The gatekeepers and the hidden face of government: Spain in a comparative perspective

This article presents an original research that aims, through a set of interviews that covers practically all the heads of the Cabinet (chief of staff) of the Spanish prime ministers, and also includes one of the prime ministers, to understand, from this double angle, the two vertices of the relationship between the prime minister and his principal adviser. The study addresses the profile, the emergence and expansion of this political figure and its evolution, with unpublished documents from the archives of the Prime Minister's Office in Spain. It also shows the double power of exclusion and connection that has accumulated the Chief of Staff and develops a comparative analysis of the power exercised by the various occupants of the post since the democratic transition. The analysis has been carried out from a comparative perspective and is part of a line of comparative research that should be more developed in contemporary studies on government.