Competition for the common good: professional trajectories and universalist claims within central bank governing bodies

Frédéric Lebaron and Aykiz Dogan

Chapter 6 in Central Banking, Monetary Policy and the Common Good, 2026, pp 99-130 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores central bank governing bodies as arenas of competition over the definition of the common good in the making of monetary policy. These struggles reflect not only ideological disagreements but also the divergent social and professional backgrounds and resources of the actors involved. Differences in economic beliefs, relations to financial institutions, to the state (in its various forms), to academia, and other aspects of individual trajectories, including gender, religion, or ideology, shape the way central bankers articulate and defend universalist claims. While the literature on the common good often focuses on normative conceptions of universality, it tends to underplay the sociological dimensions of such normative claims – especially the influence of social trajectories, professional “cultures” or habitus. We therefore put forward a sociologically grounded approach that pays attention to who makes universalist claims, and from where – professionally and socially – they are made. We also present findings from our recent statistical study on the global space of central bank governors. Combining descriptive statistics and cluster analysis, this study shows the diversity of educational and professional trajectories among central bank leaders worldwide. This allows us to identify distinct “families” of professional backgrounds and their relative weight in global monetary governance. Building on a discursive analysis of public statements by central bank governors, we then outline four main types of what we term “professional universalist claims,” namely, academic claims, political claims, bureaucratic claims, and financial claims, illustrating each type with examples from central bank governors’ public communications.

Keywords: Common good; Central bank governing bodies; Monetary policy; Professional universalist claims (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035348299
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