The Changing Color of Money: European Currency Iconography and Collective Identity
| Author | Jacques E.C. Hymans |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066104040567 |
| Published date | 01 March 2004 |
| Date | 01 March 2004 |
| Subject Matter | Journal Article |
The Changing Color of Money: European
Currency Iconography and Collective
Identity
JACQUES E.C. HYMANS
Smith College
This article investigates currency iconography as an indicator of the
content of collective identities in Europe. Using an original database of
the human figures on European paper money since the 19th century,
the article finds a combination of iconographic similarity across space
and iconographic difference across time. This finding suggests that
rather than using the currency to indoctrinate the public with a set of
specifically national values, European state elites have traditionally tried
to use the currency to enhance their public legitimacy by embracing the
values currently fashionable in pan-European society. The article then
draws out the implications of this argument for understanding the
iconography of the euro and the prospects for a European ‘demos’.
K
EY
W
ORDS
♦European monetary unification ♦iconography ♦
identity ♦international norms ♦money ♦values
1. Introduction
A descriptive analysis of banknotes is needed. The unlimited satirical force of
such a book would be equaled only by its objectivity. For nowhere more
naïvely than in these documents does capitalism display itself in solemn
earnest. (Walter Benjamin, quoted in Taylor, 1992: 143)
Much of the literature on national identity construction portrays it as a
process involving conscious efforts by state elites to inculcate the mass public
with values likely to serve state interests, such as the honor and distinctive-
ness of the nation and the dignity of those who sacrifice their lives in its
cause (see, e.g. Gellner, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1990). Recently, social scientists
European Journal of International Relations Copyright © 2004
SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research, Vol. 10(1): 5–31
DOI: 10.1177/1354066104040567]
and historians have begun to extend this ‘state as pedagogue’ perspective to
the case of the construction of national currencies in the 19th and early 20th
centuries (Gilbert and Helleiner, 1999). Money would indeed seem a
perfect site on which the state could construct a ‘banal nationalism’ that is all
the more powerful for being part of the seemingly unremarkable fabric of
everyday life (Billig, 1995). It has the potential to be an especially effective
pedagogical tool because while many people simply have little taste for
military parades or for education, everybody wants money.
The present article proposes an alternative to the ‘state as pedagogue’
perspective on the uses of currency iconography.1This article starts from the
contention that, to paraphrase Brecht, few governments have the temerity to
try to dissolve the people and elect another one. In other words, far from
trying to use their control of currency to impose statist values on a
recalcitrant citizenry, states are more likely to try to increase their legitimacy
by using the currency to signal their embrace of values in tune with the
‘spirit of the times’.
To test this contention, the article introduces an original, comprehensive
database of the images on paper money from the 15 current European
Union (EU) states since the 19th century. This database shows, contrary to
conventional theoretical expectations, that statist and martial images are
hardly indispensable elements of currency iconography. In fact, it shows that
iconographic evolution, not stasis, has been the norm for European national
currencies since the beginning. This evolution has reflected broader shifts in
societal values that have been identified by scholars such as Ronald Inglehart
and John Meyer. The database further shows that while the underlying
values expressed in currency iconography have evolved greatly across time,
they have tended to show little variation across European countries at any
one point in time. The same types of images appear from France to Finland.
The combination of iconographic similarity across space and iconographic
difference across time suggests that European states have indeed been less
likely to try to use their control of currency to indoctrinate their publics, and
more likely to try to use the values fashionable in pan-European society to
enhance the legitimacy of their currency and of themselves. This finding
implies the need not only to rethink the relative weights social scientists
typically attribute to state and society in processes of collective identity
construction, but also the practical possibility for the growth of a real
European ‘demos’.
Beyond the specific issue of money, the database introduced here could
also prove more broadly useful as a descriptive indicator of overall trends in
the content of collective identities, while such indicators have been in short
supply.2There are at least three reasons why studying currency iconography
is an excellent means of taking the measure of overall identity content. First,
European Journal of International Relations 10(1)
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