BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE: POLITICAL-ADMINISTRATIVE DYNAMICS IN PORTUGAL AND PORTUGUESE AMERICA (XVIIth AND XVIIIth CENTURIES)

This article aims to disiuss the arguments of a Brazilian historiography. as they relate to la nit" topio of administrave confusion and overlapping of jurisdictions in the government of Portuguese America. It shares a theoretical per ve based on interpretative matrix of the political dynamics of the Old Regline Iberian. The analysis that follows will unfold In two case studies. both based on documentation th nvolves the Overseas Council: the first refers to conflicts of jurisdiction between the Overseas Council and other Portuguese cen-tral councils in the early years of Its operation: and the second concerns Jurisdictions, not always well-defined and often conflicting, of governors of captaincies. governors-general and viceroys in Portuguese America.