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Politics and Elections in Buenos Aires, 1890–1898: The Performance of the Radical Party*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Paula Alonso
Paula Alonso
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Latin American History and Politics, University of Bristol.
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Extract

Three main political parties regularly contested elections in Argentina in the late nineteenth century: the Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN), the Unión Cívica Nacional (UCN), and the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR). However, little is known about the nature of party competition, the contesting parties' electoral performances or the characteristics of their electoral support. Discussion of the electoral politics prior to 1912, when the vote became secret and compulsory for all Argentine males over 18 years of age, has been dominated by notions of corruption, repression and lack of opportunity for popular participation. While in other countries such assessments have been revised in recent years after unreformed elections were analysed in more detail, accounts of electoral repression are still dominant in discussions of the pre-1912 Argintine electoral system.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , October 1993 , pp. 465 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The Socialist Party, formed in 1894, is not inculded in this study as its incipient participation in the elections of 1896 and 1898 was ‘symbolic’. It contested only a few electoral districts of the city of Buenos Aires.

2 For recent reviews on the electorate and on the electoral practices of pre-reform England see for example O'Gorman, F.Voters, Patrons and Parties. The Unreformed Electoral System of Hanoverian England, 1734–1832 (Oxford, 1989)Google Scholar; Phillips, J. A., Electoral Behaviour in Unreformed England. Plumpers, Splitters and Straights (Princeton, New Jersey, 1982)Google Scholar.

3 Most works of Argentine historiography followed this line of argument, although differing in their accounts of oligarchical repression. Among the finest are: Cantón, D., Electiones y partidos políticos en la Argentina. Historia, interpretación y balance: 1910–1966 (Buenos Aires, 1973)Google Scholar; Germani, G., Política y sociedad en una época de transición. De la sociedad tradicional a la sociedad de masas (Buenos Aires, 1965), pp. 147–56Google Scholar, and ‘Hacia una democracia de masas’, in Di Tella, T. et al. , Argentina, sociedad de masas (Buenos Aries, 1965), pp. 206–27Google Scholar; Romero, J. L., A History of Argentine Political Thought (Stanford, 1963), pp. 183–218Google Scholar. For examples of some recent works that have also followed these traditional arguments see Smith, P. H.Argentina and the Failure of Democracy. Conflict among Political Elites, 1904–1955 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1974), pp. 1–22Google Scholar; Rock, D.Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930. The Rise and Fall of Radicalism (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 1–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Remmer, K.Party Competition in Argentina and Chile. Political Recruitment and Public Policy, 1890–1930 (Lincoln and London, 1984), pp. 24–33Google Scholar, 87–111.

4 Sábato, Hilda, ‘Citizenship, Political Participation and the Formation of the Public Sphere in Buenos Aires 1850s–1880s’, Past and Present, no. 136 (08 1992), pp. 139–62Google Scholar.

5 This argument is fully developed in Remmer, party Competition, esp. pp. 24–34, 221–2. Others, however, argue that 1912 only introduced a limited reform given that the vote was restricted to Argentine nationals and that large sectors of the working class and some members of the middle class were immigrants who had not acquired Argentine citizenship. Nevertheless, they consider that 1912 marked a transition from a restrictive republic to an open democracy. See Smith, Argentina, pp. 11–12; Rock, Politics in Argentina, pp. 34–9.

6 See Gallo, Ezequiel ‘La gran expansió económica y la consolidación del régimen conservador liberal. 1875–1890’, in Gallo, E. and Conde, R. Cortés, Argentina. La República conservadora (Buenos Aires, 1972), pp. 61–70Google Scholar.

7 See Gallo, Ezequiel, ‘Argentina: Society and Politics, 1880–1916,’ in Bethell, L. (ed.), The Cambridge History of latin America, Vol. V (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 362–3Google Scholar.

8 For the economic development of Argentina see Alejandro, C. F. Díaz, Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic (New Haven and London, 1970), pp. 1–66Google Scholar.

9 See Botana, N., El orden conservador. La Política argentina entre 1880–1916 (Buenos Aires, 1977), pp. 65–213Google Scholar.

10 For the ideological consensus achieved in the 1880s see Donghi, T. Halperín, Proyecto y construcción de una nación (Argentina 1846–1880) (Caracas, 1980), pp. lxxvi–ciGoogle Scholar.

11 ‘Mensaje del Presidente de la República, Julio A. Roca, al abir las sesiones del Congreso Argentino, en mayo 1881,’ in Mabragaña, H., Los mensajes. Historia del desenvolvimiento de la nación argentina redactada cronologicamente por sus gobernantes, 1810–1910 (Buenos Aires, 1910), vol. IV, p. 3Google Scholar.

12 For a political and economic history of Juárez's presidency see Duncan, W. T., ‘Government by Audacity. Politics and the Argentine Economy, 1885–1892’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Melbourne, 1981Google Scholar.

13 These arguments and the events that prompted the formation of the UCR are further discussed in Alonso, P., ‘The Origins of the Argentine Radical Party, 1889–1898’, unpubl. PhD diss., University of Oxford, 1992Google Scholar.

14 F. F. Avellaneda to B. Mitre, Catamarca, 16 Sept. 1891, Archio Mitre A8C18C53N13332.

15 For the effect of electoral systems on party systems see the classic work of Duverger, M., Political Parties. Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State (London, 1959), p. 205Google Scholar. For more up-to-date works on the subjects see the series of articles in Grofman, B. and Lijphart, A. (eds.), Electoral Laws and their Political Consequences (New York, 1986)Google Scholar; Bogdanor, V. and Butler, D. (eds.), Democracy and Elections, Electoral Systems and Their Political Consequences (Cambridge, 1983)Google Scholar, Chapters 1, 2 and 13.

16 On the representation of each district see Melo, C. R., ‘Población y representación de los distritos elevtorales de la nación’, Revista del Instituto de Historia del Derecho Ricardo Levene, No. 13 (Buenos Aires, 1962), pp. 106–27Google Scholar.

17 Aristóbulo del Valle to Miguel Cané, 5 May 1890, Archivo General de la nación, Archivo M. Cané, Leg. No. 3, No. 2202.

18 Duncan, Tim, ‘La Prensa Política: Sud-América,’ in Ferrari, G. and Gallo, E. (eds.), La Argentina del ochenta at centenario (Buenos Aires, 1980), pp. 761–84Google Scholar. The figures come from p. 764.

19 While in 1895 the city of Buenos Aires had a population density of 3,569.10 per km2, for example, the density of the Province of Buenos Aires, the wealthiest of the country, was 3.02, and of the Province of Salta, one of the poorest regions, was 0.72. Segundo censo de la República Argentina (1895), vol. II (Buenos Aires, 1898), p. cxxv.

20 There are two main reasons why this study is restricted to national elections excludes the municipal ones. First, the electoral results for municipal elections do not appear as clearly published in the newspapers. Secondly, the electorate for municipal elections was diffrent from that of the national elections. To be able to vote in the municipal elections of the city of Buenos Aires the law required that citizens should have paid a minimum of 10 pesos in direct tax or ‘patente comercial o industrial’, or have a liberal profession and have lived in the city for a minimum of six months, or be a literate foreigner and have paid 50 pesos in direct tax or ‘oatente comercial o industrial’, and have lived in the city for a minimum of two years before the enrolment in the Electoral Register. See Anuario Estadístico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1891, Año I (Buenos Aires, 1891), p. 447.

21 El Argentino, 24 July 1895.

22 The received views of party organisation generally point out that the UCR was the only party that followed the North American model. However, the UCN and the PAN were also organised in decentralised committeess and held party conventions for the selection of candidates. The internal organisation of the political parties in the 1890s is discussed in more detail in Alonso, ‘The Origins’, pp. 114–29.

23 The newspaper of the PAN was Tribuna, that of the UCN was La Nación, and that of the UCR was El Argentino.

24 For the regulations of the elections see Ley 893 (759), ‘Régimen electoral’, in Diario de Sesiones de La Cámara de Diputados (Buenos Aires, 1880), pp. 1154–9; for an analysis of this law introduced in 1877, see Cullen-Crisol, D. ‘Carlos Pellegrini: Leyes electorales y fraude en la Argentina (1877–1906),’ unpubl. MA diss., Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1991, pp. 21–40Google Scholar.

25 For an analysis of the use of fraud in elections see Botana, El orden conservador, pp. 174–89; Sarmiento, A. BelínUna República Muerta (Buenos Aires, 1970), pp. 10Google Scholar, 13–21, 39–47; Matienzo, J. N., El gobierno representativo federal en la República Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1910), pp. 225–52Google Scholar.

26 The Economist, 21 May 1892.

27 The Times, 8 July 1880.

28 The quotations come from, ‘Análisis elecoral por parroquia’, La Prensa, 23 march 1895. The press is a valuable source for the description of the elections, usually presenting a detailed report on the each ward.

29 See note 3, above.

30 Unlike most other countries, Argentina abandonded literacy or levels of incomes as requisites for eligibility to vote at a very early stage. For the history of eletoral rrequirements previous to 1853 see Cantón, Elecciones y Partidos políticos, pp. 19–20.

31 Segundo censo, vol. II pp. 11–12. It should be noted that a large part of the population of Buenos Aires amounted to 206,071 and most of them were between 20 and 50 years old. Segundo censo, vol. II, p. 10. For the impact of immigration in Buenos Aires and the Litoral area see Germani, G. ‘Mass Immigration and Modernization in Argentina,’ in Horowitz, I. (ed.), Masses in Latin America (New York, 1970), pp. 289–330Google Scholar.

32 That was 25,049 in 1891, 22,000 in 1895, and 24,000 in 1896, This is a relatively high number in comparison with the provinces, where only between 5 and 15% of those eligible to vote were enrolled in the Electoral Registers between 1860 and 1890. see Tjarks, G. O. E., ‘Aspectos cuantitativos del estado enconómico y social de la ciudadanía Argentina potencialmente votante (1860–1890),’ Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina Dr. Emilio Revignani, Año XI T.XI (Buenos Aires, 1969), no. 18–19, p. 30Google Scholar.

33 This amounted to 9,975 in 1891 and 12,213 in 1896. For the election of 1896 for example, the turn-our represented only 1.8% of the total population of the city, 23.9% of the total population eligible to vote and 50.4% of those enrolled in the Electoral Register. This is a small percentage if we compare it with the turn-out of the total population in Brazil in 1894 (2.2%); Chile in 1888 (3.46%); Great Britain in 1890 (12%); France in 1890 (27%) and the United States in 1880 (23%). All these figures, however, refer to the turn-out of the whole country for national elections and these countries also had different theresholds for voter eligibility, which makes comparison problematic. For Brazil's figures see Love, J. L. ‘Political Participation in Brazil, 1881–1969,’ Luso Brazilian Review, vol. VII no. 2 (12 1970), p. 4Google Scholar; for Chile, J. S. Valenzuela, Democratizacion via reforma, Appendix; for Great Britain, France and the United States see Zapf, Wolfgan and Flora, Peter ‘Differences in Paths of Development: An Analysis for Ten Countries,’ in Eisenstadt, S. N. and Rokkan, S. (eds.), Building States and Nations. Models and Data Resources, vol. I (Beverly Hills, London, 1973), pp. 193–6Google Scholar.

34 Diario de sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, 5 May 1896, p. 34.

35 Botana, El orden conservador, p. 195.

36 Sábato's argument on the low qualifications of the electorate is expanded in Sábato, Hilda and Palti, Elías, ‘¿Quién votaba en Buenos Aires?: Práctica y teoría del sufragio, 1850–1880’, Desarrollo Económico, vol. 30, no. 119 (10–12 1990), pp. 401–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 See for example the comments made by La Nación when reporting the elections won by the UC (Unión Cívica) in 1891. La Nación, 16 March 1891.

38 Until 1904, the city of Buenos Aires had seven different administrative divisions: the church and parish, the police, the judiciary, the civic register, the schools, the municipality, and the electoral districts. None of the censuses previous to 1904 took the electoral division and, when in 1904 all six different divisions of the city were reduced to one, the electoral division had significantly changed.

39 The Electoral Register was published by the Boletín Oficial de la República Argentina (Buenos Aires, Nov., Dec., 1895; Jan., Feb., March, 1896).

40 Carrasco, A., Lo que yo vi desde el 80…Hombres y episodios de la transformación nacional (Buenos Aires, 1947), pp. 38–9Google Scholar. For fraud during the enrolment see also Botana, Elorden conservador, pp. 178–9.

41 Szuchman, Mark D. and Sofer, Eugene F., ‘The State of Occupational Stratification Studies in Argentina’ Latin American Research Review, vol. 11, no. 1 (1976), pp. 159–72Google Scholar.

42 Walter's work has been followed in aggregating the professions in three categories. Walter, Richard, ‘Elections in the City of Buenos Aires during the First Yrigoyen Administration: Social Class and Political Preferences’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 48, no. 4 (1978), pp. 604Google Scholar, 610–13.

43 The classification of the professions shown in Table I is only a small example of the more complete classification used in this work, borrowed from Szuchman and Sofer's work.

44 Segundo censo, vol. II, p. clxxiii.

45 Tjarks, ‘Aspectos cuantitativos’, Appendix, Table II.

46 The simple averages quoted may be subject to a bias if the numbers of each professional group are correlated with the numbers enrolled on the electoral register in each ward. However, weighted averages, with weights reflecting ward sizes, only change these figures by up to 3%.

47 Germani, Política y sociedad, pp. 220–3.

48 For a description of the evolution of Buenos Aires see Scobie, J., Buenos Aires. Plaza to Suburb, 1870–1910 (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Scobie, James, ‘The Argentine Capital in the Nineteenth Century’, in Ross, S.R. and McGann, T.F., (eds.), Buenos Aires: 400 Years (Austin, Texas, 1982), pp. 40–52Google Scholar. For the development of the house market in Buenos Aires see Korn, Francis and de la Torre, Lidia, ‘La Vivienda en Buenos Aires, 1887–1914’, Desarrollo Económico, vol. 25, no. 98 (07–09 1985), pp. 245–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sargent, C., The Spatial Evolution of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1870–1930 (Arizona, 1974), pp. 29–30Google Scholar. Scobie, James, ‘Buenos Aires as a Commercial-Burocratic City, 1880–1910: Characteristics of a City's Orientation’, The American Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 4 (10 1972), pp. 1035–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Korn, F., Buenos Aires 1895. Una ciudad moderna (Buenos Aires, 1981), pp. 11–16Google Scholar, 47–50, 61–4.

49 The Pearson correlation coefficient is a measure of association between two variables. It lies between + I (positive association) and − I (negative association). In this case the variables used are rankings and the coefficient is sometimes referred to as the Spearman rank order correlation coefficient. See Siegel, S. and Castellan, N. J. Jr, Non-Parametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences (New York, 1988), pp. 235–7Google Scholar.

50 Information on house prices in the districts of Buenos Aires was taken from ‘Transferencia de inmuebles’, Anuaria Estadístico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires, Año I: 1891, Año 2: 1892, Año 3: 1893, Año 4: 1894, Año 5: 1895, Año 6: 1896, Año 7: 1897, Año 8: 1898). The index for property prices was made according to the average price per square metre of all the properties sold and bought each year in each district. It is the only information available in which the information is displayed according to the electoral division of the city.

51 There is an unavoidable arbitrariness in ranking the voters in different social classes when we only know the profession they themselves state in the record.

52 New electoral districts were added to the original 16 after 1894, San Bernardo was created in 1895, San Carlos, del Carmen and Vélez Sarfield Were added in 1896 and in 1897 the district of Las Heras was created, while Balvanera was split into Balvanera Norte and Balvanera Sud. As the purpose of this paper is to compare the elections of the whole period, the new wards have been left out of this analysis, and in the elections of 1898, Balvanera was counted as one electoral district.

53 Eduardo P. Zannoni, ‘La abstención radical’, in Hipólito Yrigoyen, Pueblo y Gobierno, vol. I, pp. 9, 62.

54 Rock, Politics in Argentina, pp. 44, 46.

55 See for example Romero, A History, pp. 205–11; McGann, T. F., Argentina, the United States and the Inter-American System, 1880–1954 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 49–53Google Scholar; Gallo, Ezequiel and Sigal, Silvia, ‘La formación de los partidos polfticos contemporáneos: La UCR (1890–1916)’, in Di Tella, T. et al. , Argentina, sociedad de masas (Buenos Aires, 1966), pp. 149–70Google Scholar; Snow, P., Argentine Radicalism (Iowa, 1964), pp. 6Google Scholar, 14; Rock, Politics in Argentina, pp. 3–4, 26–8; Romero, Luis Alberto ‘El surgimiento y la llegada al poder’, in Romero, L. A. et al. , El radicalismo (Buenos Aires, 1969), pp. 161–17Google Scholar.

56 The UCN and the PAN formed electoral coalitions for the two elections of 1892, and the elections of 1896 and 1898.

57 According to Duverger, in a multi-party regime, simple-majority single-ballot systems encourage strong alliances. Duverger, Political Parties, pp. 325–6.

58 Again, 1898 has been excluded, as only a faction of the party contested the elections; the Radicals were defeated in all electoral districts. But even if we take into account the election of 1898, the UCR won in 43 out of the 79 wards contested since 1892.

59 In 1895 the UCN concentrated the party's campaign on only two wards and, by the use of extensive fraud, won the elections, given that the electoral system awarded representation to the party that won most votes. The event was an exception in the 1890s and it was widely condemned by the press and by Congressmen of all parties. See La Prensa, 25 March 1895.

60 It should be noted that even though the electoral data cover an eight-year period we can only count on the Electoral Register of 1896. While ideally we should use more Electoral Registers of the period, this information is not available. We can only assume that the composition of the electorate did not change throughout the period; there is no obvious reason to think that it did.

61 For the complete list of professions included in these categories see Szuchman and Sofer, ‘The State of Social Stratification’, Appendix B (high professional and low professional categories).

62 Cornblit, Oscar, ‘La opción conservadora en la República Argentina’, Desarrollo Económico, vol. 14, no. 56 (1975), pp. 619–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. With data for and 1916, and using a ‘modernisation’ index which included literacy, urbanisation and foreign population, Gallo and Sigal found positive correlations between ‘modernisation’ and electoral support for the UCR. These correlations were done for each province. Gallo and Sigal, ‘La formación’, pp. 153–4.

63 El Argentino, Oct. 1891.

64 See Walte, ‘Elections’, pp. 610–24.

65 This argument is further expanded in Alonso, ‘The Origins’.

66 It should be noted, however, that some of these features did not disapppear overnight from the post-1912 electoral practices.

67 Remmer, Parly Competition, pp. 221–2.

68 For the performance of the Socialist Party see Walter, R. J., The Socialist Party of Argentina, 1890–1930 (Austin, Texas, 1977), pp. 65–6Google Scholar; Adelman, Jeremy, ‘Socialism and Democracy in Argentina in the Age of Second International’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 72, no. 2 (05 1992), pp. 221–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Walter, ‘Elections’, pp. 605–8.

70 For the increased turn-out after 1912 see Cantón, Elecciones, pp. 43–58.