Between insurgents and loyal: the construction of political citizenship. Venezuela, 1808-1830

Abstract

In the context of a renewed political and cultural history that makes visible other topics, other practices and other actors are attending a renaissance of the same. Thus, social history of power opens spaces for discussion and reflection to mean the material and symbolic processes related to the actors who interact in networks of relationships. In this perspective, the formation of new political communities in Latin America, in the context of the crisis of Hispanic monarchy, and consequently the transition to political modernity, occupies the attention and is subject of particular interest to explain other attitudes, other behaviors and other values. Thus, this paper deals the construction of political citizenship during the first decades of the nineteenth century in Venezuela. Interest focuses on the scope and limits of forms of political representation of choice, participation, and consequently of integration into political life. This approach allows demonstrate how, from different political positions assumed progressively assumed a new political culture, that seeks to legitimize the relationship rulers and ruled once declared the crisis in the Hispanic monarchy.

Keywords: Venezuela, monarchical crisis, political citizenship