
35
To this day, historians of political philosophy and constitutional law still address the issue
mainly as an intellectual legacy which, despite its influence in the formation of modern con-
stitutional culture, finally waned with the rise of Liberalism; see Fioravanti (1999). Among
the reasons for its relative disregard by scholars, at least one has its origins in the “checks and
balances” formula coined by Montesquieu, which has led to confusion between the logic of
the mixed government and the division of powers between the executive, legislative, and
judicial branches at the foundations of modern constitutionalism; see Hansen (2010).
36
On the concept of tyranny in historical perspective, see Turchetti (2001); on oligarchy
in Antiquity, see Simonton (2017); on anarchy from the middle of eighteenth century, espe-
cially in French thought, see Deleplace (2000); the term “ochlocracy,” originally used in this
context to refer to a degraded democracy would be eventually abandoned; see Ferreira (2013).
practices of a society.”37 In linguistic terms it may be thought of as a gram-

mar, that is, a set of rules for the discursive combination of fundamental
political concepts. This dual character made the mixed constitution suit-
able for different and often competing ideological purposes and provided
it with a privileged status for channelling the historical differentiation
between the fields of representation, participation, and mobilization. As a
grammar, it conditioned the transference from Old Regime to Liberalism
in the semantics of representation, mainly through discourse on the con-
cept of aristocracy; it also coalesced the semantic field of political participa-
tion in the passage towards modern citizenship, especially through changes
in the meaning of democracy; finally, it defined the boundaries of the sys-
tem, establishing the basic distinction between order and disorder, through
the concept of monarchy. As an all-encompassing meta-concept, the mixed
constitution itself favoured the conjugation of those three conceptual
fields in tandem. As social imagery, it successfully adapted itself to the
legal-political cultures of the Old Regime while both revealing and foster-
ing radical transformations in constitutional settings.
The Inclusion of the Crowd as a Contingent Process

The argument of this book is that the historical separation between the
spheres of representation and participation did not result in their mutual
autonomy. On the contrary, in the passage to Liberalism, a distinct hierar-
chical relationship was established between them both at the conceptual
and institutional levels: just as their contents were being redefined, partici-
pation was subordinated to representation, to the extent that autonomous
manifestations of the former were treated as mobilizations external to the
system and threatening the established order. A manifestation of this pro-
cess was the introduction of limited suffrage, which instituted a divide in
the social body between two types of subjects, only one of which enjoyed
recognition as full citizens. However, subordination was already accom-
plished prior to the establishment of representative government, through
37
Taylor regards social imaginaries as “complex” artefacts incorporating an “idea” of “the
class of common understanding which allows to develop the collective practices that inform
our social life,” as well a “notion” of “the type of participation which corresponds to each in
common practice”; see Taylor (2004): 13 and 37, respectively. For Taylor, social imaginaries
are a product of modernity, which makes the mixed government an original exception placed
halfway between pre-modern thought and the great epistemic divide of modernity.
a combination of the language of corporations from the Old Regime and

the grammar of the mixed constitution.
On the basis of the former, popular collective action overgrowing the
established frame had been hitherto addressed by the authorities as disor-
derly hazards; from then on, by resorting to the latter protesters could be
conceptualized as a part of the social body to be excluded from member-
ship in the political community. The fear of an excessive pressure from the
people could be conjured up by supplementing the traditional approach to
collective action, which reduced the legitimate claims from subjects to
petitions and other non-collective forms of representation, with the reper-
toire of the mixed constitution, in which participation (as the natural field
of democracy) was subordinated to unity (as embodied by monarchy) and
to representation (as relating to aristocracy). The result of this discursive
combination was a newly re-sharpened contraposition between two sub-
jects: the people and the crowd or plebe.
The “people” and the “plebe” are two concepts with a long history in
Western culture. The contrast and mutual opposition between populus and
plebs go back to classical Antiquity.38 In medieval constitutional culture the
antithesis was considerably diluted by being subsumed in the Third Estate,
a juridical category that incorporated the concept of the people while
encompassing plebeians as taxpayers. From the Renaissance and through
the early modern period the distinction re-emerged, with “people” nor-
mally designating the majority of the population as supplementary source
of sovereignty to the divine right of kings, whereas “crowd” (or mob)
referred to the lower ranks of society whose inclusion in the government
of the commonwealth was discouraged for its disorderly externalities. Yet
the conception of the crowd as a menacing subject, deprived of economic,
moral, and cultural dignity and to be feared of as potentially destroying
the standing order—in sum, the plebe as a non-citizen in the transition to
modern citizenship—is a product of the Enlightenment.
The discursive engineering of this subject is better explored in the cul-
tural setting of Southern Europe. In north-western European countries,
the relatively early decline of corporate associations made it possible to
imagine an autonomous multitude capable of decisive intervention in the
38
Usually addressed as a rather stable trans-historical pairing, the people/plebe divide
seems, however, to have undergone significant relational changes from the Renaissance
onwards, and especially in the eighteenth century; see McClelland (2011).
political processes that brought about modernity.39 By contrast, in

Bourbon Spain, a politically mobilized people deprived of representation
within a resiliently corporate society was successfully dismissed as the man-
ifestation of a contemptible and threatening crowd, a conception that
endured with some fluctuations through the rest of the eighteenth and
well into the nineteenth century, until the first establishment of democracy.
The distinction between the “people” and the “plebe” was not purely
rhetorical or a simple literary metaphor. Much more than that, it is a genu-
ine instance of asymmetrical counter-concepts that were crucial for the
transition to constitutional systems in Spain and beyond. Reinhard
Koselleck defined asymmetrical counter-concepts as the means for depriv-
ing subjects of identity, and singled out three major conceptual pairs of
this kind: civilized/barbarian, believer/pagan, and human/nonhuman.40
Yet the people/plebe pairing, insofar as it distinguishes between citizen
and non-citizen, also belongs in this category.41 It does so in a unique way,
however: in this case, the identity denied to the plebe is exactly that of its
counter-conceptual pair, the people. This is because, compared to the
other three pairs of asymmetrical counter-concepts, the plebe is consid-
ered part of the same community as the people, founded not on ethnical,
cultural, or confessional but on shared political referents. In other words,
the plebe is a counter-concept coined to deny and exclude a political sub-
ject in partaking with the people.
Once fixed in language, this conceptual asymmetry was to have pro-
found and lasting political-institutional and socio-cultural effects in the
majority of parliamentary systems. It would shape the relations between
representation, participation, and mobilization throughout the process of
their historical differentiation. To begin with, the system bestowed repre-
sentation with overarching powers for exclusion, and this not only
39
A well-known case is Baruch Spinoza’s formulation of the notion of “multitude,” based on
his experience in the Low Countries at the beginning of the eighteenth century; see a recent
the focus on his work for theoretical reflections on the constituent subject in the age of global-
ization, in Hardt and Negri (2004). After 1789, events in France were also to obliterate the
distinction between the people and the plebe from the Enlightenment. However, the influence
of the French Revolution on modern historiography has contributed to the scholarly neglect of
the role of the plebe in shaping political cultures elsewhere on the continent; there are excep-
tions though: see a classical study focused on the crowd in that context in Rudé (1964).
40
See Koselleck (1990) [1979]: 205–205.
41
The following paragraphs draw on Sánchez León (2020b).
legalized an internally hierarchized citizenship but actually converted the

minority of voters into representatives of the majority of the population
stripped of political rights. Moreover, the struggles for extending the right
of suffrage further reinforced the definition of political participation as
exclusively the election of representatives by individual voters.
Consequently, all struggles for recognition that incorporated other forms
of participation than voting were classified as disorderly—in other words,
“informal” participation became identified with mobilization external to
the system, if not with anti-system activity.
As this makes clear, in the passage to modernity the relations between
participation, representation, and mobilization became inextricably linked
to the cleavage separating the “people” from the “plebe” The histories of
these two sets of concepts are closely intertwined, though they would have
a different ending: in the case of the triad mobilization/representation/
participation the result was a growing institutional and semantic differen-
tiation; in that of the people versus plebe, historical dynamics deriving
from the inherent contestability of these concepts allowed for a semantic
convergence that eventually dissolved the institutional separation between
them.42 Without such a final outcome there could not have been democ-
racy. In this sense, the overcoming of the people/plebe dichotomy is a
precondition of the establishment of universal suffrage; however, it is also
the result of historical processes, and so a contingent outcome.
Spain, 1766–1868: Democracy in the Struggle

for the Meaning of Citizenship
Studying historical processes like these requires a methodology sensitive

to the constitutive properties of language in social and political relations as
much as to its historicizing. Without doubt, the chronological frame needs
to be extended in order to include two contiguous historical periods—the
crisis and demise of the Old Regime and the establishment and consolida-
tion of representative government—which are normally considered sepa-
rately due to the arbitrary barrier dividing early modern from modern
history. Only by embracing a chronological span from the second half of
eighteenth century to the middle of nineteenth century is it possible to
observe that the plebe is not a by-product of Liberalism but rather a legacy
42
Recently the category of plebe has been used as a guide for reflecting on political moder-
nity overall; see Breaugh (2007). On the notion of “inherent contestability of concepts”, see
Freeden (2004).
of the Old Regime, though re-emerging in a re-signified context, and thus

reviving a longstanding tension with the concept of the people in the wake
of previous political crises. For that matter, Spain is a particularly useful
and instructive case study. Having experienced an early and marked irrup-
tion of the plebe/people divide before the cycle of Atlantic revolutions of
the last quarter of the eighteenth century, in scarcely a single century
Spain witnessed the introduction of male universal suffrage, certainly as a
short-lived experience but enough for the blurring of the separation
between the people and the plebe, for a substantial alteration in the rela-
tions between representation and participation, and for transgressing the
established boundaries between order and disorder.
The other methodological assumption is that, in order to properly
account for the processes at stake, conceptual history needs to be comple-
mented by a pragmatics for better studying how discursive practices both
impose limits but also allow for semantic and institutional changes. Based
on a series of conceptual matrices, the task consists in accounting for pro-
cesses of appropriation of meaning from the fields of participation, repre-
sentation, and mobilization, and to place them at the core of the formation
and evolution of ideological and political identities.
To sum up, the obstacles to political participation that later accompa-
nied the institution of representative government had their origins in a
process that unfolded between 1766 and 1774 in the context of a political
crisis in the Spanish Old Regime: in effect, the then mobilized subjects
were repressed as incarnations of disorder and reclassified as an excluded
plebe, resulting in an overemphasis of representation over participation in
the discourse legitimizing the Bourbon Monarchy. Yet, when a much
more serious crisis of legitimacy arose in 1808, the semantic barriers sepa-
rating the “plebe” from the “people” were suddenly erased as an effect of
a popular mobilization that also not only recovered the practices of partici-
pation inherited from the Old Regime, but widened the range of possibili-
ties of an entire constituent process culminating in 1812, leaving in its
wake a political sensibility that incorporated into the discourse a diffuse
conception of democracy (Chap. 1). This outcome of early Spanish
Liberalism forced the second generation of liberals to place representation
on a new footing, now based on taxable property ownership rather than
education, which had been the referent inherited from the Enlightenment.
As a result, the divide between people and plebe was restored while the
political exclusion of the majority of the population was now reinforced by
a constitutional framework that tended to see participation beyond the
exercise of minority voting rights as a phenomenon external to the system,
and therefore similar in nature to revolts or revolutions. However, the

price of this new framework was that political citizenship instituted in
Isabelline Liberalism lacked autonomous communitarian moorings, which
enabled the survival in the public sphere of evolving radical sensibilities
that harkened to the experience of early Liberalism (Chap. 2).
On this basis, the dynamics of ideological debates throughout the reign
of Isabella II was marked by the fact that ultimately the excluded plebe was
part of the same social and cultural community as the people, and there-
fore individuals classified into the former necessarily built their identity by
drawing on a repository of language shared with the latter. However, since
the plebe could not represent itself, its condition as a subject was based on
a performative factor: the concurrence of representatives from outside the
plebe who, speaking on its behalf, initially reproduced its exclusion but
could also contribute to its inclusion (Chap. 3). This opened up the pos-
sibility that, in certain spheres of discourse, such as historical narratives or
aesthetics, the plebe could be included in the people even to the point of
dissolving the asymmetry between the two concepts (Chap. 4).
Despite the fact that these cultural processes initially had no political
impact, during political crises popular mobilization could subvert the sub-
ordination of participation to representation, transcending the boundaries
between order and disorder. Such a situation occurred in 1854, giving rise
to the fleeting appearance of a popular collective subject that, in the short
term, was however represented only with great difficulty by the emerging
leadership of democrats and republicans in the process of replacing the
legacy of doceañista sensibilities (Chap. 5). Yet at least post-1854 cultural
debates prevented a reaffirmation of the split between the “plebe” and the
“people,” while parliamentary debates brought with them a renewed
emphasis on education that came to question the hegemony of taxable
property as a criterion for voting exclusion. Recovering other traditions of
early Liberalism, a strongly inclusive conception of the people was now
formed which, under democratic and republican leadership, was in a posi-
tion to contend with the elites accused of corruption as the legitimate
representatives of an order of liberties (Chap. 6).
Works Cited
Agamben, Giorgio (2011). The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy
of Economy and Government, trad. Lorenzo Chiesa, Stanford (CA): Stanford
University Press.
Alberich, Tomás (2015). Desde las Asociaciones de Vecinos al 15M y las mareas ciu-
dadanas [Breve historia de los movimientos sociales], Madrid: Dyckinson.
Ankersmit, Frank R. (1996): Aesthetic Politics: Political Philosophy Beyond Fact and
Value, Stanford (CA): Stanford University Press.
Artola, Miguel (1973). La burguesía revolucionaria (1808–1874), Madrid: Alianza.
Baker, Keith M. (1990). Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political
Culture in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bherer, Laurence; Dufour, Pascale and Montambeault, Françoise (2018). “The
Participatory Democracy Turn: An Introduction”. In Laurence Bherer, Pascale
Dufour and Françoise Montambeault (eds.), The Participatory Democracy
Turn, London: Routledge.
Black, Antony (ed.) (2002). Otto Gierke. Community in Historical Perspective,
trad. M. Fischer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bobbio, Luigi (2010). “Democrazia e nuove forme di partecipazione”. In
Michelangelo Bovero and Valentina Pazé (eds.), La democrazia in nove lezioni,
Roma: Laterza, 46–62.
Bookchin, Murray (2015). The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the
Promise of Direct Democracy, London: Verso.
Breaugh, Martin (2007). L’experience plebeienne. Une histoire discontinue de la
liberté politique, Paris: Payot.
Cardim, Pedro (2020). “Os antecedentes: as Cortes no Portugal de Antigo
Regime. Participar, votar e discutir a política no Portugal dos séculos XVI a
XVIII”, (forthcoming).
Cardim, Pedro; Herzog, Tamar; Ruiz Ibáñez, José J. and Sabatini, Gaetano (eds.)
(2014). Polycentric Monarchies: How Did Early Modern Spain and Portugal
Achieve and Maintain a Global Hegemony?, Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press.
Carsana, Chiara (1990). La teoria della “Costituzione mista” nell’età imperiale
romana, Como: New Press.
Carzolio, Ana Inés (2002). “En los orígenes de la ciudadanía en Castilla. La identi-
dad política del vecino durante los siglos XVI y XVII”, Hispania 211: 637–92
[available at http://hispania.revistas.csic.es/index.php/hispania/article/
view/262].
Castells, Manuel (1983). The City and the Grassroots. A Cross-Cultural Theory of
Urban Social Movements, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press.
Christin, Olivier (2017). Vox Populi: une histoire du vote avant le suffrage universel,
Paris: Seuil.
Colón-Ríos, Joel I. (2019). “Primary Assemblies, Constituent Power, and the
Imperative Mandate”. In Hanna Lerner and David Landau (eds.), Elgar
Handbook of Comparative Constitution-Making, Edward Elgar [available at
https://ssrn.com/abstract=3392115].
Decoster, Caroline (2016). “L’usage de la plena potestas dans les assemblées

médiévales”, Cahiers de Recherches Médievales et Humanistes 31: 31–42 [avail-
able at https://journals.openedition.org/crm/14002].
Deleplace, Marc (2000). L’Anarchie de Mably à Proudhon (1750–1850), Lyon:
ENS Editions.
Dryzek, John S. (2000). Deliberative Democracy and Beyond: Liberals, Critics,
Contestations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Duso, Giuseppe (1988). La rappresentanza: un problema di filosofía política,
Milano: Franco Angelli.
Duso, Giuseppe (2009). “El poder y el nacimiento de los conceptos políticos
modernos”. In Sandro Chignola and Giuseppe Duso (eds.), Historia de los con-
ceptos y filosofía política, Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 197–242.
Edelstein, Melvin (2015). “Citoyenneté, élections, démocratie et Révolution: les
fondements de la France contemporaine”, La Révolution française 9 [available
at http://journals.openedition.org/lrf/1388].
Elliott, John H. (2009). Spain, Europe, and the Wider World, 1500–1800, New
Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
Ertman, Thomas (1997). The Birth of Leviathan: States and Regimes in Medieval
and Early Modern Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Feenstra, Ramón A. (2017). “Democracia y elección por sorteo en las nuevas for-
maciones políticas: teorías políticas clásicas y contemporáneas”, Daimon.
Revista internacional de filosofía 72: 205–19 [available at https://revistas.
um.es/daimon/article/view/295601].
Fernández Albaladejo, Pablo (1997). “Católicos antes que ciudadanos: gestación
de una ‘política española’ en los comienzos de la Edad Moderna”. In José
I. Fortea (ed.), Imágenes de la diversidad. El mundo urbano en la Corona de
Castilla, siglos XVI–XVIII, Santander: Universidad de Cantabria, 103–27.
Fernández Albaladejo, Pablo (1998). “La representación política en el Antiguo
Régimen”. In Manuel Pérez Ledesma (ed.), El Senado en la Historia, Madrid:
Secretaría General del Senado, 69–121.
Fernández Albaladejo, Pablo (2009). La crisis de la Monarquía, Barcelona:
Crítica/Marcial Pons.
Fernández Sarasola, Ignacio (2000). “La Constitución española de 1812 y su
proyección europea y latinoamericana”, Fundamentos: cuadernos monográficos
de teoría del Estado, derecho público e historia constitucional 2: 359–457[avail-
able at https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=204828].
Fernández Sarasola, Ignacio (2011). La Constitución de Cádiz. Origen, contenido
y proyección internacional, Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y
Constitucionales.
Ferreira, Oscar (2013). “‘La démocratie dans toute sa pureté’. Une longue his-
toire de la sortie en politique du concept d’ochlocratie (1780–1880)”, Revue
de la Recherche Juridique 147 [available at https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/
hal-01549827].
Fioravanti, Maurizio (1999). Costituzione, Rome: Il Mulino.

Freeden, Michael (2004). “Editorial: Essential contestability and effective contest-
ability”, Journal of Political Ideologies 9/1: 3–11.
Frigo, Daniela (1985). Il padre di famiglia. Governo della casa e governo civile nella
tradizione de la “oeconomica” tra Cinque e Seicento, Rome: Bulzoni.
Fung, Archon and Wright, Eric O. (2003). Deepening Democracy: Institutional
Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance, London: Verso.
Gaille-Nikodimov, Marie (2005). “Introduction”. In Marie Gaille-Nikodimov
(ed.), Le gouvernement mixte, de l’ideal politique au monstre constitutionnel,
siécle XIII–XVIII, Sainte-Etienne: Publications de l’Université, 7–14.
Garriga, Carlos and Lorente, Marta (2007). Cádiz, 1812: la constitución jurisdic-
cional, Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales.
Garrorena, Ángel (2015). Escritos sobre la democracia. La democracia y la crisis de
la democracia representativa, Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y
Constitucionales.
Graves, Michael A.R. (2001). The Parliaments of Early Modern Europe, Oxford
and New York: Routledge.
Guilhamou, Jacques (2011). “The Temporality of Historical Forms of
Individualization in Modern Times”. In Javier Fernández Sebastián and
Gonzalo Capellán de Miguel (eds.), Political Concepts and Time: New
Approaches to Conceptual History, Santander: MacGraw-Hill/ Universidad de
Cantabria, 345–368.
Gurevich, Aaron (1985) [1972]. Categories of Medieval Culture, trad.
G. L. Campbell, New York: Routledge.
Hansen, Morgens H. (1991). Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes:
Structure, Principles, and Ideology, Oxford: Blackwell.
Hansen, Morgens H. (2010). “The Mixed Constitution versus the Separation of
Powers: Monarchical and Aristocratic Aspects of Modern Democracy”, History
of Political Thought 31/3: 509–31 [available at https://www.jstor.org/
stable/26224146?seq=1].
Hardt, Michel and Negri, Antonio (2004). Multitude: War and Democracy in the
Age of empire, London: Penguin.
Herzog, Tamar (2003). Defining Nations. Immigrants and Citizens on Early
Modern Spain and Spanish America, New Haven, CT/London: Yale
University Press.
Hintze, Otto (1975a) [1902]. “The Formation of States and Constitutional
Development: A Study in History and Politics”. In The Historical Essays of Otto
Hintze, ed. Felix Gilbert, New York: Oxford University Press, 157–77.
Hintze, Otto (1975b) [1931]. “The Preconditions of Representative Government
in the Context of World History”. In The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, ed.
Felix Gilbert, New York: Oxford University Press, 302–55.
Honneth, Axel (1996). The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social
Conflicts, trad. Joel Anderson, Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.
Inerarity, Daniel (2019). Politics in the Time of Indignation: The Crisis of
Representative Democracy, trad. Sandra Kingery, London: Bloomsbury.
Kantorowicz, Ernst (2016) [1957]. The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval
Political Theology, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kapferer, Bruce and Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios (2019). “Populism and Its
Paradox”. In Bruce Kapferer and Dimitrios Theodossopoulos (eds.),
Democracy’s Paradox. Populism and Its Contemporary Crisis. London: Berghahn
Books, 1–34.
Keller, Hagen (2014). “Formes électorales et conception de la communauté dans
les communes italiennes (12e-14e siècle)”, Revue Française de Science Politique
64/6: 1083–107 [available at https://www.cairn.info/revue-francaise-de-sci-
ence-politique-2014-6-page-1083.htm].
Kloppenberg, James T. (2016). Toward Democracy: The Struggle for Self-Rule in
European and American Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Köchler, H. (1987). The Crisis of Representative Democracy. Bern: Peter Lang.
Koselleck, Reinhard (1990). Future’s Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time,
trad. Keith Tribe, Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press.
Laclau, Ernesto (2007). On Populist Reason, London: Verso.
Lee, Hwa-Yong (2008). Political Representation in the Later Middle Ages: Marsilius
in Context, New York: Peter Lang.
Lorente, Marta and Portillo, José María (dirs.) (2012). El ‘momento gaditano’. La
Constitución en el orbe hispánico (1808–1826), Madrid: Congreso de los
Diputados.
McPhee, Peter (1986). “Electoral Democracy and Direct Democracy in France,
1789–1851”, European History Quarterly 16: 77–96.
Maravall, José María (1982). La política de la transición, Madrid: Taurus.
Matsusaka, John G. (2005). “The Eclipse of Legislatures: Direct Democracy in the
21st Century”, Public Choice 124: 157–77.
McClelland, John S. (2011). The Crowd and the Mob: From Plato to Canetti,
London: Routledge.
Monahan, Arthur P. (1987). Consent, Coercion and Limit. The Medieval Origins of
Parliamentary Democracy, Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press.
Morrow, John (1998). History of Political Thought. A Thematic Introduction,
London: Macmillan.
Palacios Cerezales, Diego (2019). “Re-Imagining Petitioning in Spain
(1808–1823)”, Social Science History 43/3: 487–508 [available at https://
www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-science-history/article/reimagin-
ing-petitioning-in-spain-18081823/1A5F797DA8E4493B8A43B680
A2FF6EAB].
Panizza, Francesco (2005). Populism in the Mirror of Democracy, London: Verso.

Pardos, Julio A. (1988). “Communitas, persona invisibilis”. In Arqueologia do
Estado, Lisbon: Historia & Crítica, 935–955.
Pitkin, Hannah F. (1967). The Concept of Representation, Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
Pizzorno, Alessandro (1981). “Interests and Parties in Pluralism”. In Suzanne
Berger (ed.), Organizing Interests in Western Europe: Pluralism, Corporatism
and the Transformation of Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 249–86.
Pizzorno, Alessandro (1986). “Some Other Kind of Otherness: A Critique of
‘Rational Choice’ Theories”. In A. Foxley et al., Development, Democracy, and
the Art of Trespassing: Essays in Honor of Albert O. Hirschman, Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 335–73.
Pocock, John G. A. (1975). The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political
Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition, Princeton (NJ), Princeton
University Press.
Politikon (2014). La urna rota. La crisis política e institucional del modelo español,
Madrid: Debate.
Portillo, José M. (2000). Revolución de nación. Orígenes de la cultura constitucio-
nal en España, 1780–1812, Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y
Constitucionales.
Portillo, José M. (2006a). Crisis atlántica. Autonomía e independencia en la
monarquía hispana, Madrid: Marcial Pons/Fundación Carolina.
Portillo, José M. (2006b). “Cuerpo de Nación, Pueblo Soberano: la represent-
ación política en la crisis de la monarquía hispana”, Ayer 61: 47–76 [available
at https://www.jstor.org/stable/41324956?seq=1].
Post, Gaines (2015) [1964]. Studies in Medieval Legal Thought. Public Law and
the State, 1100–1322, Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
Przeworski, Adam; Stokes, Susan; and Manin, Bernard (1999). Democracy,
Accountability and Representaion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reichard, Rolf (2002). La Revolución francesa y la cultura democrática: la sangre
de la libertad, Madrid: Siglo XXI.
Reid, John P. (1989). The Concept of Representation in the Age of the American
Revolution, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Robertson, Robbie (2005). The Three Waves of Globalization: A History of a
Developing Global Consciousness, London: Zed Books.
Rosanvallon, Pierre (1998). Le peuple introuvable: histoire de la représentation
démocratique en France, Paris: Gallimard.
Rudé, George (1964). The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in
France and England, 1730–1848, New York: Wiley and Sons.
Sánchez León, Pablo (2000). “La ciudadanía que hemos perdido: el zóon politikón
en perspectiva histórica”, en Manuel Pérez Ledesma (ed.), Ciudadanía y
democracia, Madrid: Fundación Pablo Iglesias/Siglo XXI, 37–65.
Sánchez León, Pablo (2007). “El poder de la comunidad”. In Ana Rodríguez
(ed.), El lugar del campesino. En torno a la obra de Reyna Pastor, Madrid:
Universidad de Valencia-CSIC, 331–58.
Sánchez León, Pablo (2020a). “La constitución mixta: una gramática elemental
para la imaginación política en el paso a la modernidad”. In Francisco A. Ortega,
Rafael Acevedo and Pablo Casanova (eds.), Historia conceptual transatlántica:
metodologías y nuevas perspectivas de análisis, Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de
Colombia (forthcoming).
Sánchez León, Pablo (2020b). “‘People’, ‘Plebs’ and the Changing Boundaries of
the Political: Asymmetrical Counter-Concepts at the Origins of Spanish
Democratic Discourse, 1750–1875”. In Kirill Postoutenko (ed.), ‘Hellenes’
and ‘Barbarians’: Counter-Concepts and Conceptual Asymmetries in European
Discourse, London: Berghahn Books (forthcoming).
Simonton, Matthew (2017). Classical Greek Oligarchy. A Political History,
Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
Sintomer, Yves (2011). Petite histoire de l’expérimentation démocratique: Tirage au
sort et politique d’Athènes à nos jours, Paris: La Découverte/Poche.
Sintomer, Yves (2013). “Le sens de la représentation politique: usages et mésuages
d’une notion”, Raisons Politiques 50/2: 13–34 [available at https://www.
cairn.info/revue-raisons-politiques-2013-2-page-13.htm].
Sitrin, Marina and Azzellini, Darío (2014). You can’t represent us! Reinventing
Democracy from Greece to Occupy, London: Verso.
Stavrakakis, Yannis (2018). “How did ‘populism’ become a pejorative concept?
And why is this important today? A genealogy of double hermeneutics”,
Populismus working paper 6 [available at http://www.populismus.gr/wp-con-
tent/uploads/2017/04/stavrakakis-populismus-wp-6-upload.pdf].
Taylor, Charles (1989). Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity,
Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Taylor, Charles (2004). Modern Social Imaginaries, Durham and London: Duke
University Press.
Tomba, Massimiliano (2019). Insurgent Universality: An Alternative Legacy of
Modernity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Turchetti, Mario (2001). Tyrannie et tyrannicide de l’Antiquité à nos jours, Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France.
Urquizu, Ignacio (2016). La crisis de la representación en España, Madrid:
La Catarata.
Van Reybrouck, David (2016). Against Elections: The Case for Democracy, London:
Random House.
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, Joaquín (2011) [1983]. La teoría del Estado en las

Cortes de Cádiz. Orígenes del constitucionalismo hispánico, Madrid: Centro de
Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales.
Villacañas, José Luis (2015). Populismo, Madrid: La Huerta Grande.
Wilentz, Sean (2005). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln,
New York: W. W. Norton.
Wood, Ellen Meiksins (1988). Peasant-Citizen and Slave: The Foundations of
Athenian Democracy, London: Verso.
CHAPTER 2
Order: From Plebeian Disorder to Popular

Citizenship—Constitutional Imagination
Between Contexts, 1766–1814
Regime Changes and the Resignification

of the Legacies of the Past
Spanish democracy has been immersed in an ongoing process of transfor-

mation since the beginning of the 2010s. Every regime, whether demo-
cratic or not, is subject to changes, but these are not always accompanied
by a collective awareness of the transformations. In the case of Spain,
much of the discourse in the public sphere over the last few years has
revolved around the transformations under way, including proposals for
changes that are yet to be made, and debates over whether they ought to
be persisted with or stopped, hastened, or contained. The general consen-
sus is that the prevailing regime is going through a crisis, but opinions vary
This chapter combines modified versions of two seminar presentations for the
project “Re-Imagining democracy in the Mediterranean, 1750–1860” (www.
re-imaginingdemocracy.com): “Nameless democracy, feared multitude:
Conceiving disorder and citizenship in the Esquilache Riots (1766) and its
aftermath,” presented at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid (11–13 April 2014),
and “Constitutional imagination and the shaping of political citizenship in Spain,
1808–1876,” presented at the European Institute of Columbia University in
New York (13–14 September 2013). I am grateful to the organizers for their
invitation and to the participants for their comments.
© The Author(s) 2020 29

P. Sánchez León, Popular Political Participation
and the Democratic Imagination in Spain,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52596-5_2
regarding its nature and depth, as well as what degree of engagement is

demanded from citizens.
It is widely held that the two-party system that has dominated Spanish
politics for the past three decades is waning, although the emergence of
new political parties has not altered the established form of representation
in any fundamental way.1 Others point to the territorial model as clearly
obsolete; in this case, the demand for its restructuring has led to regional
mobilizations for greater citizen participation through processes of collec-
tive deliberation.2 For certain segments of public opinion, the crisis of
Spanish democracy has above all revealed the influence of a series of pri-
vate powers that foster inequality and degrade civic rights, and constitu-
tional changes have been proposed as a means of reining them in.3 Finally,
some of the more unsettling analyses point out that those powers and
other practices seen as corrupting Spanish democracy are legacies trans-
mitted from the previous regime; these approaches normally emphasize
the necessity of raising awareness in public opinion and of pressuring the
institutions through civic mobilization.4
Despite their marked differences, all of these stances are shaped by a
common type of narrative that combines changes and continuities from
some fixed point of origin. It is not an original format but rather a narra-
tive mould inherent to accounts of crisis and transformation. Yet it is also
very disempowering, for it limits itself to classifying phenomena according
to a simple dichotomy. A more sophisticated approach to the processes
that mark out crises is possible, though it requires focusing on continuities
that are traced further back in the past.
In post-Franco Spain, pre-democratic legacies provide the added inter-
est of having been almost completely overlooked until recently. This com-
munitarian awareness of issues hitherto scarcely acknowledged reflects a
change in the cultural context of Spanish democracy—and in turn is a
1
Regarding the crisis of the two-party system in Spain, see Orriols and Cordero (2016)
and Sánchez Muñoz (2017).
2
The case of Catalonia is emblematic of a mobilization in which nationalism mixes with
the demand for participation and with experimentation in processes of citizen deliberation;
see Perelló-Sobrepere (2017) for an overview of these processes; regarding Catalonia’s
demand for independence, see Crameri (2014).
3
Regarding the transferring of members between the boards of large businesses and high-
level public servants and representatives, see Juste de Ancos (2017).
4
The endurance of the legacies of Francoism in the democracy is a subject that counts on
a certain tradition; see Navarro (2006).
2 ORDER: FROM PLEBEIAN DISORDER TO POPULAR… 31
factor that contributes to the ongoing transformations. Seen in this way,

the past that lingers in the present acquires meaning by a process of resig-
nification marking out differences between the current context and the
immediately preceding one.5 In the case of present-day Spanish democ-
racy, the memorialist movement has partaken in that resignification of the
past by elaborating a discourse increasingly extended throughout the pub-
lic sphere that links the deficits of democracy with structures and practices
of power transmitted from the Francoist regime.6 But the ongoing resig-
nification is also partly an outcome of the process known as 15-M, which
has redeemed the value of a series of practices of civic participation and
assembly-based deliberation, many of which hark back at least to the tran-
sition.7 Properly supplemented, these two discourses involve a qualitative
change of cultural context in Spanish democracy.
In principle, this outline applies to all contexts in which the regime
enters into crisis due to the pressure of a collective mobilization founded
on an imaginary of citizenship. A split then appears between the estab-
lished forms of representation and participation, and a constitutional
imagination is activated that addresses a markedly inclusive subject as the
foundation of sovereignty: the people. Thus, it should also be valid for the
process operated at the dawn of modernity, when a notion of sovereignty
based on the divine right of kings was abandoned and replaced by the prin-
ciple of a morally upright people capable of self-government. Without a
doubt, this historic transformation was much more profound than the one
currently under way, and accordingly the processes of redefinition of the
past in that present were much more pronounced. Yet the contrast between
those two contexts of crisis is interesting because it illuminates the differ-
ent status acquired by the imaginary of democracy in each case. In the
current context democracy is on the global scale assumed to be an inde-
pendent and self-sufficient form of government; by contrast, the crisis of
the Old Regime—despite encompassing the first definition of a modern
political community self-governed by citizens—did so in a context in
which democracy was not normally assumed to be a self-sufficient form of
government, or even a legitimate one, at best acquiring meaning only if
5
This reflection on the differences of meaning among historical contexts draws from
reflections on cultural memory; see Assman (2011).
6
For an emblematic example, see Silva Barrera (2019).
7
For an overview of the assembly practices of the 15-M Movement, see Estalella and
Corsín (2013). Regarding the role of memory in the context of that movement, see
Lacasta (2013).
properly inserted into a wider framework of language for conceiving the

political—that of the mixed constitution.
The issues dealt with in this chapter revolve around constitutional
imagination in the crisis of an established mode of representation, partici-
pation, and mobilization. Nevertheless, just as in the case of the present-
day democracy, in order to overcome a simple dichotomous perspective
reduced to changes and continuities, it is essential to also include pro-
cesses that occurred before the crisis of the Old Regime at the beginning
of the nineteenth century: in effect, the then-unfolding democratic imagi-
nation started earlier, and on the other hand the Old Regime was not a
static institutional configuration lacking history and internal changes,
being on the contrary also heralded by processes of resignification between
contexts internal to traditional legitimacy.
In the case of the Spanish Bourbon monarchy and its transatlantic
empire, the year 1766 may be seen as a dividing line: at the dawn of the
Enlightened reforms of the second half of the eighteenth century, there
took a popular mobilization that the authorities had to confront by means
of a discourse which was elaborated just as the concept of democracy was
being diffused throughout the public sphere. In its aftermath, recourse to
the tropes of democracy, properly inserted in the wider repertoire of the
mixed constitution, allowed the strengthening of popular participation
in local institutions, although duly subordinated to the framework of rep-
resentation in the established institutions. Additionally, however, the
architects of the Bourbon reforms had to reformulate the notion of crowd
or plebe as a category devoid of all legitimacy for participation and essen-
tially as a non-subject, thus splitting the category of the people into two.
As a whole, the crisis begun in 1766 fractured the established relation
between representation and participation. With the Old Regime entering
into a much deeper and decisive crisis in 1808, a new popular mobilization
would upend and seek to establish a different relationship between order,
representation, and participation.
Disorder, Restoration, and Change: The Old Regime

Re-signified, 1766–1774
“Null,” “illicit,” “unheard-of,” “defective,” “obscure,” “violent,” “of
pernicious example,” “obstinate,” “illegal,” and “irreverent”: these were
the descriptors, emphatically underlined, that the attorneys (fiscales) of the
2 ORDER: FROM PLEBEIAN DISORDER TO POPULAR… 33
Royal Council of the Bourbon monarchy used to refer to the “extraordi-

nary congregation of people” in 1766 in Madrid—an event convention-
ally known in historical narrative as the Esquilache Riots (motín de
Esquilache).8 The popular mobilization of 1766 has been the subject of
numerous studies from different perspectives, but because the revolt
failed, the tendency has been to dismiss it as a minor, purely reactive epi-
sode, directed against the modernizing programme of the Enlightened
reformist court of Charles III (1759–1788).9 What is certain is that the
protest had a wide territorial scope, extending beyond the capital of the
Spanish Monarchy to other peninsular cities and even reverberating across
the Atlantic throughout the monarchy’s overseas possessions.10 Despite
this fact, inasmuch as it did not enduringly destabilize the institutional
order of the Spanish Monarchy, the crisis of 1766 has not been properly
inserted into the wider cycle of Atlantic revolutions of the second half of
the eighteenth century—which it anticipated in many ways, but is also
clearly distinct from.11
However, its importance at the time is unquestionable. Although the
revolt neither aspired to topple the monarchy nor did it cause irreversible
damage to its legitimacy, the event was interpreted in its context as a state
of exception that had profoundly subverted the social and institutional
order. The jurists of the Council demonstrated as much in their report,
written several weeks after the popular outbreak with the purpose of dele-
gitimizing “those who speak in the name of the People”—by virtue of
which the mutinous population had obtained from the monarch himself
the suppression of a series provisioning and sumptuary measures adopted
8
“Real Provisión” (1766): 6–9. A facsimile of this document is found in Macías
Delgado (1988).
9
For a recent account of the event and its antecedents, see López García (2006). The
historiographical interpretation in a folklorist and traditional key emerges from historians of
the nineteenth century; see Ferrer del Río (1856): II, 5–116.
10
The number of localities in which disturbances of some kind were recorded hovered
around forty, distributed throughout the Spanish territory; see Vallejo García-Hevia (1997):
210. Regarding its impact on Spanish America, see Andrés-Gallego (2003): 201–83.
11
Even in the monographs that include comparisons with other colonial powers, such as
Great Britain or France, the mutiny in Madrid does not appear as a point of departure in the
crises of the Spanish Old Regime; see Klooster (2009): 117–57. This deficit impedes the full
evaluation of the meaning of the event within its context, even when the revolt of 1766 was
the only one of consideration prior to the French Revolution that affected an imperial
metropolis. For a classical interpretation that pointed out the magnitude of the protest
within the framework of the continental monarchies, see Vilar (1972).
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Maan hiljaiset
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Maan hiljaiset

Romaani suurten selkosten takaa
Author: Arvi Järventaus
Release date: February 13, 2024 [eBook #72947]
Language: Finnish
Original publication: Porvoo: WSOY, 1925
Credits: Juhani Kärkkäinen and Tapio Riikonen
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAAN

HILJAISET ***
MAAN HILJAISET
Romaani suurten selkosten takaa
Kirj.
ARVI JÄRVENTAUS
Porvoossa, Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 1925.

I
Pieni tyttö taapertaa karjakujaa pitkin, jonka molemmin puolin

törröttää seipäitä epäjärjestyksessä. Ne ovat pikku tyttösestä
salaperäisiä olentoja, jotka oksasilmillään seuraavat hänen
kulkuaan. Pikku Sabina puhelee niille: »Mie menen lehmiä
hakemhaan. Lehmät makhaavat mettä eikä äiti saa maitoa. Mie
menen hakemhaan lehmät kothiin.» Hän vaeltaa hiljaa eteenpäin,
silmäten taakseen silloin tällöin… Ei näy muuta kuin kaivonvintin
varsi. Joku käyskentelee vanhan pirtin kupeella…; se on ukki, joka
asettelee tossujaan kuivamaan. Pikku Sabina hymyilee: hänelläkin
on jalassa ukin tekemät tossut, jotteivät havunneulaset pistä…
Metsätiellä on paljon havunneulasia… sen on Sabina kokenut.
Toissapäivänä hän kävi pikku veljen kanssa lähellä Riimitievaa.
Sieltä on hauska katsella järven yli. Mutta — tievalle [kumpu] ei
uskalla mennä, sillä siellä asuu Riimiäijä syvässä maakuopassa. Jos
sinne menee, tulee äijä esiin ja vie muassaan manalaisten
kaupunkiin. Ja sinne jos joutuu, ei osaa takaisin, vaikka kuinka
haluttaisi… Isänkin oli kerran pikku poikasena vienyt, kun tämä meni
Riimitievaan… Oli kuljettanut manalaisten kaupungissa ja näytellyt
sen komeuksia. Siellä oli ollut kivisiä palatseja ja korkeita
kirkontorneja… ja väkeä ihan mustanaan. Ja kaikki
mustansinervää… ihan mustansinervää, niin että pahaa oli tehnyt.
Isäriepu oli kulkenut Riimiäijän perässä ja pyydellyt päästä pois.
Mutta ei ollut äijä luvannut. Oli vain sanonut: »Syöhään ensin ja
lähethään sitten.» Mutta isäriepu oli muistanut, ettei manalaisten
kaupungissa saanut mitään syödä. Ei ollut ottanut, vaikka mitä oli
tarjottu… piirakoita, lettuja, marjahilloa ja viiliä. Oli vain pudistanut
päätään, sillä ruuatkin olivat olleet mustansinerviä… viilikin. Silloin oli
Riimiäijä lopulta armahtanut ja tuonut takaisin. Mutta niin oli laihtunut
isäriepu, ettei ollut jaksanut kotiin kävellä. Sieltä … Riimitievan
kupeelta, oli ukki hänet löytänyt makaamasta. Oli valittanut niinkuin
linnunpoikanen, jolta on siipi poikki…
Se on Lunnasjärven Amprun ja hänen vaimonsa Karuliinan pikku

Sabina, joka näin mietiskelee. Nyt hän on ehtinyt karjakujan päähän.
Siitä lähtee polku, joka vie kohti Kaamaslakea, tunturia. Sen takana
on malmiherran talo ja siellä asuu Muurmanni. Se on ruijalainen
herra, iso ja lihava … ja se sanoo: »Tössen tak!» Sillä on Jonne-
niminen poika, jota Sabina ei vielä ole nähnyt. Mutta sillä kuuluu
olevan ruskeat nauhakengät ja kultaiset napit takissa… Se on
kymmenen vuoden vanha ja syntynyt suuressa kaupungissa, jonka
nimi on Ristiaani…
Viime sunnuntainakin oli Muurmanni-herra käynyt heillä ja puhellut

isän kanssa tipeistä ja rautateistä. Ne tipit olivat suuria kivitornia
Kaamaslaessa. Siellä Muurmanni-herra ammutti tunturia niin että
ilma raikui. Siitäkin se oli puhunut isän kanssa. Äiti oli tarjonnut sille
kahvia ja Muurmanni-herra oli ottanut ja sanonut: »Tössen tak!» Se
kiitti sillä lailla.
Sabina kumartui poimimaan kukkia tien vierestä. Siinä kaivoi

pillerikukkaa ja luuvaloruohoa, joukossa joitakuita sinihorsmiakin. Ne
nyökyttelivät Sabinalle päätänsä ja sanoivat: »Onpa Sapinalla kaunis
ruijalaisnimi niinkuin Muurmannin pojallakin.»
Sabina poimi kukkia ja lähti jatkamaan matkaansa. Nyt ei enää

näkynyt kuin hiukan pirtin päätä kuja-aidan raosta. Isoja koiranputkia
kasvoi ikkunan alla. Niiden latvat huojuivat hiljaa ja ne nyökkäsivät
Sabinalle hyvästiä.
Sabina kääntyi rohkein mielin metsään päin. Muutaman askelen

päästä poikkesi polku Riimitievalle. Sabinan sydän vavahti hiukan.
Hän muisti Riimiäijän ja manalaisten kaupungin. Hän ei halunnut
sinne. Hän halusi lehmien, Mansikin, Helunan ja Tanstokan luo
ajaakseen ne kotiin.
Polku kohosi yhä ylemmäs, kunnes se lopulta nousi korkealle

vaaralle.
Siellä Sabina pysähtyi ja katseli ympärilleen.
Huh, kuinka tunturit olivat korkeita! Kiiluvainenkin näytti

jättiläismäiseltä. Sabina muisti tarinan, jonka setä Juhani oli siitä
tunturista kertonut. Sitä kuunteli vapisten iltapimeällä… kuunteli niin,
että sydän ihan keräksi käpristyi.. Mutta — näin auringon
heloittaessa se ei peloittanut. Usein unissaan oli Sabina nähnyt
saman loistavan silmän, jonka lappalainen oli nähnyt
Kiiluvaistunturissa… Se oli ollut karhun silmä… ja se oli kiilunut
luolasta lappalaista vastaan. — Olikohan metsässä karhuja?
Sabinaa hiukan puistatti. Silmiin kihosi kosteaa ja hän muisti äidin

sanat: »Sapina on herkkä kuin haavan lehti…» Mitähän äiti sillä
tarkoitti?
Kaukaa näkyi Lunnasjärvi. Se kimmelsi niin kirkkaana, että silmää
huikaisi. Auringon säteet sattuivat hohtavina sen pintaan. Koti näytti
pieneltä… niin tavattoman pieneltä; kaivonvinttikään ei ollut
paksumpi aidanseivästä… Joku kulki kaivolle. Kaivonvintti taipui
hiljaa alas… Se oli varmaankin äiti, joka vinttasi vettä… vai olisiko
ollut ämmi? Sabina ei voinut erottaa, kumpi se oli. Hänen
sydänalassaan ailahti kaipaus. Olisiko palata kotiin…?
Mutta — lehmät olivat yön metsää maanneet.
Isä oli aikonut illalla lähteä hakemaan, jolleivät ne siihen

mennessä olisi tulleet. Pikku Sabina oli päättänyt yllättää isän. Hän
toisi lehmät jo ennen iltaa. Olihan hän jo iso tyttö… kohta seitsemän
vuoden vanha.
Hän kääntyi reippaasti vaaran rinnettä alas. Polku johti jyrkkänä

laakson pohjaa kohti. Siellä … alangossa vallitsi hiukan hämärä.
Siellä oli kostea, kuusta kasvava notkelma.
Oi, kuinka kauniita sotakukkia! Sabina taittoi sellaisen ja rupesi

sillä huiskimaan ahdistavia sääskiä. Täällä kasvoi paljon komeampia
sotakukkia kuin Putkikaltiossa.
Sääsket ahdistivat häntä vimmatusti. Sabina huiski sitkeävartisella

sotakukalla, mutta nuo pikku elävät eivät siitä paljon välittäneet.
Hänen täytyi kiirehtiä notkelmasta ulos. Onneksi polkukin taas rupesi
kohoamaan. Kaamaslaen harmaa laki vilahteli edessäpäin puiden
latvojen välistä.
Entäpä hän kulkisikin malmiherran talolle saakka? Ottaisi sieltä

Jonnen matkaansa ja niin lähtisivät yhdessä lehmiä hakemaan?
Mutta eihän hän osaisi puhua ruijalaispojan kanssa. Eikä se
varmaan lähtisikään. Repisi vaatteensa ja pudottaisi kultaiset
nappinsa… ja sen isä toruisi. Ei, kyllä hän lehmät yksinkin löytää.
Sabina astui reippain askelin. Hänen mielensä oli valoisa ja kirkas.

Tällainen kulku yksinäistä metsätietä pitkin miellytti häntä suuresti.
Pihka tuoksui ja kostea jäkälä polun molemmin puolin kiilsi somasti.
Se oli kuin kirjailtua laahustimen reunaa kuninkaantyttären vaipassa.
Sellaisen kuvan oli Sabina kerran nähnyt. Se oli ollut uistinpaketin
ympärillä. Ja setä Juhani, joka paketin oli tilannut, oli lukenut
käärepaperista kauniin luvun. Sabina muisti vieläkin muutaman
kohdan ulkoa: »Ja sitten rinsessa Kunikunta kumarsi niin kauniisti,
että kuninkaanpojan sytän suli sitä katsellessa.» Setä Juhani oli
antanut kuvan Sabinalle ja siellä se nyt riippui pirtin seinällä, kellon
alla… siinä, missä oli äidin koivunkääpä neulojen pitoa varten…
Sabina piti setä Juhanista. Hän kertoili satuja ja lauleskeli

omituisia surumielisiä lauluja. Niitä hän oli oppinut voudin rouvalta,
siltä, joka asui kirkonkylässä ja jolla oli paljon koreita pukuja. Ne
kertoivat aina jostakin ja aina oli niiden sävel surullinen. Nyt niitä
muistellessa johtui Sabinan mieleen hiljainen kotipirtti.
Hänen sydäntään hipaisi kaipaus. Niin… pirtti… koti. Se oli jo

kaukana eikä lehmiä vieläkään kuulunut. Mitä, jos hän palaisi?
Sabina pysähtyi ja katseli ympärilleen. Syvä hiljaisuus vallitsi

kaikkialla. Vain sääsket survoivat entiseen tapaansa. Niiden ääni
hymisi metsässä ja niitä parveili Sabinan ympärillä tuhansittain,
pakottaen hänet huiskimaan sotakukan varrella. Kukan varsi taittui ja
Sabinan oli lähdettävä liikkeelle.
Ei hän palaisi. Kyllä hän kulkisi niin kauas, että löytäisi lehmät.
Olipa sitten hauska tulla kotiin lehmänkellojen soidessa. Isä sanoisi:
»Sapinapa ne löysi.» Niin… hänpä ne löysi. Häntä kahvitettaisiin
kuin parasta vierasta ja äiti puhelisi: »Ota nyt sokeria, Sapina.» Ja
hän ottaisi. Kolme palasta…
Sabina jatkoi kulkuaan. Taas rupesi tie kohoamaan. Kaamaslaen

huippu vilahteli puiden välistä… Nyt se näytti harmajammalta kuin
ennen. Lumiläikkiä kimalteli sen kiireellä, jolta nyt kohosi kevyt
usvapatsas ilmaan. Tunturi tupakoitsi.
Voi, kuinka täältä näki etäälle! Sabina seisoi vaaran laella ja katseli
ympärilleen. Kaukana oikealla kimalteli hopeisen nauhan kaltainen
juova. Se oli Siosjoki, joka vei väylän varteen, äidin syntymäsijoille.
Sitä myöten oli isä sauvonut äidin kanssa ylös. Mutta häntä ei silloin
vielä ollut.
Missähän hän oli ennen syntymäänsä ollut? Äiti sanoi: taivaassa.

Mutta kumma, kun hän ei muistanut siitä mitään. Hän oli kerran
käynyt isän kanssa Kopsassa… viime talvena… hevoskelillä… ja
siitä hän muisti vaikka kuinka paljon. Muisti Kopsan isännän, joka oli
isän serkku ja puhutteli tätä aina »sukulaismieheksi.» Ihme, ettei isä
siitä pitänyt, vaan rupesi heti hermostuneena kopeloimaan
taskujaan, aivan kuin jotakin etsien… Johtuiko se siitä, että Kopsan
isäntä puhuessaan niin omituisesti nauroi? Vai mistä se oikeastaan
johtui? Ei Sabina sitä ymmärtänyt. Mutta häntä isäntä kutsui
kummityttärekseen ja ihmetteli, että »koreanpa ne antoivat sinulle
nimen — mitä kieltä lieneekhään?» Johon isä oli vastannut, että
ruijaa se oli, selvää ruijaa. Siitä olivat johtuneet puhumaan
Muurmannin herrasta ja »tipeistä.» Isä oli selittänyt, että niitä se
rakenteli… tippejä, ja ampui toisinaan niin että tunturit vapisivat.
Niin — ne tipit. Niitä piti olla Kaamaslaen laiteilla, mutta eivät ne
tänne sopineet näkymään. Sabina koetti katsoa, siristää silmänsä
yhdeksi viivaksi, mutta mitään kummempaa ei näkynyt. Hän lähti
jatkamaan matkaansa. Hän oli ollut jo pari tuntia kulussa ja aurinko
kiipesi yhä korkeammalle; se paistoi jo niin, että niskaan koski. Mutta
nytpä eivät sääsketkään jaksaneet lentää. Niiltä sai toki rauhan ja se
oli hyvä.
Äkkiä Sabina pysähtyi. Mitä ihmettä! Polulla näkyi tuoreita

lehmänsorkan jälkiä. Tästä oli karja kulkenut yli ja poikennut
metsään. Sabina ilostui. Nytpä hän oli jäljillä. Hän rupesi
huhuilemaan:
— Tprui Mansikki, tprui Heluna, ptrui-uu…
Kaiku vastasi tuntureista:
… tprui-uu!
Sabina juoksi metsään. Hän noudatti jälkiä tarkasti. Varmasti olivat

lehmät kulkeneet tästä.
Poronjälkiä ne eivät olleet. Sabina oli jo siksi iso, että kykeni ne

erottamaan.
Hänen suruksensa metsä kuitenkin loppui pian. Aukeni eteen laaja

jänkä.
Mikähän jänkä tämä oli?
Sabina ei ollut koskaan käynyt näin etäällä. Jänkä oli outo: Hän
tarkasteli lehmänjälkiä mättäikössä. Tuossa oli jussinpäämätäs
vajonnut liejuun, kun lehmä oli siihen polkaissut.
Mutta — nyt kastuivat tossut. Sabina nilisti ne jalastaan ja lähti
tossut kädessä tarpomaan jängän reunaa.
Jalka upposi toisinaan syvään. Teki kipeätä nilkkaan, kun Sabina

kiskoi jalkansa ylös. Mustasta mättään kuopasta kuului ilkeää
urahtelua. Aivan kuin olisi joku vihoissaan murissut.
Sabina muisti kertomuksen manalaisten kaupungista. Mitäpä, jos

hän kulkikin sen päällä? Hän rupesi juoksemaan niin paljon kuin
jaksoi. Urahtelu vain kasvoi hänen jäljessään. Varmasti hän oli
manalaisten kaupungin päällä.
Sabinaa rupesi peloittamaan. Kyllä nyt pian ilmestyisi joku häntä

houkuttelemaan. Ihan varmaan. Mutta — hänpä ei lähtisi. Panisi
vastaan. Taikka: jos oli pakko mennä, hän ei söisi mitään, ei
kerrassa mitään.
Tuli vastaan pajupensaikko. Sabina lähti tunkeutumaan sen läpi.

Oksat löivät häntä kasvoihin ja jalka siljahteli ilkeästi. Tuntui siltä kuin
ne olisivat puhelleet: »Sapina, Sapina!»
Sabina pääsi pensaikosta ulos. Hän pysähtyi hengästyneenä

tarkastelemaan itseään. Esiliina oli revennyt kahtia ja toinen tossu oli
pudonnut.
Nyt muistui koti väkevästi mieleen. Kuninkaantyttären kuva pirtin

seinällä kellon alla tuntui kaukaiselta. Mutta siitä huolimatta Sabina
muisti sen elävästi ja hänen mielessään soivat sanat: »Ja sitten
rinsessa Kunikunta kumarsi niin kauniisti, että kuninkaanpojan sytän
suli sitä katsellessa.»
Sabinan pikku sydämessä ailahteli omituisia tunteita, herkkiä,
väreileviä, nyyhkyttäviä. Ne olivat kuin kädettömiä pikkulapsia. Ne
pyrkivät tavoittamaan jotakin — jotakin, jota niillä ei ollut. Tällä
hetkellä olisi Sabina ollut valmis purskahtamaan itkuun. Mutta — jos
hän olisi itkenyt, hän olisi itkenyt vain pudonnutta huopatossua ja
sitten vasta kotia, jonka muistoon huopatossu niin läheisesti liittyi.
Mutta hän oli rohkea pikkutyttö. Erämaassa kasvaneena ei erämaa
häntä peloittanut. Hän oli siksi usein jo metsässä yksin kulkenut vielä
kertaakaan eksymättä. Tunnelma vaihtui siis toiseen. Heloittava
aurinko ja hänen keltaisia kiharoitaan leyhyttelevä tuuli nostatti
hänen sielunsa pinnalle toisenlaisen kuvan: hän oli eksynyt
prinsessa Kunigunda, jonka kuninkaanpoika löytäisi ja veisi
linnaansa. Siihen ajatukseen sisältyi jotakin hivelevää, jonka pohjana
oli kuitenkin epämääräinen levottomuus siitä, mahtaisiko hän löytää
lehmät. Vieläkään hän ei ajatellut eksymisen mahdollisuutta.
Kuninkaanpoika ja prinsessa anastivat kaikki hänen ajatuksensa.
Oikeastaan tuntui jollakin tavoin hauskaltakin se ajatus, että hän
eksyisi. Oli siis verrattain hupaista ajatella prinsessaa ja
kuninkaanpoikaa. Ensinmainittu oli tietysti hän itse, Lunnasjärven
Sabina, joka vaelteli huopatossu kädessä pitkin äänettömän jängän
reunaa. Nyt oli huopatossukin kultaa, kultainen kenkä, jonka
prinsessa panisi jalkaansa vasta kuninkaan linnan portilla. Pikku
prinsessaa ei yhtään vaivannut ajatus, että toinen tossu oli pudonnut
pajupensaikkoon. Ei tehnyt mieli lähteä sitä hakemaan. Se olisi
särkenyt kuvittelun. Niinpä siis Sabina kulki eteenpäin huopatossu
kädessä. Hän keräsi siihen auringonsäteitä valaistaksensa niillä
tietänsä, jos tulisi pimeä. Häntä ei häirinnyt yhtään sellainenkaan
sivuajatus, ettei nyt voinut tulla pimeä, koska oli kesä; hän ei
tahtonut sitä ajatella. Hän ajatteli vain prinsessa Kunigundaa ja
hänen kultaista kenkäänsä.
Mutta aurinko kiersi taivaalla ja tunnit kuluivat. Pikku Sabina oli jo
aikoja sitten kiertänyt jängän ja saapunut uudelleen metsään.
Lehmänjäljetkin olivat hävinneet. Nyt hän tunsi nälkää ja se herätti
hänet todellisuuteen. Hän muisti polun, jolta oli poikennut, ja
ensimmäinen ajatus oli löytää se jälleen ja palata kotiin. Nyt
särkyivät kaikki kuvitelmat yhdellä iskulla. Huopatossu hänen
kädessään muuttui jälleen huopatossuksi ja vaeltavasta prinsessasta
tuli pieni Lunnasjärven Sabina, Ampru Lunnasjärven ja hänen
vaimonsa Karuliinan tytär, joka oli eksynyt metsään. Nyt puhkesi itku
kutsumatta esiin. Mutta nyt ei Sabina itkenyt kadonnutta
huopatossua, vaan kaukana olevaa kotiaan. Toisen tossun
katoaminen häiritsi nyt hänen tuskaansa yhtä vähän kuin äsken
hänen kuvitteluaan siitä, että hän oli prinsessa, jolla oli kultaiset
kengät. Hänen tuskansa oli eheä ja syvä. Se johtui yksinomaan siitä,
että hän oli kaukana kotoa, eksyksissä. Hän lyyhistyi mättäälle
itkemään.
Aurinko kiersi korkealla. Se ei viitsinyt edes aleta sen vertaa, että

olisi paremmin nähnyt Lunnasjärven Sabinan epätoivon. Mitäpä se
aurinkoa liikutti. Se näki nytkin kyllin selvästi, että vaaleatukkainen
tyttö vaelsi itkien metsässä, huudellen äitiä ja tuontuostakin vaipuen
puun juurelle istumaan. Auringon tehtävänä oli vain valaista Lapin
kesäistä yötä, tehdä raja yön ja päivän välillä mahdollisimman
hienoksi ja siten sekoittaa eksyneen pikkutytön ajatukset yhä
enemmän. Sabina ei enää pystynyt huomaamaan sellaistakaan
seikkaa, että lintujen laulu lakkasi. Hänen mielestään oli tällaista
tuskallista hiljaisuutta kestänyt jo kauhean kauan. Kun auringon
kirkastuessa ensimmäiset lintujen äänet kajahtivat metsässä, ne
päinvastoin toivat hänen mieleensä kaksinkertaisella voimalla
ajatuksen, että hän oli eksyksissä, kaukana kodista ja äidistä.
Taas on Sabina saapunut avaralle jängälle. Monesko se oli, sitä ei
hän muista. Nälkä vaivaa vain häntä hirveästi. Jängän reunoilla
kasvaa hilloja, jotka juuri rupeavat kypsymään. Mutta Sabina ei
uskalla niitä syödä. Hän on nyt vakuutettu, että haltiat ovat
johdattaneet hänet manalaisten kaupunkiin. Hänen väsymyksen
voivuttamalle katseelleen avautuu peloittavia, outoja näköaloja. Hän
näkee korkeita torneja, jotka ulottuvat pilviin ja valkeita lehmiä, joita
rumat, lyhytsääriset tytöt paimentavat. Ne ovat manalaisten karjaa.
Sabinan väsyneessä mielessä välähtää ajatus, että pitäisi heittää
lehmän ylitse messinkirengas taikka tinanappi. Silloin olisi lehmä
hänen ja se seuraisi häntä kotiin. Saisipa äiti siten uuden kadonneen
Helunan, Mansikin ja Tanstokan sijaan. Mutta samassa hän muistaa,
missä hän on. Uusi nyyhkytys puistattaa hänen väsynyttä pikku
ruumistaan. Hän peittää esiliinalla päänsä, suojatakseen itseään
sääskiltä. Siinä asennossa hän istuu kauan, nyyhkyttäen
katkonaisesti. Vihdoin voittaa hänet väsymys ja hän nukahtaa
rauhattomaan uneen.
Kolmatta kierrostaan tekee aurinko jo taivaalla ja yhä vaeltelee

pikku Sabina ympäri outoja maita. Toinenkin huopatossu on
pudonnut ja pikku jalat ovat verinaarmuja täynnä. Sääsket ovat
pitäneet ilojaan hänen itkettyneillä kasvoillaan. Nekin ovat veriläikkiä
täynnä ja pahasti turvonneet. Hänen päässään on kaikki sekaisin.
Hän ei enää muista kotia eikä mitään. Hän kulkee vain kuin tajuton.
Jokin vaistomainen tunne vain kuiskaa hänelle, että on oltava
liikkeessä… etsittävä, haettava… mitä. Jotakin… joka on hyvin
kaukana ja jonka ajatteleminen häpäisee niin riuduttavasti pientä
sydäntä. Sabinan jalannousu on jo sangen raskas ja tuontuostakin
hän kompastuu silmälleen, jääden toisinaan pitkiksi ajoiksi
makaamaan jonkin mättään koloon.
*****
Kolmantena päivänä Sabinan lähdön jälkeen löysi hänet metsästä

Suomen-Huotari, herra Muurmannin palveluksessa oleva kivimies,
joka oli lähetetty Lunnasjärveen ruokatarpeiden hakuun. Hän oli
poikennut polulta syrjään nähdäkseen lappalaisten vanhoja
peuranpyyntihankaita, jommoisia oli kuullut näillä tienoin löytyvän.
Hän se löysi Lunnasjärven Sabinan ja kantoi hänet Tunturimajalle,
Malmi-Muurmannin taloon, jonne ei ollut pitkälti löytöpaikalta.
Sattui niin omituisesti, että herra Muurman oli juuri kertomassa

pojalleen tarinaa prinsessa Rosamundista, jonka ritari Snorre löysi
kuolleena metsästä, kun ovi avautui ja Suomen-Huotari ilmestyi
kynnykselle.
Herra Muurman keskeytti kertomuksensa ja tuijotti ihmeissään

tuttuun mieheen, jonka äkillistä paluuta hän ei voinut käsittää.
— No, mite nyt? Mite sie kantta?
Suomen-Huotari astuu sisään ja silmää sivuseinämällä olevaa

vuodetta.
— Tämä on Lunnasjärven tyttö… löysin metsästä. On eksynyt…

nähtävästi… ja heikossa tilassa. Sydän lyö vielä, mutta tajuihinsa
hän ei ole tullut. Nyt on pikainen apu tarpeen.
Herra Muurman suoristautuu täyteen pituuteensa. Hän on

käsittänyt tilanteen. Se on prinsessa Rosamund, jonka ritari Snorre
on löytänyt metsästä, mutta tämä Rosamund on vielä hengissä ja
hänet on saatava virkoamaan, niin totta kuin Hänen nimensä on
Bernt Muurman ja hän on haaskannut dynamiittia Kaamaslaen
kupeisiin leiviskäkaupalla.
Suomen-Huotari saa määräyksen lähteä pikamarssissa

Lunnasjärvelle sanaa viemään. Hän tuokoon muassaan myös
ryynitavaraa, jos saa, sillä lasta on syötettävä varovaisesti,
varovaisesti, ymmärrätkös?
Herra Muurman lausuu sen samanlaisella äänenpainolla kuin

opettaessaan miehiään purkamaan dynamiittikuormaa.
II
Tämä se oli hänen valtakuntaansa!
Malmi-Muurman seisoi tunturin laella, avopäin, lakki kädessä ja

nautti valtavasta näköalasta, joka levisi hänen eteensä.
Niin kauas kuin silmä kantoi vain äänetöntä, liikkumatonta

erämaata. Alhaalla tunturin juurella järvi peilikirkkaana,
rasvatyvenenä. Vasemmalla ja oikealla toisia järviä ja lampia,
»lompoloita», yhtä kirkkaita, yhtä kimaltelevia. Salaperäinen kesäyön
valo verhosi ne kaikki läpikuultavaan vaippaansa. Ei missään varjoja
eikä selviä ääriviivoja. Kultainen kimmellys näytti tulvivan yli järvien
äyräitten ja leviävän rannoille. Kauempana jänkiä, soita, kapeina
viheriänkeltaisina nauhoina. Mutta sielläkin sama omituisuus: ei
voinut tarkkaan eroittaa, missä suo ja metsänranta yhtyivät. Turhaan
sai silmä etsiä jyrkkiä rajaviivoja, jyrkkiä värien vaihteluita. Värit
sekaantuivat toisiinsa: hopeaa, kultaa, tumman- ja vaaleanpunaista,
viheriää, opaalinruskeaa ja oranssinkeltaista, — mutta kaikki niin
merkillisesti yhteensulaneina, ettei jyrkkiä rajoja ollut. Sen vaikutti
aurinko, tuo taivaalla vaelteleva ylhäinen pallo, joka hetkeksi oli
vetänyt hunnun kasvoilleen ja siivilöi valoaan sen lävitse kuin
kultainen seula.
Eivät edes tunturit näyttäneet pysyvän paikoillaan. Ne uiskentelivat
hiljaa tuossa salaperäisessä valomeressä. Ei tehnyt edes mieli
todeta, mitä ne kukin olivat. Kesäyön ihmeellinen kirkkaus virtasi
ihmisen sieluun kuin suoraan taivaasta valuen. Tuntui kuin olisivat
näkymättömät kädet ylhäältäpäin laskeneet alas läpikuultavaa,
harsomaisen hienoa, vipajavaa verkkoa, jossa näkymättömät langat
värehtivät, loistivat ja kimaltelivat. Tuo verkko sulki piiriinsä
maiseman, ympäristön, kaikki — ihmisenkin, joka mielellään antautui
sen saarrettavaksi ja nautti sanattomasti, olematta oikein selvillä
itsestään ja ympäristöstään, — aivan kuin olisi sisällisesti häilynyt
jossakin oudon ja selittämättömän vaiheilla.
Pohjoisessa rajoitti taivaanrantaa tuntureiden pitkä, katkeamaton

ketju. Niitä kirkasti sama kellanhohteinen valo. Se oli vain vielä
loistavampaa, kuin olisivat tunturit sielläkäsin olleet lähempänä
aurinkoa, itse kirkkauden alkulähdettä.
Etelässä peittivät metsät taivaanrannan. Siellä se ei saanut sitä

kuulakkuutta kuin vastakkaisella ilmansuunnalla. Se johtui siitä, että
taivas, joka pohjoisessa hohti läpikuultavankeltaisena, tummeni
vähitellen etelää kohti.
Malmi-Muurman vetää ilmaa keuhkoihinsa. Pieni ja vähäpätöinen

oli ihminen tämän valtavan luonnon keskellä, vaikka hän
suunnittelikin suuria. Tässä hän nyt seisoi järkytettynä suuresta,
mahtavasta näköalasta ja hänestä tuntui, kuin olisi hän Mooses, joka
Neebon vuorelta katseli luvattua maata saamatta itse sinne tulla.
Hänkään ei saanut omistaa tätä erämaata. Hänhän oli tullut

hävittämään sen rauhaa. Malmi, malmi!

Popular Political Participation and The Democratic Imagination in Spain From Crowd To People 1766 1868 Pablo Sanchez Leon Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Popular Political Participation and The Democratic Imagination in Spain From Crowd To People 1766 1868 Pablo Sanchez Leon Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Popular Political Participation and The Democratic Imagination in Spain From Crowd To People 1766 1868 Pablo Sanchez Leon Full Chapter PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Popular Political Participation and the

Democratic Imagination in Spain: From

Political Participation in Iran from Khatami to the

The Democratic Sublime: On Aesthetics and Popular

Rethinking Civic Participation in Democratic Theory and

Appealing to the Crowd: The Ethical, Political, and

Beyond the People: Social Imaginary and Constituent

The Oxford Handbook of Political Participation Marco

The Utopian Dilemma in the Western Political

Brilliant employability skills : how to stand out from

Pablo Sánchez León

ISBN 978-3-030-52595-8 ISBN 978-3-030-52596-5 (eBook)

Cover illustration: Artokoloro / Alamy Stock Photo

Lisbon, Portugal Pablo Sánchez León

collaborations and exchanges with Fabio Wasserman, Gabriel Entin,

critically transformed. In compensation, I have closely witnessed the way

Izquierdo an informal seminar at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

1 Introduction: Historizing the Language of Modern

2 Order: From Plebeian Disorder to Popular Citizenship—

3 Subject: Education, Taxed Wealth, Capacity, Roots—

4 Space: The Spectre of Plebeian Tyranny—Popular

5 Time: The Fatalist Loop—Historical Culture and Popular

6 Identity: Enraged Citizens or Subaltern Crowd? Popular

7 Recognition: Vulgar as a Political Concept—Discourse

8 Epilogue: Decline and Fall of the Liberal Monarchy,

9 Conclusions: Studying Modern Citizenship as Historical

Introduction: Historizing the Language

Representation and Participation at the Crossroads

© The Author(s) 2020 1

established order is subjected to criticism, and possible alternatives are

representatives: while called for in new settings and in formerly resistant

consequently formalized. In fact, many such practices had existed previ-

The Differentiation Between Representation

Modernity is identified with diversification and specialization, both func-

discourse through different periods. Instead, the aim here is to analyse

status of a sort of meta-concept transversal to traditional European cul-

f­eatured in a hybridized form both in language and in institutions, mutu-

tas—the great innovation in the technology of representation in medieval legal culture—

participation, while participation in the designation of representatives

Democratic Imagination in the Passage to Modernity

The Spanish case is notable for being an amalgam of apparent changes

of representation? On the other hand, those who stress continuity have

as an overall frame increasingly adopted by all kinds of observer-­participants

practices of a society.”37 In linguistic terms it may be thought of as a gram-

The Inclusion of the Crowd as a Contingent Process

a combination of the language of corporations from the Old Regime and

political processes that brought about modernity.39 By contrast, in

legalized an internally hierarchized citizenship but actually converted the

Spain, 1766–1868: Democracy in the Struggle

Studying historical processes like these requires a methodology sensitive

of the Old Regime, though re-emerging in a re-signified context, and thus

and therefore similar in nature to revolts or revolutions. However, the

Decoster, Caroline (2016). “L’usage de la plena potestas dans les assemblées

Fioravanti, Maurizio (1999). Costituzione, Rome: Il Mulino.

Panizza, Francesco (2005). Populism in the Mirror of Democracy, London: Verso.

Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, Joaquín (2011) [1983]. La teoría del Estado en las

Order: From Plebeian Disorder to Popular

Regime Changes and the Resignification

Spanish democracy has been immersed in an ongoing process of transfor-

Lisbon, Portugal Pablo Sánchez León

1 Introduction: Historizing the Language of Modern

2 Order: From Plebeian Disorder to Popular Citizenship—

3 Subject: Education, Taxed Wealth, Capacity, Roots—

4 Space: The Spectre of Plebeian Tyranny—Popular

5 Time: The Fatalist Loop—Historical Culture and Popular

6 Identity: Enraged Citizens or Subaltern Crowd? Popular

7 Recognition: Vulgar as a Political Concept—Discourse

8 Epilogue: Decline and Fall of the Liberal Monarchy,

9 Conclusions: Studying Modern Citizenship as Historical

featured in a hybridized form both in language and in institutions, mutu-

as an overall frame increasingly adopted by all kinds of observer-participants