I deputati e la “democrazia”. Spigolature dal dibattito parlamentare spagnolo negli anni Trenta dell’Ottocento

In the Spanish Liberalism, the “democrats” are identified as a specific political party, but what about the words “democracy” and “democratic system”? Was it possible to employ these terms as a more general idea related to a different balance between the institutional powers and not necessary in contradiction with a monarchic and liberal establishment? Thanks to a analytical examination of the parliamentary debates reported in the Diario de sesiones of the Deputies Congress during the '30 and '40 decades (with specific regards with the effects of the Charts of 1834 and 1837), I’ll focus on identifying when deputies talked about “democracy”, with which frequency, in which conceptual framework, whether or not it was connected with the history of the Spanish institutions. In this framework, I will focus also on the occurrences referred to the English representative system and how much democracy is evoked as a positive example when related to the British constitutional history but, on the contrary, as a negative one if related to French political experience.