Ni tan recientes ni tan prescindibles: la Constitución de 1812, las diputaciones y el (re)nacimiento de las provincias

Abstract

2013 celebrated the bicentennial of the constitution of the first provincial governments in Spain. Conversely, constitutional reform issues, including an increasing state federalization, and economic crisis put to question the very existence of the provinces themselves. It may be convenient to revise the emergence of those provincial governments as political and administrative bodies. The term ‘province’ has been used since medieval times to refer both to the old kingdoms, or large territorial units belonging to the Crown, and to territorial subdivisions on the latter. The Cadiz Cortes undertook the task of making territorial divisions more uniform and rational, which brought about the creation of elective government bodies at both the municipal and the provincial level, although strongly dependent on the central administration. It was a centralised system which nonetheless envisaged, for the first time in the history of Spain, local and provincial representative bodies all over the country and, paradoxically, it involved a decentralisation of the State. In 1822 the constitutional mandate was completed with provincial divisions which maintained the old kingdoms’ boundaries and which would be almost fully maintained in 1833 by Javier de Burgos. With those provincial governments the provinces became distinctive political entities.