Anna Sophie Elektra Zech
GEM-DIAMOND doctoral fellow
ESR 2 – The capitalism-democracy nexus and struggles over European governance
Fascinated by the political economy of monetary policy, I am curious to research the ECB's engagement with public discourse across Eurozone member states. #textasdata
Host Institutions
Watching the Watchers
On the Mediation of European Central Bank Communication with Member State Publics
Supervisors
- Antoine Vauchez
- Amandine Crespy
Research abstract
The ECB has increasingly stretched its mandate in the face of conflicting pressures arising from its responsibility to maintain both price and financial stability. Alongside the lack of a full-blown fiscal counterpart at EU level that can provide macroeconomic stabilisation, this context has encouraged monetary policy innovation. The latter, particularly when impacting sovereign debt markets, brings about recurrent political struggles and increasingly complicates the ECB’s independence.
Among the ECB’s several publics (EU institutions, governments, financial markets), its interaction with the ‘general’ public across member states remains poorly understood in spite of significant dissensus. Extant political science research has largely focused on analysing ECB-owned communications output, neglecting that most learn about the ECB via intermediaries, notably expert opinions in the press. It remains unclear how these mediators engage with the ECB’s discourse, and vice versa, in light of diverse national veto points. Researching these actors can thus facilitate an improved understanding of the ECB’s interaction with its publics, moving beyond a top-down approach that is focused on ECB output, and elucidate how the need for a unified monetary policy discourse on the one and diverse national audiences, on the other hand, is negotiated in practice.
Empirically, the project proposes to study the so-called ECB Watchers and their annual conference at the IMFS specifically as one of the mediators of this discourse. Discourse has long played a fundamental role in monetary policy, notably in the case of the ECB given its vague mandate, and is a reliable data source as “talk is not cheap”. To reflect the dynamic interaction of public narratives and institutional evolution, the methodological framework of discursive institutionalism is adopted (Schmidt, 2008). Following an initial bio/prosopographic survey of its participants for characterisation purposes, the project will thus, in a second step, employ quantitative text analysis of media coverage that stakeholders are involved in, ECB communication in the form of press releases etc. and interviews with watchers as well as ECB personnel. In an effort to operationalise public responses to ECB communication and its mediation, additional data sources such as public and media enquiries received by the ECB are being explored.
The findings of this project can shed new light on the state of eurozone governance and contribute to a broader literature on “emergency politics” that often feature prominent intervention by technocratic and/or executive actors (White, 2015).
Among the ECB’s several publics (EU institutions, governments, financial markets), its interaction with the ‘general’ public across member states remains poorly understood in spite of significant dissensus. Extant political science research has largely focused on analysing ECB-owned communications output, neglecting that most learn about the ECB via intermediaries, notably expert opinions in the press. It remains unclear how these mediators engage with the ECB’s discourse, and vice versa, in light of diverse national veto points. Researching these actors can thus facilitate an improved understanding of the ECB’s interaction with its publics, moving beyond a top-down approach that is focused on ECB output, and elucidate how the need for a unified monetary policy discourse on the one and diverse national audiences, on the other hand, is negotiated in practice.
Empirically, the project proposes to study the so-called ECB Watchers and their annual conference at the IMFS specifically as one of the mediators of this discourse. Discourse has long played a fundamental role in monetary policy, notably in the case of the ECB given its vague mandate, and is a reliable data source as “talk is not cheap”. To reflect the dynamic interaction of public narratives and institutional evolution, the methodological framework of discursive institutionalism is adopted (Schmidt, 2008). Following an initial bio/prosopographic survey of its participants for characterisation purposes, the project will thus, in a second step, employ quantitative text analysis of media coverage that stakeholders are involved in, ECB communication in the form of press releases etc. and interviews with watchers as well as ECB personnel. In an effort to operationalise public responses to ECB communication and its mediation, additional data sources such as public and media enquiries received by the ECB are being explored.
The findings of this project can shed new light on the state of eurozone governance and contribute to a broader literature on “emergency politics” that often feature prominent intervention by technocratic and/or executive actors (White, 2015).
Personal Research Bibliography (So Far)
Baker, A. (2018) Macroprudential regimes and the politics of social purpose, Review of International Political Economy, 25 (3), 293–316.
Bellamy, R. & Weale, A. (2015) Political legitimacy and European monetary union: contracts, constitutionalism and the normative logic of two-level games. Journal of European Public Policy, 22 (2), 257-274.
Best, J. (2019) The Inflation Game: Targets, Practices and the Social Production of Monetary Credibility, New Political Economy, 24 (5), 623-640.
Boin, A., ‘t Hart, P. & McConnell, A. (2008) Crisis Exploitation: Political and Policy Impacts on Framing Contests, Journal of European Public Policy, 16 (1), 81-106.
Braun, B. (2014) Why Models Matter: The Making and Unmaking of Governability in Macroeconomic Discourse, Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, 7, 48-79.
Braun, B. (2016) ‘Speaking to the People?’ Money, Trust, and Central Bank Legitimacy in the Age of Quantitative Easing, Review of International Political Economy, 23, 1064–1092.
Braun, B. & Hübner, M. (2017) Fiscal Fault, Financial Fix? Capital Markets Union and the Quest for Macroeconomic Stabilisation in EMU. MPIfG Discussion Paper 17/21.
Braun, B., Gabor, D. & Hübner, M. (2018) Governing through financial markets: Towards a critical political economy of Capital Markets Union. Competition & Change, 22 (2), 101-116.
Braun, B. (2020) Central Banking and the Infrastructural Power of Finance: The Case of ECB Support for Repo and Securitization Markets, Socio-Economic Review, 18, 395–418.
Bressanelli, E., Koop, C. and Reh, C. (2020) EU Actors under Pressure: Politicisation and Depoliticisation as Strategic Responses, Journal of European Public Policy, 27, 329–341.
Culpepper, P. (2008) The politics of common knowledge: ideas and institutional change, International Organization, 62 (1), 1–33.
De Boer, N. and van ’t Klooster, J. (2020) The ECB, the Courts and the Issue of Democratic Legitimacy after Weiss, Common Market Law Review, 57, 1689–1724.
Diessner, S. & Lisi, G. (2020) Masters of the ‘masters of the universe’? Monetary, fiscal and financial dominance in the Eurozone, Socio-Economic Review, 18 (2), 315-335.
Downey, L. (2021) Delegation in Democracy: A Temporal Analysis, Journal of Political Philosophy, 29, 305–329.
Dyson, K. & Featherstone, K. (1996) Italy and EMU as a ‘Vincolo Esterno’: Empowering the Technocrats, Transforming the State, South European Society and Politics, 1 (2), 272-299.
Elgie, R. (2002) The politics of the European Central Bank: principal-agent theory and the democratic deficit, Journal of European Public Policy, 9 (2), 186-200.
Fontan, C. & Howarth, D. (2020) The European Central Bank and the German Constitutional Court: Police Patrols and Fire Alarms, Politics and Governance, 9 (2), 241-251.
Gabor, D. & Ban, C. (2016) The political economy of shadow banking, Review of International Political Economy, 23 (6), 901-914.
Gabor, D. (2016) The (impossible) repo trinity: the political economy of repo markets, Review of International Political Economy, 23 (6), 967-1000.
Gabor, D. (2020) Critical macro-finance: a theoretical lens, Finance and Society, 6 (1), 45–55.
Gabor, D. (2021) Revolution without Revolutionaries: Interrogating the New Politics of Monetary Financing, Policy Brief, Berlin, Finanzwende and Heinrich Boell Stiftung.
Gabor, D. and Ban, C. (2016) Banking on Bonds: The New Links between States and Markets, Journal of Common Market Studies, 54, 617–635.
Genschel, P., & Jachtenfuchs, M. (2016) More integration, less federation: the European integration of core state powers, Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (1), 42-59.
Genschel, P. & Tesche, T. (2020) Supranational agents as de-commitment devices: the ECB during the eurozone crisis, Amsterdam Centre for European Studies Research Paper No. 2020/02 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3557195
Giavazzi, F. & Pagano, M. (1988) The advantage of tying one’s hands: EMS discipline and central bank credibility, European Economic Review, 32 (5), 1055-1075.
Guter-Sandu, A. & Murau, S. (2021) The Eurozone’s Evolving Fiscal Ecosystem: Mitigating Fiscal Discipline by Governing Through Off-Balance-Sheet Fiscal Agencies, New Political Economy, DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2021.1910648
Heimberger, P. and Kapeller, J. (2017) The performativity of potential output: pro-cyclicality and path dependency in coordinating European fiscal policies, Review of International Political Economy, 24 (5), 904–928.
Howarth, D. (2004) The ECB and the Stability Pact: Policeman and Judge?, Journal of European Public Policy, 11, 832–853.
Lohmann, S. (2003) Why do institutions matter? An audience-cost theory of institutional commitment, Governance, 16 (1), 95-110.
Lokdam, H. (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, 58 (4), 978-998.
Mabbett, D. & Schelkle, W. (2019) Independent or lonely? Central banking in crisis, Review of International Political Economy, 26 (3), 436-460.
Mair, P. (2009) Responsible versus responsive government, MPIfG Working Paper 09/8, Cologne: Max-Planck Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung.
Majone, G. (1994) The rise of the regulatory state in Europe, West European Politics, 17 (3), 77-101.
Majone, G. (2001) Two Logics of Delegation – Agency and Fiduciary Relations in EU Governance, European Union Politics, 2 (1), 103-122.
McNamara, K., 1998. The currency of ideas: monetary politics in the European Union. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
McNamara, K. (2002) Rational Fictions: Central Bank Independence and the Social Logic of Delegation, West European Politics, 25 (1), 47-76.
Moschella, M., Pinto, L. & Diodati, N. (2020) Let's speak more? How the ECB responds to public contestation, Journal of European Public Policy, 27 (3), 400-418.
Mügge, D. (2015) Studying macroeconomic indicators as powerful ideas. Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (3), 410-427.
Ojala, M., 2020. Doing away with the sovereign: neoliberalism and the promotion of market discipline in European economic governance, New Political Economy, 26 (1), 203-215.
Rauh, C. (2021) Supranational emergency politics? What executives’ public crisis communication may tell us, Journal of European Public Policy, 29 (6), 966-978.
Saurugger, S. & Fontan, C. (2017) Courts as political actors: resistance to EU’s new economic governance mechanisms at the domestic level. DOI: halshs-01628964.
Saurugger, S. & Terpan, F. (2019) The Court of Justice of the European Union, conflicts of sovereignty and the EMU crisis, Journal of European Integration, 41 (7), 903-920.
Scharpf, F. (1988) The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons From German Federalism and European Integration, Public Administration, 66, 239-278.
Schelkle, W. (2012), “European Fiscal Union: From Monetary Back Door to Parliamentary Main Entrance”, CESifo Forum 1, 28-34.
Schmidt, V. A. (2008) Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse, Annual Review of Political Science, 11, 303-26.
Schmidt, V. A. (2012) Democracy and legitimacy in the European Union Revisited: Input, Output and ‘Throughput’, Political Studies, 61 (1), 2-22.
Schmidt, V. A. (2016) Reinterpreting the rules ‘by stealth’ in times of crisis: A discursive institutionalist analysis of the European Central Bank and the European Commission, West European Politics, 39 (5), 1032-1052.
Schmidt, V. A. (2020) Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press.
Scicluna, N. (2018) Integration through the disintegration of law? The ECB- and EU constitutionalism in the crisis, Journal of European Public Policy, 25 (12), 1874-1891.
Seabrooke, L. & Tsingou, E. (2019) Europe's fast- and slow-burning crises, Journal of European Public Policy, 26 (3), 468-481.
Tesche, T. (2019) Instrumentalising EMU’s democratic deficit: the ECB’s unconventional accountability measures during the eurozone crisis, Journal of European Integration, 41 (4), 447-463.
Thatcher, Mark & Stone Sweet, Alex (2002) Theory and Practice of Delegation to Non-Majoritarian Institutions, West European Politics, 25 (1), 1-22.
Tortola, P. D. (2020) The politicisation of the European Central Bank: what is it, and how to study it? Journal of Common Market Studies, 58 (3), 501-513.
Van Doorslaer, H. and Vermeiren, M., 2021. Pushing on a string: monetary policy, growth models and the persistence of low inflation in advanced capitalism, New Political Economy, 26 (5), 797–816.
van ’t Klooster, J. (2020) ‘The Ethics of Delegating Monetary Policy’, The Journal of Politics, 82, 587–599.
van ’t Klooster, J. (2021) Technocratic Keynesianism: A Paradigm Shift without Legislative Change, New Political Economy, 27 (5), 771-787.
van ’t Klooster, J. (2022) The politics of the ECB’s market-based approach to government debt. Socio-Economic Review, https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac014.
White, J. (2015) Emergency Europe, Political Studies, 63 (2), 300-318.
Yiangou, J. O’keeffe, M. & Glöckler, G. (2013) ‘Tough Love’: How the ECB’s Monetary Financing Prohibition Pushes Deeper Euro Area Integration, Journal of European Integration, 35 (3), 223-237.
Bellamy, R. & Weale, A. (2015) Political legitimacy and European monetary union: contracts, constitutionalism and the normative logic of two-level games. Journal of European Public Policy, 22 (2), 257-274.
Best, J. (2019) The Inflation Game: Targets, Practices and the Social Production of Monetary Credibility, New Political Economy, 24 (5), 623-640.
Boin, A., ‘t Hart, P. & McConnell, A. (2008) Crisis Exploitation: Political and Policy Impacts on Framing Contests, Journal of European Public Policy, 16 (1), 81-106.
Braun, B. (2014) Why Models Matter: The Making and Unmaking of Governability in Macroeconomic Discourse, Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, 7, 48-79.
Braun, B. (2016) ‘Speaking to the People?’ Money, Trust, and Central Bank Legitimacy in the Age of Quantitative Easing, Review of International Political Economy, 23, 1064–1092.
Braun, B. & Hübner, M. (2017) Fiscal Fault, Financial Fix? Capital Markets Union and the Quest for Macroeconomic Stabilisation in EMU. MPIfG Discussion Paper 17/21.
Braun, B., Gabor, D. & Hübner, M. (2018) Governing through financial markets: Towards a critical political economy of Capital Markets Union. Competition & Change, 22 (2), 101-116.
Braun, B. (2020) Central Banking and the Infrastructural Power of Finance: The Case of ECB Support for Repo and Securitization Markets, Socio-Economic Review, 18, 395–418.
Bressanelli, E., Koop, C. and Reh, C. (2020) EU Actors under Pressure: Politicisation and Depoliticisation as Strategic Responses, Journal of European Public Policy, 27, 329–341.
Culpepper, P. (2008) The politics of common knowledge: ideas and institutional change, International Organization, 62 (1), 1–33.
De Boer, N. and van ’t Klooster, J. (2020) The ECB, the Courts and the Issue of Democratic Legitimacy after Weiss, Common Market Law Review, 57, 1689–1724.
Diessner, S. & Lisi, G. (2020) Masters of the ‘masters of the universe’? Monetary, fiscal and financial dominance in the Eurozone, Socio-Economic Review, 18 (2), 315-335.
Downey, L. (2021) Delegation in Democracy: A Temporal Analysis, Journal of Political Philosophy, 29, 305–329.
Dyson, K. & Featherstone, K. (1996) Italy and EMU as a ‘Vincolo Esterno’: Empowering the Technocrats, Transforming the State, South European Society and Politics, 1 (2), 272-299.
Elgie, R. (2002) The politics of the European Central Bank: principal-agent theory and the democratic deficit, Journal of European Public Policy, 9 (2), 186-200.
Fontan, C. & Howarth, D. (2020) The European Central Bank and the German Constitutional Court: Police Patrols and Fire Alarms, Politics and Governance, 9 (2), 241-251.
Gabor, D. & Ban, C. (2016) The political economy of shadow banking, Review of International Political Economy, 23 (6), 901-914.
Gabor, D. (2016) The (impossible) repo trinity: the political economy of repo markets, Review of International Political Economy, 23 (6), 967-1000.
Gabor, D. (2020) Critical macro-finance: a theoretical lens, Finance and Society, 6 (1), 45–55.
Gabor, D. (2021) Revolution without Revolutionaries: Interrogating the New Politics of Monetary Financing, Policy Brief, Berlin, Finanzwende and Heinrich Boell Stiftung.
Gabor, D. and Ban, C. (2016) Banking on Bonds: The New Links between States and Markets, Journal of Common Market Studies, 54, 617–635.
Genschel, P., & Jachtenfuchs, M. (2016) More integration, less federation: the European integration of core state powers, Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (1), 42-59.
Genschel, P. & Tesche, T. (2020) Supranational agents as de-commitment devices: the ECB during the eurozone crisis, Amsterdam Centre for European Studies Research Paper No. 2020/02 http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3557195
Giavazzi, F. & Pagano, M. (1988) The advantage of tying one’s hands: EMS discipline and central bank credibility, European Economic Review, 32 (5), 1055-1075.
Guter-Sandu, A. & Murau, S. (2021) The Eurozone’s Evolving Fiscal Ecosystem: Mitigating Fiscal Discipline by Governing Through Off-Balance-Sheet Fiscal Agencies, New Political Economy, DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2021.1910648
Heimberger, P. and Kapeller, J. (2017) The performativity of potential output: pro-cyclicality and path dependency in coordinating European fiscal policies, Review of International Political Economy, 24 (5), 904–928.
Howarth, D. (2004) The ECB and the Stability Pact: Policeman and Judge?, Journal of European Public Policy, 11, 832–853.
Lohmann, S. (2003) Why do institutions matter? An audience-cost theory of institutional commitment, Governance, 16 (1), 95-110.
Lokdam, H. (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, 58 (4), 978-998.
Mabbett, D. & Schelkle, W. (2019) Independent or lonely? Central banking in crisis, Review of International Political Economy, 26 (3), 436-460.
Mair, P. (2009) Responsible versus responsive government, MPIfG Working Paper 09/8, Cologne: Max-Planck Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung.
Majone, G. (1994) The rise of the regulatory state in Europe, West European Politics, 17 (3), 77-101.
Majone, G. (2001) Two Logics of Delegation – Agency and Fiduciary Relations in EU Governance, European Union Politics, 2 (1), 103-122.
McNamara, K., 1998. The currency of ideas: monetary politics in the European Union. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
McNamara, K. (2002) Rational Fictions: Central Bank Independence and the Social Logic of Delegation, West European Politics, 25 (1), 47-76.
Moschella, M., Pinto, L. & Diodati, N. (2020) Let's speak more? How the ECB responds to public contestation, Journal of European Public Policy, 27 (3), 400-418.
Mügge, D. (2015) Studying macroeconomic indicators as powerful ideas. Journal of European Public Policy, 23 (3), 410-427.
Ojala, M., 2020. Doing away with the sovereign: neoliberalism and the promotion of market discipline in European economic governance, New Political Economy, 26 (1), 203-215.
Rauh, C. (2021) Supranational emergency politics? What executives’ public crisis communication may tell us, Journal of European Public Policy, 29 (6), 966-978.
Saurugger, S. & Fontan, C. (2017) Courts as political actors: resistance to EU’s new economic governance mechanisms at the domestic level. DOI: halshs-01628964.
Saurugger, S. & Terpan, F. (2019) The Court of Justice of the European Union, conflicts of sovereignty and the EMU crisis, Journal of European Integration, 41 (7), 903-920.
Scharpf, F. (1988) The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons From German Federalism and European Integration, Public Administration, 66, 239-278.
Schelkle, W. (2012), “European Fiscal Union: From Monetary Back Door to Parliamentary Main Entrance”, CESifo Forum 1, 28-34.
Schmidt, V. A. (2008) Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse, Annual Review of Political Science, 11, 303-26.
Schmidt, V. A. (2012) Democracy and legitimacy in the European Union Revisited: Input, Output and ‘Throughput’, Political Studies, 61 (1), 2-22.
Schmidt, V. A. (2016) Reinterpreting the rules ‘by stealth’ in times of crisis: A discursive institutionalist analysis of the European Central Bank and the European Commission, West European Politics, 39 (5), 1032-1052.
Schmidt, V. A. (2020) Europe’s Crisis of Legitimacy: Governing by Rules and Ruling by Numbers in the Eurozone, Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press.
Scicluna, N. (2018) Integration through the disintegration of law? The ECB- and EU constitutionalism in the crisis, Journal of European Public Policy, 25 (12), 1874-1891.
Seabrooke, L. & Tsingou, E. (2019) Europe's fast- and slow-burning crises, Journal of European Public Policy, 26 (3), 468-481.
Tesche, T. (2019) Instrumentalising EMU’s democratic deficit: the ECB’s unconventional accountability measures during the eurozone crisis, Journal of European Integration, 41 (4), 447-463.
Thatcher, Mark & Stone Sweet, Alex (2002) Theory and Practice of Delegation to Non-Majoritarian Institutions, West European Politics, 25 (1), 1-22.
Tortola, P. D. (2020) The politicisation of the European Central Bank: what is it, and how to study it? Journal of Common Market Studies, 58 (3), 501-513.
Van Doorslaer, H. and Vermeiren, M., 2021. Pushing on a string: monetary policy, growth models and the persistence of low inflation in advanced capitalism, New Political Economy, 26 (5), 797–816.
van ’t Klooster, J. (2020) ‘The Ethics of Delegating Monetary Policy’, The Journal of Politics, 82, 587–599.
van ’t Klooster, J. (2021) Technocratic Keynesianism: A Paradigm Shift without Legislative Change, New Political Economy, 27 (5), 771-787.
van ’t Klooster, J. (2022) The politics of the ECB’s market-based approach to government debt. Socio-Economic Review, https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac014.
White, J. (2015) Emergency Europe, Political Studies, 63 (2), 300-318.
Yiangou, J. O’keeffe, M. & Glöckler, G. (2013) ‘Tough Love’: How the ECB’s Monetary Financing Prohibition Pushes Deeper Euro Area Integration, Journal of European Integration, 35 (3), 223-237.
Anna is a Marie Skłodowska Curie Doctoral Fellow at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Université Libre de Bruxelles within the Horizon Europe GEM-Diamond project. Under the joint supervision of Antoine Vauchez (Paris 1) and Amandine Crespy (ULB), her doctoral project examines to what extent the European Central Bank engages strategically with its politicisation.
Anna holds an MA (Hons) in Business/Management and Italian from the University of Glasgow, a Graduate Diploma in International Relations from the University of London, an MA in European Affairs with a specialisation in Economics and Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris and an MSc in Political Economy of Europe from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Anna holds an MA (Hons) in Business/Management and Italian from the University of Glasgow, a Graduate Diploma in International Relations from the University of London, an MA in European Affairs with a specialisation in Economics and Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris and an MSc in Political Economy of Europe from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
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From Student to Teacher
30 July 2023
Becoming a scholar is just as much about producing research as it is about sharing it, not least with students.
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The GEM-DIAMOND’s First Policy AGORA Forum and Citizen Innovation Lab
21 February 2023
A Primer on Policy Work, Local Activism and the Role of Academia in Engaging Dissensus
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Birth of the GEM-DIAMOND Fellowship of the Ph.D.
1 October 2022
16 MSCA Fellows successfully selected following a gruelling selection process.