Performing hard money: monetary policy, metaphor and masculinity in the making of EMU

Abstract

Since the global financial crisis, the relationships between gender and political economy have received renewed attention, emphasising change as well as continuities. Similarly, a recent return of attention to the interrelation between masculinity and neoliberalism has stressed historicity and specificity in the nature of these relationships. However, the question how articulations of gender and the economy are socially and politically made within a contested field of economic governance has not yet received attention. This paper seeks to contribute to the literature with the concept of gendered performative agency, which can be used to specify the link between masculinities and political economy, and inform a gendered analysis of important politico-economic events. Empirically, it contributes a study of the making of the monetary policy principles of the European Monetary Union (EMU), analysing the gendered performative agency of the governors of the German Bundesbank in their public discourse from 1988 to 1998. It argues that by mobilising metaphors of disciplinary masculinity in their discourse of monetary policy and in their performances of identity, the governors fostered legitimacy for their policy positions. Thus, the performance of masculinity contributed to performing monetary policy and to shaping the EMU.