Emisferi di cittadinanza

Hemispheres of Citizenship
In the early years of the nineteenth century, after the abdication of the King, the colonial territories of Latin America began to detach themselves from the Spanish Monarquía Catolica. A slow process of appropriating sovereignty began; it, however, did not coincide with the abandonment of the culture and political traditions of the mother country. The Latin American population’s first modern constitutional experience was in fact with the so-called Constitution of Cadiz, promulgated between 1812 and 1814. The essay reconstructs the history of this constitutional document, which was adopted in the majority of the formerly Spanish territories: it was the origin of important political conquests, but also of prejudices and of obstacles to a democratic conception of citizenship that separated, more than it united, Spain’s «two hemispheres».