Description

The OECD and Transnational Governance

Edited by Rianne Mahon and Stephen McBride

  • Published: August 2009
  • Subject Listing: International Studies, Globalization
  • Bibliographic information: Orig. pub. 2008. 304 pp., 6 x 9 in.
  • Territorial rights: U.S. rights only
  • Distributed for: UBC Press
  • Contents

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is a much cited but little studied institution, and its role in international governance is poorly understood. Nevertheless, the OECD plays an important role in the emerging structure of global governance. Focusing upon the OECD's core functions, contributors to this volume trace the OECD's history, structure, and role in international governance as well as its function as a "policy ideas generator" and purveyor of "best practices" in a variety of economic and social policy domains.

This book fills an important gap in the literature on global governance and will be of interest to academics, students, and practitioners in a variety of disciplines.

Rianne Mahon is Chancellor's professor and Director of the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University, Ottawa. Stephen McBride is a professor and Director of the Centre for Global Political Economy at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby.

"A welcome and original addition to the surprisingly scarce published literature on the OECD. Mahon and McBride's volume covers a broad range of policy areas, as well as encompassing an historical perspective. It is also up to date on recent developments and will be very useful to scholars of international relations, public policy, and global governance. " - Kerstin Jacobsson, co-editor of Learning to be Employable: New Agendas on Work, Responsibility, and Learning in a Globalizing World

"The OECD and Transnational Governance is a remarkable book for two reasons. First, it is an important contribution to debates about global governance and the place of advice-dispensing institutions such as the OECD. Second, it provides a thorough and critical analysis of a large number of policy sectors of this key institution. Its range makes it a very thorough and valuable collection." - Robert O'Brien, co-editor of the journal, Global Social Policy
Contents
Acknowledgments

Introduction / Rianne Mahon and Stephen McBride

Part 1: The OECD and Transnational Governance

1) From Reconstructing Europe to Constructing Globalization: The OECD in Historical Perspective / Robert Wolfe
2) Role of the OECD in the Orchestration of Global Knowledge Networks / Tony Porter and Michael Webb
3) Inversions without End: The OECD and Global Public Management Reform / Leslie A. Pal
4) Towards Complex Multilateralism? Civil Society and the OECD / Richard Woodward
5) Making Neo-Gramscian Sense of the Development Assistance Committee: Towards an Inclusive Neoliberal World Development Order / Arne Ruckert

Part 2: Governance and Economies

6) The OECD and Foreign Investment Rules: The Global Promotion of Liberalization / Russell Alan Williams
7) The OECD's Local Turn: "Innovative Liberalism" for the Cities? / Neil Bradford
8) Policy Learning? The OECD and Its Jobs Strategy / Stephen McBride, Kathleen McNutt, and Russell Alan Williams
9) "Crafting the Conventional Economic Wisdom": The OECD and the Canadian Policy Process / Andrew Jackson
10) Lost in Translation? OECD Ideas and Danish Labour Market Policy / Holly Grinvalds

Part 3: Governance and the Social

11) The OECD's Guidelines for the Licensing of Genetic Inventions: Policy Learning in Response to the Gene Patenting Controversy / Lisa Drouillard and E. Richard Gold
12) The OECD's Social and Health Policy: Neoliberal Stalking Horse or Balancer of Social and Economic Objectives? / Bob Deacon and Alexandra Kaasch
13) OECD Education Policies and World Hegemony / Kjell Rubenson
14) Babies and Bosses: Gendering the OECD's Social Policy Discourse / Rianne Mahon

Conclusion / Stephen McBride and Rianne Mahon

References
Contributors
Index
Reviews