Value Sovereignty and the Limits of Democratic Delegation

Abstract

Why do some forms of delegation to non‐majoritarian institutions generate persistent democratic controversy while others, equally insulated from political control, do not? The Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, for instance, are alike on the standard measures—authorization, accountability, expertise, and performance—yet are judged differently in democratic terms, a difference those measures cannot explain. This paper argues that the missing factor is who retains the authority to revise the criteria by which an institution resolves value conflicts. I call this condition value sovereignty, and treat it not as something a delegation simply has or lacks but as a matter of degree: the further the power to revise an institution's operative criteria has moved from ordinary political reach, the less value sovereignty it retains. This yields a single scale, delegation depth, on which the two banks fall at different points—the Federal Reserve's mandate, revisable by ordinary legislation, near one end, and the European Central Bank's treaty‐entrenched objective further along—and on which systems built to govern open‐ended domains, including advanced artificial intelligence, mark the far limit, where the authority to revise the criteria passes to the delegated system itself. The framework thus supplies a criterion that authorization, accountability, and performance leave unnamed, and orders both established institutions and emerging ones. Agoba, Abel Mawuko, Yakubu Awudu Sare, Ebenezer Bugri Anarfo, and Christian Tsekpoe. 2023. “The Push for Financial Inclusion in Africa: Should Central Banks be Wary of Political Institutional Quality and Literacy Rates?” Politics & Policy 51, no. 1: 114–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12514 . Asongu, Simplice A., Joseph Nnanna, and Vanessa S. Tchamyou. 2021. “Finance, Institutions, and Private Investment in Africa.” Politics & Policy 49, no. 2: 309–351. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12395 . Scarlato, Margherita, and Giorgio d'Agostino. 2019. “The Political Dimension of Cash Transfers in Latin America and Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Comparative Perspective.” Politics & Policy 47, no. 6: 1125–1155. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12332 .