Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State by Paul Tucker

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Introduction
POWER, WELFARE, INCENTIVES, VALUES
A press conference is not enough to call it “democracy.” I do not 
expect this illegitimate institution to hear my voice.
—Josephine Witt protesting at the European Central Bank’s April 15, 2015, 
press conference
It is time to end regulation without representation and restore our 
faith in the people to make the best decisions for families and 
businesses.
—US Senator Mike Rounds (R-South Dakota), The Hill, May 21, 2015

In the course of 2016, first the UK referendum on membership in the 
European Union (EU) and then the US presidential election, coming on 
top of popular discontent and protest in parts of Continental Europe, 
thrust into public debate issues of populism and technocracy. As models 
for government, they appear to stand at opposite ends of the spectrum, 
either embracing or distancing the people. Of course, it is not so clear-

cut. Populist leaders typically claim a special alignment or accord with 
the interests of the People, understood as the True or Authentic mem-

bers of a political community, allowing them to dispense with the messy 
business of actual public participation, debate, and disagreement.
 Technocracy, meanwhile, at least in caricature, claims to have uncovered 
some kind of scientific method for figuring out what is in the public or 
common interest—provided, that is, that they, the unelected experts, 
are left to get on with it, checked only by another group of unelected 
power holders, the judges. In fact, our technocrats must consult and 
explain, but still that is not the same as political accountability

Nowhere in our major democracies does either of those systems of 
government actually exist, but their underlying ideas nevertheless con-

front each other today as rallying cries in the real world of politics. 
Those seeking the votes of people feeling let down by and fed up with 
government over the past quarter century or more find common cause 
in blaming distant and aloof experts as the enemy. Those on the other 
side, fearing that (what they see as) basic values or rights will be put 
aside, warn of the false allure of populist demagogues.
This contest, struggle even, undoubtedly reflects genuine changes in 
politics and government. The main parties on the Left and the Right are 
no longer the mass movements they were up until the 1970s, offering 
distinct political programs appealing, in part, to tribal identities. And 
in government itself, delegation to more or less independent agencies, 
led by unelected technocrats, has ballooned over recent decades (and 
earlier in the US).
Those phenomena are related. If there exists sufficient consensus 
around the goals and the means of public policy that it can be delegated 
beyond the day-to-day reach of elected politicians, political parties of-

fering rival visions of the good life and how it might be achieved lose 
some of their point. Protesting at this and, perhaps, a drift toward lib-

eralism, a former deputy leader of Britain’s Labour Party complained in 
1997 that “Tony Blair is taking the politics out of politics.”
But recent socioeconomic disappointment puts the consensus around 
delegated governance in an uncomfortable light. Economic growth has 
been subdued since the Great Financial Crisis, and the gaps between 
the poor, the just-coping, and the rich have widened over recent de-

cades. Hence, it is not complete fantasy to see our democracies as flirt-

ing with a peculiar cocktail of hyper-depoliticized technocracy and 
hyper-politicized populism, each fueling the other in attempts, respec-

tively, to maintain effective government and to reestablish majoritar-

ian sensibility,

Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State by Paul Tucker