The Presidential Centers of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay in Comparative Perspective (1983-2019)

Abstract

Presidential Centers (PC) are the group of institutions that provide direct support to the president, are directly subordinate to him and have the function of supporting him in government tasks. PC studies have focused on the case of the United States, where its PC has increased in size steadily over time. However, recently various authors have begun to analyze PC in Latin America, where there are cases that present different trajectories. This leads to the question, why does the size of the CP change? The general objective of the papper is to analyze the causes of the change in the size of the Presidential Center in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay in the period 1983-2019. The results show that presidents modify the CP in response to situations of political uncertainty.