Mandate Expansion into and within a New Domain: OECD and Global Health Governance

Abstract

ABSTRACT International Organisations (IOs) can expand their mandate by employing deliberately chosen strategies. I propose that IOs' mandate expansion follows a two-step sequence: First, IOs branch out into a domain that lies outside of their initial mandate area. Second, IOs further increase their relevance within the domain and move their position from a marginal to a more focal one. To accomplish the two-step expansion, individual IOs use a particular mix of strategies, reflecting their organisation-specific contexts as well as external environments. The two-step sequence is explored in the case of the OECD's growing involvement in the health policy field from the organisation's establishment in 1961 until 2022. I employ a mixed-method approach, combining structural topic modeling and qualitative document analysis. This article highlights the different stages of IOs' mandate expansion and contributes to enriching the research streams of IOs' institutional changes and dynamics in global health governance.