A Sociology of Institutional Banking Power

This book represents the first book-length sociological interrogation of the Bank of England. With the Bank facing new challenges to its independence in recent years, it offers a timely consideration of the Bank’s position in the institutional landscape, the decisions that ran up to making it independent and if and how it can now be trusted to make the vital decisions required about the economy. Most importantly, it asks whether the move to independence has left vital decisions about the economy in the hands of the technocratic elite, and out of the reach of democratic oversight. The author employs several key sociological tools, including technocracy, bureaucracy, legitimacy, the role of meetings, and the question of sovereignty, to raise questions of what legitimacy is and how it is used and exploited by government. It looks at how the identity of Bank of England Governors has shifted over time, public knowledge about the Bank’s activities and workings, and questions of accountability. It also asks how meetings work, whether we should trust technocracy, and whether the civil service is fundamentally anti-democratic or not. Interrogating a key part of state machinery that has been previously overlooked in sociological thought, it will appeal to scholars and students of political sociology, economic sociology, political economy and finance, with interests in sovereignty, banking, democracy, and social class.