Ordenar la civilización: semántica del concepto de Policía en los orígenes de la Ilustración Española

Abstract

This article analyses the transformations in the meaning of the concept of «police» occurred towards the middle of the 18th century in Spain, just before the establishment of the first institutions of police, during the reign of Charles III. Assuming that the enlightened concept of police developed everywhere in Europe around a wide debate on the commercial stage of civilization, it argues that in the case of Spain there existed exceptionally favourable conditions for equating order with the development of commerce, and this in turn with the possibility of changing customs and moral habits without a systematic recourse to institutional intervention. Such context would influence the definition of police produced in the central decades of the century in works of political economy, especially by Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes and Bernardo Ward. Nevertheless, the need to establish, by institutional means, the conditions for market development and moral change paved the way for the Esquilache riot of 1766, the unintended outcome of which was a change in the definition of police, prevailing during the rest of the century, towards a greater focus on social control and the maintenance of order. This semantic shift allows for a revision of the character and limits of the Enlightenment reforms in Spain, and opens to discussion relevant issues for the history of the fundamental concepts of the social sciences, such as the modern distinction between disorder and conflict.