The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Global Institutions Series.

Momani, Bessma ; Menzies, Xenia Maren

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Global Institutions Series By RICHARD WOODWARD. New York: Routledge, 2009. Pp. xi, 156, bibliographic references, index.

The OECD: A Study of Organisational Adaptation By PETER CARROLL and AYNSLEY KELLOW. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2011. Pp. v, 301, bibliographic references, index.

Frontiers of Governance: The OECD and Global Public Management Reform By LESLIE A. PAL. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Pp. v, 283, bibliographic references, index.

While often overlooked as a pillar in the global governance architecture, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) remains an important international institution that plays an active role in shaping key international policies and norms. Compared to better known international economic organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, the OECD has not garnered the same level of media and public attention. At first blush, it is as though this organization is purposely elusive; yet its lesser known identity makes it a valuable forum for government officials and ministers to meet with counterparts, experts and international representatives of industry, labour and civil society. In Pal's words, the OECD offers policymakers and stakeholders a "safe" place for frank discussion and sharing of cross-national ideas on key policy matters (p. 16). For these very reasons, the OECD merits academic attention in the study of international relations, international organizations, global governance and international public administration--tasks done well by the three books reviewed.

All three books describe an OECD that holds tightly to its core tenets of cooperation among democratic, market-based economies. Starting as the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation, with its purpose to coordinate postwar European economies receiving US Marshall Plan aid, the OECD has played many leading and supporting roles in international economic policy coordination. The OECD expanded its role beyond serving as a forum for member countries to providing advice on important issues, such as social and environmental policy, which were key to economic coordination and growth. Consequently, the role of the OECD is akin to an intergovernmental secretariat: part intergovernmental agreement forum and part international organization. Moreover, with a strong research arm, the OECD is also a "hybrid" actor, playing both a diplomatic and think tank role (Pal: 23). With its enlargement and enhanced engagement, the OECD facilitates cooperation among a broader and broadening range of members and an increasing number of non-member participants in its over 250 committees and sub-groups (Woodward: 52).

As all three books chronicle and debate, the OECD bas indeed found new roles in changing times. While other international economic institutions like the IMF or the World Bank possess carrots and sticks, the OECD influences its members by relying upon its prowess and reputation in research, support, coordination and peer-review systems. In many ways this makes the OECD a more trusted advisor than the Bretton Woods organizations. The three books reviewed trace and assess OECD influence, noting issues and occasions when OECD influence has worked and where the organization stands to be reformed.

Part of Routledge's Global Institutions series of short monographs, Richard Woodward's Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) provides a thorough historical account of the organization, covering key moments in its organizational evolution through tales of its many secretaries general. Woodward provides an enlightening theoretical framework in which to understand the the OECD's role in global governance, the four dimensions of which are 1) cognitive: as the embodiment of intergovernmental cooperation with shared objectives; 2) normative: with the OECD's capacity to produce and propagate research, knowledge and ideas; 3) legal: in the international law created in decisions; and 4) palliative: as "a lubricant to the wider processes of global governance" (Woodward: 6). The book also delves into key issues, such as health, education and taxation, covered by the organization's mandate and the challenges the OECD faces to remain a "go-to place" for relevant information when primarily known as an organization most concerned with economic coordination. Written in a pithy and yet illustrative manner, the book ends with two excellent chapters on both current issues facing the OECD and prospects for organizational reform. This book is highly recommended for political scientists and international political economy specialists.

In contrast to Woodward, Peter Carroll and Aynsley Kellow's The OECD: A Study of Organisational Adaptation is written with a stronger functionalist rationale and provides a more extensive anatomy of the organization, its systems and its evolution. The first part of this lengthy book is broken into time segments covering important developments as well as detailed cases of systems, reports and processes that emerged during each era. The focus here is much more on the OECD as an organization, its functions, mandates, and its adaptation to changing external circumstances. Carroll and Kellow worked with an abundance of primary material from the OECD archives, much of it only recently released, as well as with interviews that they conducted with heads of delegation, officials and OECD staff, including two secretaries general. Carroll and Kellow also include in-depth chapters on the OECD's relationships with civil society and other international organizations, as well as its expanding purview on issues such the environment and health. This book is recommended for those interested in understanding the OECD's history, legal mandate and organizational structure. It might not provide much of interest for those trying to better understand its role in the global governance system or to those who are searching for political undercurrents of the organization.

In contrast to the previous two noted books, Leslie A. Pal's Frontiers of Governance: The OECD and Public Management Reform focusses on the OECD's role in the formation and transmission of international policy norms. Pal describes this approach as rooted in the work of constructivist international relations scholars, influenced by Barnett and Finnemore's Rules of the World, "who emphasize the importance of norms and norm-setting as key drivers of global politics" (Pal: 249). That said, Pal borrows more inspiration from literature on policy transfer, epistemic communities and networks than on constructivists' emphasis on organizational culture, norms and pathology. Pal depicts the OECD as a service-oriented institution that tries to solve policy problems for its clients, member governments, while keeping the overall goal of promoting free market policies around the globe. As New Public Management and ideas related to public sector reform took off in the 1980s as a global movement, the OECD found itself with an added role. Here is where successful management of members' public service becomes an implicit aire of the OECD. Yet, the OECD view of what "best practices" in government ought to look like are fuzzier than the Washington Consensus, for example, but Pal notes that it is comprised of a complex layering of ideas. These ideas are then transferred to member countries through its nodal role as a trusted advisor. Pal finds evidence of this policy transfer through process tracing and case studies. He follows the evolution of the OECD's influence in promoting "modern" government through 30 years of the work of its various centres, committees and organizational offices. Pal also delves into the organizational structure of the OECD to point out how its "variable architecture" and decentralized nature can, at times, provide the organization with the "suppleness" needed to carry out its tasks (p. 85). This book is a longer and more detailed read than the previous books examined, but nonetheless provides valuable insights into understanding the "pathways and mechanisms" of international organizations' influence in the global political economy. While still of interest to public policy specialists and scholars of public administration, Pal's book is likely more valuable to international political economy specialists with an interest in organizational specifics of the OECD and to those studying policy transfer, diffusion and adaptation.

All three books are geared for scholars, students and officials working on the OECD and its related institutions and work areas. Woodward's book is recommended as a short but comprehensive overview of the institution and its key issues. Carroll and Kellow's book is recommended not only for those with a focus on the processes and evolution of the organization, especially on its work in specific sectors like health or the environment, but also because of its abundance of shorter one- to four-page sections on specific processes or developments, which are well indexed near the end of the book. Pal's volume would be of greatest interest to those studying norm transfers and the OECD's relationship with states attempting to promote best practices or the convergence of ideas and policies in the global political economy. Pal's book would be particularly interesting for public administration scholars and practitioners given its broad and deep descriptions and analyses of the OECD's governance pillars and themes, as well as its case studies of the OECD's influence in Finnish and Canadian legislative debates. These three books will provide readers with many answers to their questions about the OECD, but their theoretical richness will prompt many new questions as well.

Bessma Momani is Associate Professor, Balsillie School of International Affairs and the University of Waterloo, Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, Ontario, and Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

Xenia Maren Menzies is a Master of Arts candidate in Global Governance, Balsillie School of International Affairs and Junior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, Ontario.