Path departure or path dependency at a critical juncture? OECD between resilience and efficiency in the health policy field

The organisation for economic cooperation and development

Mobility-Related Implications of COVID-19 for Receiving Countries

Outcome of the pesticides peer review meeting on general recurring issues in ecotoxicology

The problems of development assistance have loomed large on the OECD agenda ever since its establishment, first as the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) and then as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Briefly recapitulated, OEEC was created in 1948 to provide for the joint European execution of the Marshall Plan and for the close economic cooperation that the United States' aid offer had launched. Whatever the actual contribution of OEEC, the postwar European economic recovery was remarkably quick. Few international organizations have been thus blessed with the satisfaction of seeing their objectives so amply fulfilled.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is the least written about and least well understood of the global multilateral economic institutions. Paradoxically, leading commentators ceaselessly refer to the centrality of the OECD to contemporary global governance, yet rarely has the organization been the subject of sustained academic scrutiny. For instance, Joseph Nye (2002: 144) argued that the OECD, in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), provides ‘a framework of rules for the global economy’. Similarly, Held et al. (1999: 84) cite the OECD among the ‘key multilateral economic fora’ common to all ‘states in advanced capitalist societies’. Nevertheless, having identified the importance of the OECD, these and many other observers proceed to marginalize the role of the organization preferring instead to focus on the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. Equally, as the other contributions to this volume testify, book-length accounts of the activities of the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank and other leading institutions such as the Group of 7/8 (G7/8), which now has an entire book series devoted to it, are commonplace. In contrast, apart from a smattering of texts authored by the OECD’s own staff (OECD 1971; Sullivan 1997) and a small literature examining the organization’s role in the global trading system (Blair 1993; Cohn 2002), the last single-authored book written in English by an outsider and focussing exclusively on the OECD’s role in global affairs was published nearly forty years ago (Aubrey 1967; Woodward 2007a). More specialized work detailing the history and evolution of transatlantic governance is largely devoid of references to the OECD. One contributor to Gardner and Stefanova’s collection The New Transatlantic Agenda (2001) asserts that ‘the “OECD world” is, first of all, a transatlantic world’ (May 2001: 185) but there is only one further reference to the organization in the volume. Pollack and Shaffer’s (2001) Transatlantic Governance in the Global Economy and Richard Cooper’s (1968) classic study of economic management among the Atlantic community, The Economics of Interdependence, provide greater coverage of the OECD and its predecessor the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) but again these references are sporadic and fragmented. A cursory survey of articles published in the last decade by what, according to the ISI Social Sciences Citation Index, are thetwenty highest impact international relations journals reveals a comparable pattern (see Table 3.1). In purely quantitative terms the OECD does not fair too badly. The WTO is clearly the frontrunner, being the subject of 211 articles during the period, but the OECD with thirty-four articles is only slightly behind the IMF (48) and is ahead of the World Bank (26) and the G7/8 (5). However, only 15 of these 34 articles contain substantive material about the organization, its work or its broader contribution to global governance. The remaining articles were using OECD countries as a basis for comparison. Finally, the OECD lacks the public profile associated with other international organizations. Anti-globalization protests have marred OECD gatherings in Paris (February 1998), Bologna (June 2000) and Naples (March 2001) but typically OECD meetings are low-key affairs passing off without the media comment, sabre rattling and general razzmatazz that accompany the IMF, WTO and the G8.

Over the past decade developed states have committed significant public financing for climate change adaptation. Much of this public financing flows through international development organizations. States have delegated the implementation and monitoring of adaptation to existing international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Scholars have noted that states delegate discretion to specialized organizations to perform a task on their behalf, but have not explored how uncertainties about the nature of the task affect delegation. This article addresses this gap by distinguishing the concept of epistemic ambiguity (when states are uncertain about the exact nature of a task) from strategic ambiguity (when states do not reach consensus over a task due to political differences) in order to address the question: how have states and international organizations defined and implemented adaptation activities? The question is answered through case studies of: (1) adaptation projects administered by the United Nations Development Programme and the International Organization for Migration in Kenya; and (2) states’ and international organizations’ attempts to develop methodologies for reporting adaptation financing. The case studies are based on: primary documents published by states and international organizations, secondary literature on climate finance, and interviews with adaptation experts. This article argues that states have not precisely defined adaptation, and that this is substantially due to epistemic ambiguity. It then identifies two consequences of epistemic ambiguity: a proliferation of activities labelled as adaptation, and difficulties tracking and monitoring adaptation assistance.

Born in response to economic and financial crises which existing institutions were unable to address adequately, the G20 transformed from a crisis management group into the premier forum for international economic cooperation. Like its predecessor, the G7 (which was set up in 1975), and BRICS (established in 2009), G20 is an informal club or summit institution. To ensure continuity, legitimacy and efficiency in fulfilling their global governance functions of deliberation, direction-setting, decision-making, delivery and the development of global governance, the G20 members engage other international organizations. It is hypothesized that to maximize benefits from its engagement with international organizations, the G20 resorts to a combination of the “catalyst”, “core group” and “parallel treatment” approaches exercised by summit institutions. These include exerting an influence in promoting changes to international organizations through endorsement or stimulus, compelling them to reform, imparting a new direction by giving a lead that the other organizations would follow, and creating original mechanisms, working in parallel with existing institutions. The article tests this assumption. To trace the dynamics of G20 engagement with multilateral organizations and identify preferred models across the presidencies and policy areas, the analysis is carried out within the rational choice institutionalist paradigm, drawing on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of documents adopted by the G20.Findings from the study indicate that the intensity of the G20 engagement with the IOs is very high and G20 mostly resorts to a combination of the catalyst and core group approaches, though the pattern depends on the policy area, the IOs and the presidency agenda. The intensity of G20 engagement with the IMF, Financial Stability Board, World Bank, and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development by far exceeds the intensity of its interaction with other institutions. The UN comes only seventh in the G20 discourse in terms of the sharing and intensity of references. There are very few cases of parallel treatment and most of them are in the sphere of infrastructure investment, which can be interpreted as a G20 response to a persistent gap in the demand and supply for infrastructure investment and governance leadership in this area. Thus in implementing the forum mission and functions, G20 prefer to engage with key international organizations, acting as “a hub of a global network”.The article starts with a brief overview of the study’s analytical paradigm and methodology. It then proceeds to examine the dynamics and modes of G20 engagement with international organizations across a wide spectrum of policy areas. The final section summaries and concludes.

This chapter by Sarah Cook reviews the role of the international organizations in promoting social investment. This chapter explores the ways in which a ‘social investment’ approach and terminology has been adopted and promoted by selected international development organizations, including international financial institutions, the United Nations, European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, as well as some international non-governmental organizations. It focuses on the period since the 1990s, when a ‘social turn’ in development policy emerged as a reaction to the devastating social consequences of Washington Consensus adjustment policies, foreshadowing the global commitment to poverty reduction through the Millenium Development Goals and the evolution of a range of new policy instruments to deliver on this social agenda; most notably through targeted and conditional cash transfers.. International organizations have played a significant role in the spread of such ideas and practices which can be identified with the social investment approach, if not always labelled as such. The widespread promotion of these new instruments in development contexts, however, tends to obscure significant differences in goals, values and approaches among organizations. While often justified in social investment terms, a strong theoretical case for the use of such instruments as development policy is lacking. Instead, the case is largely grounded in evidence of ‘what works’ for short-term results linked to organizational priorities, notably poverty alleviation, impacts on specific groups (women, children) and behavioural change (such as use of health and education services). Key words: social investment, international social welfare, international development organizations

Lately, the European Union (EU) has faced multiple internal and external challenges. The conceptual response of EU institutions was “A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy” (June 2016). At the core of the understanding of what was happening, as well as of the prospects of overcoming those crises, sat the concept of “resilience.” It has been some time since this concept appeared in the discourses of international organizations and its meaning remains volatile, situational and dependent on the scope of application, the relevant context and the authorship.The purpose of this study is to examine the specificity of use of the concept of resilience in the discourses of the EU and various international organizations, as well as the interrelation between those uses. The sample encompasses organizations of particular importance to the European integration project and to global and regional governance, including the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and those which comprise the United Nations system (the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, etc.). Since the empirical material consists mostly of official texts produced by international organizations, the preferred method of study is discourse analysis.The analysis examines the Brussels-advanced notion of resilience from a more distant perspective, namely, within the coordinate system of global and regional governance represented by Western-dominated multilateral institutions. The study identifies channels and agents responsible for the concept’s penetration into the discourses of the EU and other international organizations. Conclusions are drawn regarding similarities and divergences in the articulations of resilience. Particular focus is put on the interrelation between the concept and the neo-liberal approach to risk management and security.

This article is dedicated to examination of the challenging role of current international organizations in the production of knowledge, applicable to the context of globalization and global governance, as well as the required framework and mechanisms. The subject of this research is the mechanisms of international organizations, namely Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in the production of knowledge implemented within the global governance system. The goal consist in overview of the worldwide demand for knowledge in the context of the Dolowitz-Marsh Approach for the purpose of assessment of the prospects of the offered knowledge. Capabilities of OECD as a central standardized think tank, coupled with the role of NGOs within the global governance system, allow activating bilateral relations and transnational governance. Analysis is conducted on the existing hypothesis on the capacity of international organizations to produce knowledge in globalization era. The author carries out a detailed qualitative analysis of the mechanisms of OECD and other NGOs, and proposes new perspectives and a range of actions regarding their capability to provide a wide range of government institutions with the tools oriented towards increasing the efficiency. In this way, the nationalization of the results of policy testifies to the extensive internal review, based on the international standards, that reduce the role of political interference in the results of activity. The role of international organizations in the production of knowledge contributes to expansion of cooperation between all interested parties, which would be based on the results of activity, in terms of simultaneous ensuring standardized interaction and practice on a bilateral basis. This article gives a perspective on capabilities of the centralized, results-oriented production of knowledge and prospects for more extensive international cooperation and accountability of the governments.

In diesem Beitrag geht es um neue Perspektiven auf Bildungsraume, wie sie durch transnationale Bildungsorganisationen geschaffen werden. Der Text differenziert typologisch zwischen nationalen, internationalen (im Sinne von intergouvernementalen) und transnationalen Bildungsraumen und Organisationen. Zunachst stellt die Autorin in ihrem Beitrag diese neue Dimensionierung des Raumes vor, indem sie eine Systematisierung internationaler und transnationaler Organisationen liefert. So wird eine Kennzeichnung und damit Abgrenzung der neuen Dimensionen moglich. Durch die Einordnung der neuen Global in governance-theoretische Diskussionen wird insbesondere die Frage der Zusammenhange neuer Raume mit Machtstrukturen deutlich. Hierbei liegt der Nachdruck auf Herausforderungen von 'global governance' im Kontext von grenzuberschreitend tatigen Bildungsorganisationen. Der Beitrag ist grundlegend systematisch, liefert aber auch Beispiele, mit denen die Tragweite der theoretischen Betrachtung eindrucklich wird. (Autorin) Global Players in education have been discussed in respect to international governmental organizations (IGOs) such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as well as to international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), e.g. OXFAM (Oxford Committee for Famine Relief) as a lead agency in campaigns for education. Research on transnationalism and education, however, is much less developed and sometimes suffers from a lack of distinguishing between what is international and what is transnational. In the article it is suggested that transnational educational organizations might bear a challenge to national education systems as well as to international educational policy making in IGOs. They are therefore discussed with reference to an emerging 'global architecture' in education, in which different interests of national, international and transnational actors may be identified. For this matter the author will first define the concepts of educational spaces and transnational educational organizations, also distinguishing them from international ones. The article then proceeds to give an overview of transnational organizations and their educational operations under various profit and nonprofit arrangements, including some, which might be identified as 'global players'. In the next step the main ideas of global governance are introduced and related to educational policy making. The possible influences which transnational educational organizations might have will be discussed. The article concludes that, in general terms, transnational educational organizations hitherto seem to be less powerful than international, and the latter less powerful than national ones. This picture must, however, be differentiated, when applied to different sectors of education. It is suggested, that ‘compulsory education’ is and will be less affected by transnational actors than sectors outside and around this ‘core’ of national education systems, e.g. tutorial systems, language schools, continuing education, adult education. The case of higher education, however, remains highly debatable: In countries which already witness a high degree of privately run colleges and universities and/or other post-secondary institutions, transnational actors might come in and pose a challenge to national educational policy. (DIPF/Orig.)

In the past two decades, international organizations have been designing and promoting transnational benchmarks for evaluating the quality of governance. The World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have been competing in devising and legitimizing indices across policy areas. Previous studies have demonstrated how international organizations can influence national governments by means of governance indices. However, a comparative analysis is still missing of the choices international organizations have made in establishing their own indices of good governance. By focusing on regulatory reform, this paper attempts to fill this gap. It first sets a framework to compare the different types of authority that organizations can pursue through benchmarking. It then applies this framework to the specific case of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Bank, to examine how they differ in their conceptions of and use of policy benchmarking.

This dissertation project examines the Social Protection Floor Initiative (SPF-I), a global social policy initiative that brought together various international organizations which have traditionally had divergent social policy approaches. Since the launch of the SPF-I in 2009, most of the major international organizations in the development field became part of the Initiative and engaged in the Social Protection Floor (SPF) policy at varying levels. This project focuses on six international organizations, namely the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The overarching research question is, “what explains the extent of, and the variation in, the international organizations’ adoption of a given policy (in this case, the SPF)?” In order to explain the extent of policy adoption in international organizations, a policy adoption matrix has been developed. This matrix helps to identify each international organization as a policy leader, policy follower, or policy supporter based on the following parameters: the speed and the timing of policy adoption, the level of commitment, the breadth of organizational buy-in, and the scope of policy adoption. While the UNICEF, the UNDP, and the WHO are identified as policy leaders, the OECD is identified as a policy follower, and the World Bank and the IMF are identified as policy supporters. Next, this study explains why these international organizations are policy leaders, followers, or supporters. The analysis of policy adoption in the six international organizations reveals that: (i) the presence of policy entrepreneurs within relevant networks and the policy’s good fit in the organizations’ outlook explain why the UNICEF, the UNDP, and the WHO are policy leaders, (ii) the role of member states and the policy’s poor fit in the organization’s outlook explain the OECD’s role as a policy follower, and (iii) the external pressures and the policy’s poor fit in the organizations’ outlook explain why the World Bank and the IMF are policy supporters. This analysis concludes with an analytical framework towards a theory of policy adoption in international organizations.

Introduction While international organizations are generally created for longer periods of time, indeed usually even without any definite time period in mind, not all of them manage to survive indefinitely. Some simply disappear without being succeeded to in any way; prime examples are the Warsaw Pact and Comecon, both of which were dismantled after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 26 June 1991, a ministerial meeting of Comecon members decided to dissolve the organization; the Warsaw Pact was disbanded at a meeting of its Political Consultative Committee in Prague, on 1 July 1991. In other cases, organizations are remodelled to cope with new or unexpected demands, or are succeeded by new entities providing similar services and exercising similar functions to their predecessors. The most famous example is, in all likelihood, that of the League of Nations which, for all practical if not all legal purposes, has found a successor in the United Nations. Others include the ‘reconstitution’ of the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) into the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the transformation of the Brussels Pact into the Western European Union (WEU), and the transition from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

What made me write this book was a feeling that students of international economics needed to fin out their knowledge of the theory with work on the practice of the major international economic organizations, many of which are having a growing influence on the national economies of their members. There was no single volume given over to a concise treatment of these organizations. of the international organizations themselves can be con The annual reports sulted, of course, but as a rule these are not noted for being brief and to the point (the items of importance have to be fished out of a sea of useless detail), nor do they go in for criticism of their own activities. In selecting the organizations to be dealt with in the book I was guided by the influence they exert. I have left out those whose activities consist mainly in the drafting recommendations to which, however meritorious they may be, little or no attention is paid. Some of them are included in the Introduction, which provides a summary of a number of institutions not discussed separately in the body of the work. There are, however, two exceptions: the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as the organization replacing the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) whose meetings have succeeded in drawing much attention of the press."