Technocratic economic governance is a much more social and political process than many advocates of economic rules-based policy acknowledge

Analysing UK macroeconomic policy rules and their operation unearths numerous dimensions of the politics of technocratic fiscal policy-making, writes Ben Clift. Firstly, policy rules are marshalled for partisan purposes. Secondly, a politics of economic ideas surrounds the invention, revision, and interpretation of fiscal rules. Thirdly, technocratic economic governance entails selecting methodological approaches necessarily built on particular political economic assumptions. Finally, politicians cook the books to present their economic record favourably against fiscal yardsticks, thus there is an inevitable politics of technocratic economic governance.