Puzzling or powering? How fiscal communication reflects the politicisation of the European Central Bank

This paper examines the fiscal communication of the European Central Bank (ECB) to investigate its politicisation through crises. Since the sovereign debt crisis, the ECB started to diverge from its mandate by developing preferences for a Keynesian-inspired approach to fiscal policy, although persistent ambiguities suggest that the Central Bank favoured selective reinterpretation over paradigm replacement. What type of policy change hinges on this ostensible phenomenon? To answer, the research evaluates whether the shift truly constituted a paradigm change, and investigates the logics of learning driving this process by differentiating between ‘learning through puzzling’ and ‘learning through powering’. Our hypothesis is that the ECB remains anchored to its ordoliberal authority, while promoting fiscal preferences tied to a competing vision of the social purpose of fiscal policy. To prove this, we combine Latent Semantic Scaling (LSS) with a narrative analysis. The scaling results illustrate a drift towards Keynesianism which, however, remains best described as a layering outcome; the narrative analysis reveals a shift in the social and political aims of fiscal policy, more than in its economic rationale. By interpreting the ECB’s epistemic authority in light of vested interests, the research highlights its politicised role within the political economy of European integration.