The consolidation of new democracies has been a major preoccupation of political scientists during the last decade of the 20th century. Guillermo O’Donnell called attention to the existence of delegative democracies in Latin America, notably Perú under Fujimori and Argentina under Menem, where the Executive governs as she or he sees fit (O’Donnell 1994). O’Donnell rightly outlines that long term processes may be affecting these democracies. The author provides two types of explanations to account for the emergence of delegative democracies: a cultural and a structural one. First, O’Donnell focuses on the problematic heritage of populism in Latin America. Second, delegative democracies are found in countries affected by serious and recurrent economic and political crises, and corporatist interests easily challenge economic stabilization attempts. This paper tests both arguments. First, in order to grasp the origin of limited legislative power in the Argentine, it is important to consider the institutional history of Argentine presidentialism. The existence of a delegative democracy in Argentina is not an accident: the Argentine Constitution of 1853 intended to create a strong Executive. Although J. B Alberdi, the unquestioned father of the Argentine constitution, followed the American example in many respects, he modeled the Executive on the Chilean Constitution. According to Alberdi, Chile has shown that a constitutional president can assume the powers of a king when anarchy appears (Alberdi 1852). Alberdi thought that the need for limiting the power of the Executive (as the American model had done) had passed. The emphasis on personal freedoms and guaranties had, according to Alberdi, caused anarchy in the United States. One main difference between the American and the Argentine In Argentina, the Executive passes instructions and regulations that are necessary to the implementation of laws, without altering the spirit of the laws through regulatory exceptions. Based on the lack of clarity of this constitutional clause, several laws essentially delegated legislative power since the 19th century, either on the president or on lower-level Executive agencies. The cultural argument presented by O’Donnell seems to fall by logical reasoning: the populist cultural heritage initiated after Peron’s appearance in politics in the1940s (or, for that matter, Irigoyen’s administrations after the 1910s) cannot possibly have been at work in the previous century. Besides, the intended effect of the 1853 Constitution itself, examples of Executive delegation are found as early as 1884, 1885, 1905, and 1915. In addition, O’Donnell tells us delegative democracies are likely to go hand in hand with political and economic crises. The stabilization issue that the author speaks about is historically characteristic of most Latin American countries after the 1960s. To better understand this relationship, this paper will further explore the context and nature of the delegative legislation in 19th and 20th century Argentina. This will be done through an analysis of laws passed during the different democratic governments in the 19th and 20th centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]