Exceptional Argentina Di Tella, Glaeser and Llach - Thomas Piketty

and Internal Sources
To understand the within-Argentina institutional variation we will concentrate in four
canonical forces: PFA in its street level role in the City of Buenos Aires, the National
Gendarmerie, the Coast Guard in its role policing areas close to ports and, finally, one example
of a provincial force from the Province of Buenos Aires. 36 The Police of the Province of
Buenos Aires was created in 1857 as an independent security force, destined to provide its
services to the citizens of the Province. Formally, the oldest national security force is the
Argentinean Coast Guard (Argentinean Maritime Authority), as it was created in 1896. The
federal PFA was created in 1943, even though it previously worked as the Police of the City of
Buenos Aires, which was constituted in 1880. The National Gendarmerie was created in 1938,
due to the necessity to consolidate the borders of Argentina and to guarantee the security of the
settlers of the remote territories. While the Argentinean Coast Guard and the National
Gendarmerie are militarized security forces with specific objectives to look over 37 , they are
allowed to render services of internal security in any place across the country when asked by
the National Government. Nowadays they are increasingly taking a more important role in
public security, especially Gendarmeria, which in the last 8 years moved from 18 thousand to
28 thousand agents. Even though it is just a provincial security force with no national
jurisdiction, the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires is the largest force in Argentina, as it
counts with approximately 46,000 agents and serves as the local police force to over 13 million
people 38 . The federal PFA currently has 35 thousand agents and approximately 18 thousand of
those agents work as street level cops in the City of Buenos Aires. In 2007, 42.94% of the
Federal Budget assigned to security was for the PFA, 32.72% to the National Gendarmerie and
21.77% to the Coast Guard (Prefectura). As in any other province, the budget assigned to the
Police of the Province of Buenos Aires comes from the provincial budget 39 . Like in many
Armies around the world and in Carabineros de Chile, all forces analyzed here have separated
entry routes for Officers (high ranks) and Enrolled Personnel (lower ranks). The only exception
has been a 2004 experiment to unify them in a single rank, in the Province of Buenos Aires, but
this was recently reversed. 40 For the four forces analyzed the applicants to the Officer’s School
are required to have 12 years of schooling. However, in the two “civilian forces” analyzed
(Buenos Aires Province and PFA), the subordinate officers are only required to have nine years
36 This sample accounts for more than 80% of the national level security agents. On the other hand, the police of
Buenos Aires TypeProvince represent 34% of the provincial security agents. On the whole, the four security
forces that are going to be analyzed count for 58% of the security agents all over the country (provincial and
national).
37 The Argentinean Coast Guard is in charge of security of navigation and public order in waters of national
jurisdiction and in ports. The National Gendarmerie is in charge of the control and protection of the Argentinean
borders and strategic objectives at time of war
38 37% of the total population
39 In 2007, US$ 1080127954 were assigned to the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires.
40 As militarized forces, the National Gendarmerie and the Argentinean Coast Guard have a strong division
between superior and subordinate agents. There are eight hierarchies both for subordinate and superior gendarmes
and coast guards. Even though the PFA is not a militarized force , its agents are also divided since their enrollment
between superior and subordinate agents. The only security force analyzed that does not have the abovementioned
division is the Police of the Province of Buenos Aires. As the PFA, until 2004 this force had a strong division
between superior and subordinate officers. But on January 2001, Law 13.201 was adopted. It established that the
17 existing rankings were going to be replaced by just 9 with no division between superior and subordinate agents.
According to internal sources, the Ministry of Security back then, Leon Arslanian, thought that the old hierarchy
was related to the one that the Military Forces used between 1974 and 1983 when they ruled the country.
Supposedly, to change the rankings in order to have just one hierarchy scale was a way to “democratize” the force.
However, after 4 years, and due to the strong security related problems that the Province of Buenos Aires has
suffered in 2008, the Governor determined that by January 2009, the old hierarchy was going back to action.