Local elites and municipal power. From the Old Regime to liberalism

Abstract

This article looks at the changes which took place in the make-up of local power elites in the period of transition from the Old Regime to liberalism. The analytical work carried out for this study shows that, as the consolidation of liberalism changed the mechanisms of access to power, based on new criteria for assessing social values, the old local oligarchies lost their exclusive control over town councils. However, the replacement of social status criteria by economic and educational criteria did not, for the most part, lead to the complete removal of former governing elites; it merely required them to share the main council positions with persons of a different social standing.