Elections and the Origins of Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Uruguay
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Date
2025
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Publisher
COES
Abstract
This working paper examines the origins and evolution of electoral practices in nineteenth-century Uruguay, situating them within the broader trajectory that led to the country’s reputation as Latin America’s most stable democracy by the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on extensive historiography, the study reconstructs the institutional, legal, and social dynamics of elections between 1808 and 1893. It identifies three main phases: the early independence period (1808–1829), characterized by diverse and relatively inclusive experiments in electoral participation; the early republic (1830–1859), marked by formal electoral frameworks undermined by exclusion and fraud; and the reformist decades (1860–1893), during which gradual legislative adjustments, emerging party competition, and repeated electoral exercises fostered collective learning about representation and legitimacy. Despite widespread manipulation, restricted suffrage, and recurrent civil conflict, elections became key arenas for political mobilization and identity formation among elites and citizens alike. The paper argues that these imperfect yet persistent electoral practices generated organizational capacities, expectations of participation, and procedural norms that facilitated Uruguay’s early twentieth-century democratic consolidation. By interpreting nineteenth-century elections not as anomalies but as formative processes of institutional experimentation, the study contributes to comparative debates on how fragile post-independence polities in Latin America gradually developed democratic resilience through electoral experience and contestation.