Jurists as Public Intellectuals: Liberal Constitutionalism in Nineteenth Century Argentina

• In Event: Public Intellectuals, Democracy and Liberalism in the History of Latin America

Abstract

In nineteenth-century Argentina, jurists were far from practicing a purely academic exercise for the consumption of the local legal establishment. Nor were they solely preoccupied with the emerging professional market for lawyers and attorneys. Rather, they operated as key players in the development of a concrete political project: to support the experiment of adapting the institutions of liberal constitutionalism in the aftermath of the Rosas dictatorship. As such, through their doctrinal works and jurisprudential decisions they contributed to the construction of a new political vocabulary, attuned to the ideological leanings of the particular brand of liberalism guiding Argentina’s political and cultural elites. The paper will explore the ideological and intellectual currents guiding this process as well as the social mechanisms through which jurists operated as actors in larger public arenas.

Author

• Eduardo A Zimmermann, Universidad de San Andrés