IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/111873.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

We serve the people of Europe: reimagining the ECB's political master in the wake of its emergency politics

Author

Listed:
  • Lokdam, Hjalte

Abstract

In the wake of the Euro crisis, the mission statement on the European Central Bank's (ECB) website was changed from ‘Our mission is to serve Europe's citizens’ to ‘Our mission is to serve the people of Europe’. This article situates this discursive shift within a broader change of the ECB's self-presentation in public discourses and explores its meaning in terms of political theory and public law. The article argues that the shift represents a response to the perceived necessity of reimagining the ECB's foundation of legitimate governmental authority following its exercise of emergency powers during the Euro crisis. The discourse emphasizes an organic link between the ECB and ‘the people of Europe’ as a political subject able to authorize previously unauthorized governmental practices such as the outright monetary transactions programme. It reflects, furthermore, a new governing philosophy that stresses flexibility and discretion rather than strict adherence to rules in the ECB's exercise of power.

Suggested Citation

  • Lokdam, Hjalte, 2020. "We serve the people of Europe: reimagining the ECB's political master in the wake of its emergency politics," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111873, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:111873
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/111873/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blyth, Mark, 2015. "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199389445.
    2. Winkler Adalbert, 2015. "The ECB as Lender of Last Resort: Banks versus Governments," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 235(3), pages 329-341, June.
    3. Braun, Benjamin, 2016. "Speaking to the people? Money, trust, and central bank legitimacy in the age of quantitative easing," MPIfG Discussion Paper 16/12, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    4. Paul De Grauwe, 2013. "The European Central Bank as Lender of Last Resort in the Government Bond Markets," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 59(3), pages 520-535, September.
    5. Benjamin Braun, 2016. "Speaking to the people? Money, trust, and central bank legitimacy in the age of quantitative easing," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 1064-1092, November.
    6. Gren, Jakub, 2018. "The Eurosystem and the Single Supervisory Mechanism: institutional continuity under constitutional constraints," Legal Working Paper Series 17, European Central Bank.
    7. Urszula Szczerbowicz, 2015. "The ECB Unconventional Monetary Policies: Have They Lowered Market Borrowing Costs for Banks and Governments?," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 11(4), pages 91-127, December.
    8. Paul De Grauwe & Yuemei Ji, 2013. "From Panic-Driven Austerity to Symmetric Macroeconomic Policies in the Eurozone," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51, pages 31-41, September.
    9. Saka, Orkun & Fuertes, Ana-Maria & Kalotychou, Elena, 2015. "ECB policy and Eurozone fragility: Was De Grauwe right?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 168-185.
    10. Goodhart, Charles A. E., 1998. "The two concepts of money: implications for the analysis of optimal currency areas," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 407-432, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alan S. Blinder & Michael Ehrmann & Jakob de Haan & David-Jan Jansen, 2024. "Central Bank Communication with the General Public: Promise or False Hope?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(2), pages 425-457, June.
    2. Jonathan White, 2023. "Constitutionalizing the EU in an Age of Emergencies," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 781-796, May.
    3. Muireann O'Dwyer, 2022. "Gender and Crises in European Economic Governance: Is this Time Different?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 152-169, January.
    4. Jens van ‘t Klooster & Nik de Boer, 2023. "What to Do with the ECB's Secondary Mandate," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(3), pages 730-746, May.
    5. Dmitry A. Ruban & Natalia N. Yashalova, 2021. "Lost in Missions? Employees as a Top Strategic Priority of the World’s Biggest Banks," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-11, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hjalte Lokdam, 2020. "‘We Serve the People of Europe’: Reimagining the ECB's Political Master in the Wake of its Emergency Politics," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 978-998, July.
    2. Jakob Kapeller & Claudius Graebner & Philipp Heimberger, 2019. "Economic Polarisation in Europe: Causes and Policy Options," ICAE Working Papers 99, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    3. Zeilbeck, Severin, 2015. "An investment initiative for fiscally constrained EU member states: The role of synergetic financial instruments," IPE Working Papers 58/2015, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    4. Gregori, Wildmer Daniel & Sacchi, Agnese, 2019. "Has the Grexit news affected euro area financial markets?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 71-84.
    5. Niels Gilbert, 2019. "Euro area sovereign risk spillovers before and after the ECB's OMT announcement," DNB Working Papers 636, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    6. Diessner, Sebastian & Lisi, Giulio, 2019. "Masters of the ‘masters of the universe’? Monetary, fiscal and financial dominance in the Eurozone," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 100754, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Wildmer Daniel Gregori & Wildmer Agnese Sacchi, 2016. "Has the Grexit news spilled over into euro area financial markets? The role of domestic political leaders, supranational executives and institutions," Mo.Fi.R. Working Papers 134, Money and Finance Research group (Mo.Fi.R.) - Univ. Politecnica Marche - Dept. Economic and Social Sciences.
    8. Csaba Lentner & Krisztina Szegedi & Tibor Tatay, 2017. "Social Responsibility in the Operation of Central Banks," Financial and Economic Review, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 16(2), pages 64-85.
    9. Corvino, Raffaele & Ruggiero, Francesco, 2021. "The relative pricing of sovereign credit risk after the Eurozone crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    10. Christophe Blot & Jérôme Creel & Paul Hubert & Fabien Labondance, 2020. "The role of ECB monetary policy and financial stress on Eurozone sovereign yields," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 1189-1211, September.
    11. Philipp Heimberger, 2024. "Fiscal consolidation and its growth effects in euro area countries: Past, present and future outlook," FMM Working Paper 109-2024, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    12. Rosaria Rita Canale & Paul Grauwe & Pasquale Foresti & Oreste Napolitano, 2018. "Is there a trade-off between free capital mobility, financial stability and fiscal policy flexibility in the EMU?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 154(1), pages 177-201, February.
    13. Stefan Angrick, 2018. "Structural conditions for currency internationalization: international finance and the survival constraint," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(5), pages 699-725, September.
    14. Eijffinger, Sylvester C.W. & Pieterse-Bloem, Mary, 2023. "Eurozone government bond spreads: A tale of different ECB policy regimes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    15. Havlik, Annika & Heinemann, Friedrich & Helbig, Samuel & Nover, Justus, 2022. "Dispelling the shadow of fiscal dominance? Fiscal and monetary announcement effects for euro area sovereign spreads in the corona pandemic," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    16. Bear, Laura, 2020. "Speculation: a political economy of technologies of imagination," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 103433, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Richard Bärnthaler & Andreas Novy & Lea Arzberger & Astrid Krisch & Hans Volmary, 2024. "The power to transform structures: power complexes and the challenges for realising a wellbeing economy," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Pompeo Della Posta & Enrico Marelli & Marcello Signorelli, 2020. "A market‐financed and growth‐enhancing investment plan for the euro area," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 604-632, July.
    19. Tim Marple, 2021. "The social management of complex uncertainty: Central Bank similarity and crisis liquidity swaps at the Federal Reserve," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 377-401, April.
    20. Jorg Bibow, 2016. "From Antigrowth Bias to Quantitative Easing: The ECB's Belated Conversion?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_868, Levy Economics Institute.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    European Central Bank; Euro crisis; OMT; sovereignty; emergency politics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:111873. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.