Building Up Legitimacy? Analysis of the European Central Bank Narrative During the COVID-19 Crisis

For the literature on crisis management, two of the most important undertakings are sense-making (what is going on) and meaning-making (causes and consequences; and solutions). They feed the public’s understanding and support of crisis responses. Meaning-making is connected to change that emerges from the crisis, providing a relevant explanation of post-crisis policies: the way we perceive a crisis will determine to what extent we are willing to accept a post-crisis reform. The article addresses narratives of the European Central Bank’s during the COVID-19 pandemic, building on the literature on crisis communication, and particularly on the “crisis-exploitation-reform script” combined with literature on policy narratives. Our goal is to answer three interrelated research questions: how did the ECB frame the pandemic crisis? Were ECB’s narratives crafted onto policy reform? How did the ECB shaped narratives in order to build up legitimacy?