The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 1961–2011: Challenges for the Next 50 Years
| Author | Judith Clifton,Daniel Díaz‐Fuentes |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00127.x |
| Published date | 01 October 2011 |
| Date | 01 October 2011 |
The Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development
1961–2011: Challenges for the Next
50 Years
Judith Clifton and
Daniel Díaz-Fuentes
Universidad de Cantabria
Fifty years have passed since the Organisation for Eco-
nomic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ratified its
Convention and hence officially replaced its predecessor,
the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation
(OEEC). The celebration of half a decade of institutional
activities is the first reason for organising this special
section of Global Policy. We use this historic anniversary
to reflect critically on this organisation, from its origins,
evolving from the OEEC, whose mandate was to manage
the Marshall Plan in the reconstruction of postwar Eur-
ope, to examine its future, particularly its attempts to
transcend its past as a transatlantic ‘club’ in order to
become a more global institution, with the aim of better
contributing to the governance of a world economy that
is shifting firmly towards the east and the south. The
ongoing financial and economic crisis only reaffirms the
need for urgent renewal of the international economic
institutions (Wolf, 2011). But there are two other, major
reasons that warrant further analysis of this organisation.
First, in comparison with most other major interna-
tional economic organisations, relatively little material
has been published on the OECD as regards its gover-
nance, impact, institutional dynamics and major chal-
lenges. Even today, it remains something of a paradox
that an organisation comprising major economies which,
despite the rise of Asia and other regions, still over-
shadow the rest of the world as regards trade, invest-
ment and GDP, has not received as much attention as it
might from scholars in the fields of international rela-
tions, political science and economics. By way of illustra-
tion, among the research articles published on the key
international organisations in the prestigious journal
International Organization from 1961 to 2011, only half a
dozen centred on the OECD, compared with an average
of one article every two years on the North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation, the OECD’s military counterpart.
Often, chapters on the OECD are missing in leading text-
books on international organisations (for instance, Hurd,
2011). Fortunately, in recent years, scholars have
increased their attention to the organisation, resulting in
an emerging body of literature on the evolution, institu-
tional dynamics and policy processes of the OECD
(important studies include Mahon and McBride, 2008;
Woodward, 2009; Martens and Jacobi, 2010). This
recently emerging literature is providing a foundation
upon which better knowledge and understanding of the
OECD can be built and, on that basis, decisions on what
directions its renewal and reform should be aimed
towards in order to contribute better to the governance
of the global economy.
A second, major, reason for focusing our attention on
the OECD is that it is currently facing its biggest organi-
sational challenge yet. It is true that, like most other
organisations, the OECD has regularly faced the challenge
of having to prove its continued relevance as the world
around it evolves. Founded as the OEEC, with the prime
task of helping redistribute the Marshall Plan towards
the reconstruction of postwar Europe, questions were
asked about what do to with the organisation when that
job had been completed. The decision was taken to con-
vert the OEEC into a transatlantic organisation in 1961,
with the prime aim of coordinating economic policy
among members, plus the new additions: the United
States, Canada and Spain (Aubrey, 1967). Soon after-
wards, as European integration deepened in the late
1960s and early 1970s, the European Community was
seen as an important organisational rival (Camps, 1975).
By the end of the 1980s, with the collapse of commu-
nism, more pressure was exerted on the OECD to prove
its usefulness now that it was no longer needed as a
bloc of capitalist economies. However, its contemporary
challenge represents its most significant one thus far.
For decades, the OECD was labelled ‘the club of rich
nations’, and its main hallmark was the production of
economic data and analysis, whose solidity and reputa-
tion were attested to by the economic success of its
Global Policy Volume 2 . Issue 3 . October 2011
Global Policy (2011) 2:3 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00127.x ª2011 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Introduction to Special Section
297
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