Let
$S(t) = {1}/{\pi} \arg \zeta \big(\hh + it \big)$
be the argument of the Riemann zeta-function at the point 1/2 + it. For n ⩾ 1 and t > 0 define its iterates
$$\begin{equation*}
S_n(t) = \int_0^t S_{n-1}(\tau) \,\d\tau\, + \delta_n\,,
\end{equation*}$$
where δ
n
is a specific constant depending on n and S
0(t) ≔ S(t). In 1924, J. E. Littlewood proved, under the Riemann hypothesis (RH), that Sn
(t) = O(log t/(log log t)
n + 1). The order of magnitude of this estimate was never improved up to this date. The best bounds for S(t) and S
1(t) are currently due to Carneiro, Chandee and Milinovich. In this paper we establish, under RH, an explicit form of this estimate
$$\begin{equation*}
-\left( C^-_n + o(1)\right) \frac{\log t}{(\log \log t)^{n+1}} \ \leq \ S_n(t) \ \leq \ \left( C^+_n + o(1)\right) \frac{\log t}{(\log \log t)^{n+1}}\,,
\end{equation*}$$
for all n ⩾ 2, with the constants C
±
n
decaying exponentially fast as n → ∞. This improves (for all n ⩾ 2) a result of Wakasa, who had previously obtained such bounds with constants tending to a stationary value when n → ∞. Our method uses special extremal functions of exponential type derived from the Gaussian subordination framework of Carneiro, Littmann and Vaaler for the cases when n is odd, and an optimized interpolation argument for the cases when n is even. In the final section we extend these results to a general class of L-functions.