Caciquism

Cartoon from the republican magazine La Flaca (1869-1876) denouncing caciquism and electoral fraud. It shows the liberal Sagasta, perched on the "universal suffrage" funnel, at the head of a cohort of caciques and members of the forces of law and order carrying ballot boxes and pushing wheelbarrows of votes, followed by "canned municipal councils", prisoners, peasants and workers, the latter of whom "vote the dead".

Caciquism is a network of political power wielded by local leaders called "caciques", aimed at influencing electoral outcomes. It is a feature of some modern-day societies with incomplete democratization.[1][2]

In historiography, journalism, and intellectual circles of the era, the term describes the political system of the Bourbon Restoration in Spain (1874-1923). Joaquín Costa's influential essay Oligarchie et Caciquisme [fr] ("Oligarchy and Caciquism") in 1901 popularized the term.[3] Nonetheless, caciquism was also prevalent in earlier periods in the country, particularly during the reign of Isabella II.[4] It was also utilized in other systems, such as in Portugal during the Constitutional Monarchy (1820-1910)[5] as well as in Argentina[6] and Mexico[7] during a similar time period.

  1. ^ (ca) Caciquism in the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana
  2. ^ "Caciquism" entry in Encyclopædia Britannica.
  3. ^ "[...] the existence of caciquismo did not begin in regenerationist times, but it was then when it was coined as one of the various "evils of the fatherland" that afflicted intersecular Spain [...]. [...] this binomial [oligarchy and caciquismo] of Costa's, which has become the title of history books and manuals, continues to be, more than a century later, the most widely used to characterize the restorationist period. [...] The fact [...] of emphasizing oligarchy and caciquism exclusively in the period of the Restoration (1875-1923) has given rise in Spanish historiography to a compartmentalization into periods that makes it difficult to see lines of continuity in the essentials and hinders notably the understanding of the long trajectories. " (Romero Salvador 2021, p. 9, 21-22)
  4. ^ [...] we contrast terms that are not mutually exclusive. What is opposed to ''militarism'' are not ''oligarchy'' and ''caciquism'', but ''civilism'' [...]. A militarist regime can also be oligarchic and cacique. In fact, the Elizabethan regime [was] [...] cacique by practice, given that almost all of the twenty-two elections held were won by the party that called them. (Romero Salvador 2021, p. 24-25)
  5. ^ Tavares de Almeida 1991.
  6. ^ (fr) Juan pro (trans. from Spanish by Stéphane Michonneau), "Figure du cacique, figure du caudillo: les languages de la construction nationale en Espagne et en Argentine, 1808-1930", Genèses, no 62, 2006, pp. 27-48 (read online, accessed November 25, 2022)
  7. ^ (es) Lorenzo Meyer, "Los caciques: Ayer, hoy ¿y mañana?", Letras Libres, December 31, 2000 (read online, accessed December 8, 2022)