ABSTRACT
Subnational constitutionalism in Argentina is a very important ingredient of the institutional and political federal system of the country. Juan Bautista Alberdi pointed out that provincial constitutionalism was the richest part of Argentinian Public Law. Argentina has three normative versions of federalism, the original 1853 Constitution, the constitutional reform of 1860 and the constitutional reform of 1994. Argentine federal society is thus composed of the federal government, 23 provinces and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, now the seat of the federal capital. The country received waves of immigration, mainly from Spain and Italy, at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. ‘Integrative’ federalisms are the result of an aggregation of previously independent states giving rise to the new state. In fact, the 14 original provinces created the federation through the National Constitution of 1853 and the reform of 1860.
