Administrative law in a network: a study of the translation and circulation of the concepts of centralisation and decentralisation in the discourses of administrators from Iberian and American nations in the second half of the 19th century

The legal experience goes far beyond the borders of a state; on the contrary, it is not limited by them. There is a common transnational network shared by juspublicists, whose dialog builds a “transit space” that can be identified by elements ranging from the citations of one doctrinaire to another, as well as by clippings from periodicals showing the comings and goings of authors between countries, and even texts published in common articles and scientific journals. In this legal geography, concepts not only pass through and are translated by authors, but can also acquire different guises and meanings depending on the location. Based on these assumptions, and considering that concepts move between different legal cultures, and are translated through processes that can be more or less creative in relation to their sources, the object of this research focuses on investigating the discourses used by administrative law scholars from selected nations (Spain, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Brazil) to construct, between 1843-1923, the concepts of centralization and decentralization (and their collateral terms such as self-government, autonomy and federalism). The hypothesis to be investigated is that the use of these concepts was a determining factor in the state building of those nations, and to some extent implied the strategic domination of the peripheries as important places for maintaining national unity, resolving the political tension that existed between the nations.