Os conceitos de “centralização” e “descentralização” na doutrina de Direito Administrativo espanhol do Século XIX: entre o projeto federal e a unidade estatal

This article examines how the concepts of centralization and decentralization were developed and applied by Spanish administrative law doctrine throughout the nineteenth century, in constant dialogue with the turbulent political and institutional context of the period, marked by the constitutional monarchy, republican experiments, and the restoration. The aim is to explain why these concepts served both to legitimize the construction of a centralized state and to support decentralizing demands, within the brief configuration of a federal model. The hypothesis is that academic discourses were not neutral, but reflected ongoing political and institutional disputes. Administrative doctrine acted as an instrument of legitimation for different state arrangements, shifting from an initial centralizing phase, linked to moderantismo and the rise of the administrative state, to a later decentralizing phase, influenced by krausism and harmonic liberalism. The research adopts a historical-legal and comparative methodology, based on doctrinal sources from the period