'The Good of the People' - The Politics of Consent and Opposition in the Legitimation of the Bank of England 2008-2021

This study contributes to the understanding of a major global challenge in contemporary societies by bringing political economy, sociology of organisation and discourse analysis to the study of central bank legitimacy. Its original contribution will be to show how, despite their formal independence, legitimacy problems - from Occupy and populism to Gamergate and cryptocurrencies - are a key source of the challenges faced by central banks in the period 2008-2021. It adopts a mixed methods research design that offers an analysis of Bank of England data, public documentation and interviews to provide a unique insight into the interaction between central banks and the complex politics of consent and opposition. It is centred on the research question of how the Bank of England has increasingly confronted and attempted to respond to legitimation problems that are rooted in wider social and political discontents. The study will identify the sources of these social and political challenges through data, documentary and interview analysis. It will explore how the Bank formulated a normative vision of the 'good of the people of the United Kingdom' (Carney, 2014) in response to heightened politicisation.