About the book
This comprehensive Companion analyses the relevance of the OECD as a transnational policy maker, idea broker and standard setter. Bringing together diverse disciplines and methodologies, it establishes the influence of the OECD on modern understandings of governance.
Through scholarly reviews and original empirical analyses, this Companion covers the evolution and structure of the OECD, its role in transnational policy making and its domestic impact. It consolidates work from disciplines including economics, social policy, history, international relations and legal studies to critically analyse the concepts, methods and tools of governance in global policy making. Contributors explore the comparative impact of the OECD in developed and developing countries, the OECD’s work in various policy sectors and emerging issues on the OECD’s agenda such as governance reform, cyber-security and sustainability. Ultimately, the Companion advances inter-disciplinary knowledge of the OECD’s methods of governance and position in global politics.
Providing in-depth insight on the structure and impact of the OECD, The Elgar Companion to the OECD will be an authoritative and original reference text for scholars and students of global governance, international relations, political economy and public policy. It will also be essential reading for practitioners seeking to better understand modern global governance and public policy.
The OECD as an international bureaucracy
International bureaucracies constitute distinct and important features of both global governance studies and public administration scholarship. This chapter discusses key questions of this field of research and empirically illustrates the development of the OECD secretariat. The chapter shows how an established international bureaucracy still is in the making. The OECD is reaching out with a view to maintaining its relevance. By admitting new members, including new issue-areas and adopting new analytical philosophies, the organization seeks to play a role in global governance. It has become a global multi-organization. Yet, expansion does not come without a price. One key challenge is to keep bits and pieces of the organization together. There is a risk of organizational overstretch and fragmentation as the secretariat is stretched to its limits. The OECD secretariat is rifted between integration and fragmentation, autonomy and dependencies, and between classic macroeconomics and ‘neo-economics’. In short, the OECD is still an organization in the making.
Full info
Chapter 7: The OECD as an international bureaucracy
Martin Marcussen and Jarle Trondal
In: The Elgar Companion to the OECD
Fabrizio De Francesco and Claudio M. Radaelli (eds)
Edward Elgar (2023)
ISBN: 978 1 80088 686 5