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Gordon Unbound: The Heresthetic of Central Bank Independence in Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2012

Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda
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Abstract

This article combines theory and narrative to shed new light on the politics surrounding the making of central bank independence in contemporary Britain. Its central argument is that Gordon Brown's rewriting of the British monetary constitution in May 1997 constituted political manipulation in a Rikerian sense. The government removed a contentious issue from party politics in order to signal competence and enforce internal discipline. Building on Elster's constraint theory, the paper argues that Brown adopted a pre-commitment strategy aimed at binding others. The heresthetic move had dual consequences, both constraining and enabling. The institutionalization of discipline enabled New Labour to achieve economic and political goals. By revisiting the political rationality of precommitment, this article questions the dominant credibility story underlying the choice of economic institutions.

Type
Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 2013 , pp. 263 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

School of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde Glasgow (email: [email protected]). The author thanks Hugh Ward and three anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. He is also especially grateful to Niamh Hardiman for encouraging him to write this story, providing highly valuable feedback to earlier drafts of this manuscript and enthusiastically supporting this project in every possible way. This article was written in the context of the author's postdoctoral research at the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin.

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