How to Make Central Banks’ Structural Power ‘Great Again’

Sophie Harnay (), Laurence Scialom and Guillaume Vallet ()
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Sophie Harnay: UPN - Université Paris Nanterre
Laurence Scialom: EconomiX - EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Guillaume Vallet: CREG - Centre de recherche en économie de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes

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Abstract: Central bank regimes have proved to be capable of evolution and to be highly malleable over time. In light of this, central banks' ability to perform their mission in order to promote the common good has come under greater scrutiny recently. This paper aims to shed new light on this literature on central banks' possible evolving role by revisiting Susan Strange's concept of structural power, which we apply to central banks. We argue that although it is doubtless that central banks hold structural power, the latter has been corrupted with the rise of financialization with respect to the ontology of this power: there is evidence of a growing gap between central banks' institutional framework inherited from the 1990s and their policies implemented since the recent crises and turmoil. We argue that time is ripe to make central banks' structural power ‘great again', which involves the definition of a more democratic framework for central banks. This would imply a move from the concept of structural power to that of structural authority.

Keywords: financialization; institutions; structural power; Central banks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10-06
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Published in Review of Political Economy, 2025, online, 27 p. ⟨10.1080/09538259.2025.2565649⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05312184

DOI: 10.1080/09538259.2025.2565649

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