A growing body of literature in economic sociology draws on the notion of performativity to assess the interconnection between new financial ideas and the transformation of financial market, such as the rise of the derivative market (Mackenzie 2008; Mackenzie et al. 2007). Whereas the performativity literature explores the interaction between scientific finance and market architecture, it ignores the role of governance. In order to address this shortcoming, the paper aims to look at the interaction between scientific finance, markets, and governance. More specifically, it looks into central banks’ practice of financial intervention from the 1980s to 2000. The paper argues that the scientisation of finance created the notion of “financial stability” as a self-contained concept. In scientisation the financial domain, it became possible to think about the financial sphere as an autonomous entity. The conceptual separation of “financial stability” performed a new type of governance in separating the notion of financial stability from monetary stability. Consequently, in the 1990s witnessed the development of technical financial governance. To make that argument, the paper pursues a content analysis of the Bank of England and BIS reports in addition to looking at the various debates preceding the constitution of the ECB. It also addresses the regulative reforms in the area of central banking in the 1990s.
