Resumen de Remarks on the origins of provincial organisation in Spain
The territorial administrative system of Napoleonic France was extended to Naples and Spain by Joseph Bonaparte's decrees of 8 August 1806 and 17 April 1810 respectively. This article examines and details the application of the reforms of 1810 in Spain and their relationship to the administrative system devised by the Cortes of Cadiz in 1812. It questions the standard view that these reforms were nothing more than an imitation of the French model and, furthermore, that they remained unenforced. The truly representative nature of the local juntas in Spain and the clear existence of decentralist and elective/representative elements at the provincial level, though effectively only a representation of the bourgeoisie, differentiate the Spanish (and Neapolitan) institutions from the original French model, and give them more in common with the diputaciones of 1812 than with the institutions of Napoleonic France.
