Matienzo, José Nicolás (1860–1936)

José Nicolás Matienzo (b. 4 October 1860; d. 3 January 1936), Argentine jurist and statesman. Matienzo, a native of San Miguel de Tucumán, specialized in constitutional law. He was a professor at the universities of Buenos Aires and La Plata, wrote extensively on constitutional matters (see his Cuestiones de derecho público argentino, 1924, and Lecciones de derecho constitucional, 1926), and served as a member of the Supreme Court of the province of Buenos Aires (1910–1913) and as attorney general (procurador general) (1917–1922). He also drafted a project for a criminal code, in collaboration with Norberto Piñero and Rodolfo Rivarola. A liberal of reformist inclinations, he was the first president of the National Department of Labor (1907–1909). In 1910 Matienzo published El gobierno representativo federal en la República Argentina, a detailed study of the workings of the country's political system, which he described as oligarchical. He shared with other members of his generation, particularly his friend Rivarola, editor of the Revista Argentina de Ciencias Políticas, a passionate interest in the reform of the country's political system. In 1922 he was appointed minister of the interior by President Marcelo Alvear, and in 1931 he was a candidate for the vice presidency on the ticket headed by Augustín Pedro Justo. He was elected to the National Senate in 1932, where he remained until his death in 1936.

See alsoArgentina, The Twentieth Century .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Natalio Botana, El orden conservador: La política argentina entre 1880 y 1916 (1979).

Ezequiel Gallo, "Argentina: Society and Politics, 1880–1916," in The Cambridge History of Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethell, vol. 5 (1986).

Francisco Luis Menegazzi, Biobibliografía de José Nicolás Matienzo (1940).

Additional Bibliography

Rock, David. State Building and Political Movements in Argentina, 1860–1916. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.

                           Eduardo A. Zimmermann