Immigrants and Municipal Power in Buenos Aires Province: The Scope and Influence of Control in the Municipal Government during the second half of the XIXth century

Abstract

This work analize the role played by immigrants in the rural municipalities of Buenos Aires province. I trace the political evolution in several municipal districts of Buenos Aires province. It demonstrate a relationship between the immigrants and their local region. Such rural regions were heavily influenced by the dynamics of frontier expansion and the emergence of new economic and social systems. I examine the start of a political system in the decade of the 1850s, evaluate immigrants' legal status within this system and analyze the role played by the provincial state in controlling the channels of political representation. Lastly, I examine the results of the municipal elections of 1886 in sixteen districts to estimate the level of immigrants' political participation