How Popular Has the ECB Been? Popularity, Protest, and Populism Post Crisis

The Politics of Monetary Union and the Democratic Legitimacy of the ECB as a Strategic Actor

“…As such, Europe's monetary policy-makers run the risk of taking the blame, even more than other actors, for the perceived outputs of EMU in areas for which they bear little to no responsibility and over which they can exert little to no influence on their own. This can help explain the ECB's striking loss of popularity not merely in and as of itself, but also to an extent which exceeds that of other EU institutions (Macchiarelli et al 2020b).…”

“…Whether this legitimation strategy can suffice beyond the immediate emergency of an acute crisis is questionable, however. As the discrepancy between (original) mandate and (reinterpreted) policy outputs becomes visible to an ever-broader audience over time, it risks bringing about a growing loss in public trust and popularity for the central bank (Macchiarelli et al 2020b). It is only at this point that the focus can be expected to shift more decisively 8 The perception of both efforts also rests on the ECB's epistemic authority on matters of macroeconomic policy (Mudge & Vauchez 2016;Dietsch et al 2018).…”

“…In short, two disparate but interlinked groups of critics came to voice their discontent in strange unison. Those-mainly from Europe's North-who thought the ECB was doing too much given its limited mandate, were joined by those-mainly from Europe's South-who thought it was doing too little given the meagre post-crisis recovery (Walter et al 2020;Macchiarelli et al 2020b). Among the latter, we may also include those who thought the ECB was asking too much of them in terms of fiscal restraint and structural reform, with too little democratic legitimation for doing so.…”