European Journal of International Relations 10(1) In sum,a currency's adoption of a post-materialist message should not be seen as some historical culmination,but rather as a mere waystation in a historical evolution that is still ongoing.I will return to this point in Section 4. National Variation in Resistance to Cultural Shifts When we look at the evolution of national currencies,the cultural shift hypothesis is most convincing,but it is also true that images of monarchs and national leaders have endured to a greater extent than that perspective might anticipate.Clearly the overall uptake of cultural shifts has encountered some friction from pedagogical statist motives.But can we be more specific than that?Can we locate the fiercest resistance to the cultural trends in specific types of states? As a first cut,consider how much focus different currencies in the period since 1980 have placed on individual cultural figures -the ideal-typical post-materialist'image.The currencies that best conform to this ideal-type are those of Denmark (7 of 7 images,or 100%),France(7 of 7 images,or 100%),and Austria (9 of 10 images,or 90%).Other currencies that conform reasonably well are those of Belgium (10 of 14 images,or 71%), Italy (7 of 10 images,or 70%),Finland (5 of 8 images,or 63%)and the Federal Republic of Germany (9 of 16 images,or 56%).More recalcitrant are Sweden (5 of 10 images,or 50%),Spain (5 of 11 images,or 45%), Portugal,(5 of 15 images,or 33%),Great Britain(7 of 24 images,or 29%) and Ireland(2 of 8 images,or 25%).Bringing up the rear are East Germany (0 of 2 images),Greece (0 of7 images)and Luxembourg(0 of 4 images).10 A brief look at this variation among states in their conformity to the contemporary Zeitgeist can help us sort out the value of some obvious hypotheses. First,one might expect older states to be more attached to their traditions than younger ones,but the evidence belies this.While some iconographic 'laggards'(e.g.Britain)are old states,others are young ones (e.g.Ireland). And while some iconographic 'leaders'are younger states (e.g.Germany, Italy),others are older (e.g.Austria,France). Second,one might imagine that divided societies would face great difficulties in finding a consensual representation of the nation,leading them to make 'safer'iconographic choices and to have less secular iconographic change.Yet of Arend Lijphart's classic cases of divided European societies, the Netherlands and Austria have been clear leaders in terms of currency iconography change,and Belgium in recent years has caught the cultural iconographic wave.So the notion that more divided societies would have more conservative currency iconography is not supported.This finding has potential bearing on the EU case,discussed in Section 4 later. 16 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner.Further reproduction prohibited without permission.Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission