The OECD: actor, arena, instrument

ABSTRACT

This article suggests that it is in the vicissitudes of the OECD’s internal developments that we can better understand how the OECD developed into a global policy actor and reference in education. From an ontological perspective, the article focuses on the three characteristics dimensions of IGOs – actor, arena, instrument – and examines how these are constitutive of the OECD, as reflected in the OECD’s work in education. The idea of ‘dimension’ allows the inquiry to move forward from the idea of ‘roles’ or ‘functions’ that the organisation, voluntarily or otherwise, chooses to play in a given situation, to develop more textured interpretations, in which the organisation’s intergovernmental and organisational facets, besides its acknowledged political facet, are also taken into account. The historical analysis focuses on the early 1970s. It demonstrates the overlapping and interplay between the three dimensions, as well as their constitutive effects on the OECD’s work. It is the ‘lively’ pluridimensionality of the OECD that has enabled the educational activities to prove their way within the organisation. The OECD’s pluridimensionality reveals that the organisation does not operate in a vacuum, and that it is neither a monolithic nor an insulated organisation.

KEYWORDS:

• OECD
• CERI
• ontology
• bureaucracy
• pluridimensionality

Introduction

How the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) became a major reference in education governance is a question that has intrigued scholars for decades. The OECD has been able to frame and steer educational ideas, debates and policies (e.g. Rinne, Kallo, and Hokka 2004), and to progressively expand its governance mechanisms (e.g. Jakobi 2009). The OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) increased the organisation’s role in global education governance (e.g. Grek 2009) by developing its infrastructural and epistemological functions (Sellar and Lingard 2013). Following PISA, other assessments have strengthened the organisation’s agency far beyond the original OECD’s world (e.g. Addey 2017) and scale of influence (e.g. Lewis 2020; Sorensen and Robertson 2020).

Yet, how educational agendas not only survived but even got strengthened within the OECD is a less studied question. The OECD does not have an official mandate for education, and educational activities were frequently not recognised within the OECD (Eide 1990; Papadopoulos 1994). Recent studies showed that, on the fringes of the OECD’s activities, the work in education endured successive budgetary cuts (Centeno 2017) and ‘struggled for survival’ since the onset (Ydesen and Grek 2019). Educational agendas have been embedded in, or subject to, troubled geopolitics and powerful countries’ interests and worldviews (Mundy 2007; Bürgi 2019; Elfert and Ydesen 2020), as well as multidirectional processes of knowledge production between domestic and international scales (Centeno 2017).

This article suggests that it is exactly in the vicissitudes of the OECD’s internal developments that we can better understand how the OECD developed into a global policy actor and reference in education. In taking an ontological perspective (Hurd 2011), that is, in focusing on what the OECD is rather than only on how it acts or what it does (Barnett and Finnemore 1999), the article elaborates on the three characteristic dimensions of IGOs, those of actor, arena and instrument (Archer 2001; Hurd 2011), and examines how these dimensions are constitutive of the OECD, as reflected in the OECD’s work in education. Thus, in contrast to most studies that also envisage the organisation as a policy actor, the present article understands the ‘actorness’ of the OECD as one of its dimensions, along with that of ‘arena’ and ‘instrument’. The idea of ‘dimension’ allows the inquiry to move forward from the idea of ‘roles’ or ‘functions’ that the organisation, voluntarily or otherwise, chooses to play in a given situation, to develop more textured interpretations, in which the organisation’s intergovernmental and organisational facets, besides its acknowledged political facet, are also taken into account (Woodward 2009; Martens and Jakobi 2010; Carroll and Kellow 2011). The article adopts an eclectic approach based on the understanding that, as all IGOs, the OECD has overlapping and conflicting institutional, legal, social and political responsibilities. This complexity lends itself to equally complex approaches (e.g. Barnett 2002), in which complementary theoretical underpinnings are needed to grasp the different dimensions of the OECD’s nature and work.

The article argues that it is precisely the ‘lively’ pluridimensionality of the OECD that has enabled the educational activities to prove their way within the organisation. The historical analysis focuses on the early 1970s. These were years of international crises and changes that threatened the very functionality of the OECD (Woodward 2009); reorganisations and realignments took place within the OECD, and yet, instead of fading, the work in education prospered and the OECD educational agendas decisively entered into the international debate (Centeno 2017). The analysis shows that, as an IGO, the OECD overcame international and institutional uncertainties by strengthening its sources of bureaucratic authority (dimension of actor); in either concurrency or relationship with specific internal dynamics (dimension of arena); and in interaction with particular countries and other IGOs (dimension of instrument). These dynamics and interactions, together with the international challenges, provided in turn the enabling environment for the OECD’s actorness (dimension of actor).

This ontological perspective offers a re-reading of the OECD’s historical development by turning the analytical focus to the backstage of the organisation, it conceptually moves beyond top-down approaches of knowledge and policy production, diffusion and reception, while empirically contributing to the historiography of the OECD by exploring less studied primary sources.

The article is structured as follow. In line with the purpose of ontological approaches, the first section is concerned with ‘what is it that we are talking about’ (Lawson 2004). Based on a literature review, it provides a preliminary non-exhaustive analytic description of what makes these dimensions constitutive of the OECD, i.e. what are the elements, processes and relations of these dimensions and how they determine the OECD’s operation and work – mostly from the perspective of the education section and its activities. The second section provides, according to the three dimensions, an historical analysis of internal developments that were crucial to the development of the OECD and its educational activities. It focuses on the interrelationships between the ‘soul search’ in the early 1970s (Wolfe 2008), the 1975 reorganisation, the failed attempt to transform CERI into a social centre, and the rapid emergence of OECD’s first comprehensive educational agenda, ‘Recurrent Education’ (1969–1975). This section builds on previous research about the OECD’s educational agendas (Centeno 2017), drawing particularly on the analysis of internal documents, such as background studies, working reports, and meetings’ minutes (material from the OECD archives in Paris; documents’ original references are kept). The last section sums up the main ideas of the article and suggests that further attention should be given to patterns in the development of the OECD’s educational activities.

The OECD from the perspective of its three ontological dimensions: actor, arena and instrument

As any intergovernmental organisation (IGO), the OECD is a pluridimensional institution. The ontology of IGOs is that they can be actors on their own, as much as places of activity and resources for various players (Hurd 2011). As Archer (2001) described, as policy actors, IGOs act autonomously of their membership; their functioning bureaucracy enables them to make their own decisions over and beyond their membership, and therefore to act in their own right; as policy arenas, they provide places where members can discuss matters of common interest, as well as offer platforms from which members can develop common views or challenge each other; as policy instrument, they can be used in a multiplicity of ways; for example, they may induce changes or legitimate already-taken decisions in domestic debates; they may also enable diplomatic interactions, while simultaneously serving as a battleground for members seeking to control or have influence over the organisation. As Henry et al. (2001) remarked, Archer’s typology provides a useful starting point to discuss the complexity involved in the OECD’s activities.

Yet, it must also be acknowledged that Archer’s view embodies a state-centric view classical in international relations approaches (Koch and Stetter 2013). Thus, in seeking to move beyond the statist view, the article elaborates further on each dimension by drawing on existing research. The next sections explore how these dimensions are constitutive of the OECD and – though not limited to – its work in education.

The OECD’s dimension of actor – autonomy, authority and agency

Clive Archer (2001) aptly identifies IGO’s autonomy as the basis of this dimension, and bureaucracy as its enabler; however, IGO’s agency is mostly narrowed down to activities that somehow fall under states’ mandate, and thus IGOs are conceived as acting on behalf of at least some of their members. Barnett and Finnemore (1999) challenged this statist view and further developed the view of IGOs as bureaucracies that embody culturally legitimate forms of authority; as sites of authority, in turn, IGOs become autonomous of their constituency. This ontological autonomy provides IGOs with an agency that goes far beyond their constituencies’ interests; IGOs emerge as purposive actors.

To understand what gives the OECD the capability of being an actor, we need to look in-house and understand which, and how, particular characteristics of bureaucracy (Barnett and Finnemore 1999) have a constitutive effect on the OECD’s agency. The ontological characteristics are sources of agency that shape the OECD’s autonomy backstage. As in-house legitimate forms of authority, they develop into sources of influence in the ‘front stage’ of world politics. The OECD has overcome international and institutional challenges by reinforcing these sources of agency internally. Phrased differently, the OECD has secured its actorness by strengthening its bureaucratic characteristics.

Concentration of expertise and control of information by the Secretariat

Barnett and Finnemore (1999) explain that expertise and information provide IGOs with rational authority, which, in turn, provides them with regulatory power, and consequently with autonomy to act. In practice, concentration of expertise and control of information lies in the hands of the Secretariat, thus, recognising IGOs as actors implies to examine ‘who’ is the Secretariat, its views and actions (Barnett 2002; Bode 2015).

In the case of the OECD, it is particularly worth to highlight the Secretariat profile, because it is exactly its profile that seems to validate the concentration of expertise and control of information in the eyes of its constituency (e.g. Henry et al. 2001; Centeno 2017; Kallo 2020). The OECD Secretariat concentrates specialised knowledge, training and experience, as seen by relevant degrees and working positions on the domestic scale and/or in other IGOs (Centeno 2017; Ydesen and Grek 2019). Besides this technical expertise, English and social skills (Kallo 2006; Centeno 2017), conflict management and political politeness (Eide 1990; Papadopoulos 1994) are also tacit recruitment requirements. The multifaceted expertise of the OECD Secretariat is coupled with a control of information that comes from the Secretariat’s administrative, research and political tasks (Henry et al. 2001; Centeno 2017). These tasks, in turn, enable the Secretariat to construct vast networks across sectors and scales. These ‘networks of influence’ (Henry et al. 2001, 60) work through formal and informal governmental channels, and underpin the OECD’s agency. It is this combination of technical, social, and political skills that characterises the OECD Secretariat, in contrast to other IGO Secretariats, in which technical expertise seems to be the deciding factor (Barnett and Finnemore 1999). As we will see, countries not only expect, but also admire and encourage the Secretariat’s concentration of expertise and control of information.

A strong organisational identity built on its institutional ‘uniqueness’

IGOs develop strong organisational cultures, which not only shape their own identity, but also the identity of those working within them (Barnett and Finnemore 1999). IGOs’ specific institutional apparatuses and workings mould the views of both institutions and individuals (Barnett 2002). It is also in this sense that IGOs may be considered purposive actors.

The OECD’s strong organisational identity is rooted in what distinguishes it from other IGOs, namely its institutional profile and horizontal approach to policy issues. In contrast to supranational structures, such as those within the United Nations system, the OECD was never meant to issue binding decisions (Martens and Jakobi 2010) and always had a direction-setting nature (Ougaard 2010) based on solid values (Kallo 2006), agenda setting and surveillance mechanisms (Mahon and McBride 2008). This institutional profile explains the required like-mindedness of its membership, whose perceived homogeneity, together with the OECD’s mandate and decision-making procedures makes the organisation attractive to countries (Stek 1994).

Besides its ‘unique’ profile, the OECD is also cherished for its ‘unique’ horizontal approach to policy development. In 1970, the Secretary-General van Lennep introduced the idea that different fields of policy must be brought together under an integrated approach (Centeno 2017). This characterises the OECD’s workings, in which various organisational bodies collaborate to conduct activities that cut across the organisational structure. The horizontal approach is still considered the OECD’s vantage point for dealing with challenges (e.g. OECD 2012). The perceived ‘uniqueness’ of the OECD strongly shapes the organisation’s identity, and its sense of agency.

The ability to structure knowledge through multilateral studies

IGO’s autonomy and authority flow from the power they exercise by structuring knowledge (Barnett and Finnemore 1999). In other words, IOs’ ability to structure knowledge allows them to behave in their own interest by shaping others’ interests.

The OECD’s ability to structure global knowledge is based on its multilateral studies. These entail ‘classifying the world’ and ‘creating categories of problems, actors, and action’; ‘fixing meanings in the social world’; and ‘articulating and diffusing new norms and rules’ (Barnett and Finnemore 1999, 710). The OECD’s panoply of multilateral analyses (e.g. reviews and international large-scale assessments) allows it to regularly produce and disseminate legitimate discourses, thereby exerting policy influence on governments (Mahon and McBride 2008; Martens and Jakobi 2010).

As we are going to see, the multilateral analyses are recognised sources of agency because they symbolise an expertise that, within the OECD, is seen as unique of the OECD, due to its Secretariat, its institutional profile and its horizontal approach to policy. This is perfectly exemplified by the 2011 OECD’s renewed self-description and related socioeconomic agenda: an organisation ‘that works to build better policies for better lives’ by ‘setting standards and good practices’ such as the Better Life Index (OECD website). This type of initiative perfectly materialises the OECD’s actorness which is cherished in-house.

The OECD’s dimension of arena – organisational and intergovernmental dynamics

Archer (2001) identified IGOs as arenas, as an attempt to study what happens within IGOs. Yet, Archer was concerned with the roles that IGOs adopt in serving States: as meeting places, IGOs provide the facilities and opportunities for States to entertain their relations, and as forums they offer ancillary services and conciliatory approaches. Thus, research remained focused on the front stage of IGO’s activities and their political consequences for States.

If we take an ontological view, however, and refer to the dimension of arena as constituting the very nature of IGOs, what becomes relevant is how the dimension of arena shapes IGOs and their agendas. It is the constitutive impact of the internal environment that is under scrutiny. Thus, in tackling the dimension of arena, I draw on Martens and Jakobi’s (2010, 13) suggestion that the OECD’s ‘internal dynamics’ provide important conditions for the organisation’s work; they relate to the structural conditions by which the ‘organization is constrained’ – the organisational setting – but also to the ‘varying influences’ within the OECD – the intergovernmental place. I consider each feature in turn.

The OECD as an organisational setting

IGOs have specific capacities and limitations that derive from their own organisational structure. The OECD is particularly marked by its accentuated intergovernmental structure (Carroll and Kellow 2011).¹ It enables countries to have a decision-making power at both the summit and sector-specific activity levels. Countries’ direct involvement throughout the organisational ladder makes the organisational architecture complex. Bodies have different degrees of decision-making power, funding sources, membership and even autonomy from the organisational structure. Against this intricate setting, institutional relationships of subsidiarity, cooperation and competition unfold into volatile internal dynamics, which nevertheless provide the conditions for internal workings (Martens and Jakobi 2010; Centeno 2017).

Two institutional relationships are of particular importance for this study. First, the subsidiary relationship between the Council and both the Education Committee and the Governing Board of the CERI (CERI-GB). These, as other similar decision-making bodies in education, are since their creation dependent on the Council’s renewal of their temporary mandates. The Council’s favourable decisions have historically been made on the grounds of the financial contributions their activities brought to the OECD (Eide 1990; Henry et al. 2001; Centeno 2017). The Council’s reviews permanently brought uncertainty and vulnerability to the OECD work in education, whose programme regularly had to be readjusted to meet the Council’s agendas and economic codes (Centeno 2017).

The second central relationship is that between the Education Committee and the CERI. Institutional bodies are supposed to complement each other as to reach the organisation’s objectives. Yet, because of their different institutional profiles, they often end up by developing different working cultures and organisational visions. The Education Committee and CERI illustrate well this situation. The former is composed by official representatives from all member states, while CERI is a semiautonomous body that reports directly to the Council. CERI–GB is negotiated on an individual basis. The Council appoint experts at countries’ suggestion.² The Education Committee mostly deals with quantitative data and policy steering, while CERI works on research-based projects, which nevertheless always provide policy implications. CERI has historically proven to be a laboratory for new agendas and policies, as it enjoys more freedom within the organisational structure (Centeno 2019); projects that raised contestation or little interest under the Education Committee frequently ended up being developed in the CERI (Centeno 2019; Hof and Bürgi, 2021). Since CERI’s creation, differences in their institutional profiles led to tensions and conflicts between the two bodies, as well as among their staff (Centeno 2019). In one way or another, as illustrated later in this article, frictions have frequently developed around CERI, causing unforeseen internal dynamics that have shaped the OECD’s workings and agendas.

The OECD as an intergovernmental place

The OECD is a locus of much discussion and contestation, and influence mechanisms and strategies are openly used to channel agendas and interests. In the area of education, countries tried to increase their influence mostly in two ways. First, countries regularly exerted pressure on agenda setting through funding. In general, large member countries have more influence because of their corresponding funding to the OECD’s core budget. In this regard, the USA regularly plays a critical role, since its percentage share is normally more than double of any other. Yet, this influence mechanism is not exclusive to the USA. The OECD’s budget is divided into Parts I and II. While the Part I represents the OECD’s core budget, to which all countries contribute, the Part II budget results from countries’ participation in programmes of interest to a limited number of members or from other special activities not covered by Part I. The Part II programmes are funded according to a scale of contributions or other agreements among the participating countries. Although the Part I budget normally represents 50% of the overall consolidated OECD budget, most educational activities receive minor contributions from Part I. Thus, actual work in education depends on countries’ direct funding. This vantagepoint has provided countries an important room for influence throughout the OECD history: countries often threaten to reduce or withdraw their budget contributions; but they also increase their contributions, finance new projects, and even negotiate external sponsorships (Centeno 2017). Funding has considerably shaped the OECD’s internal dynamics throughout history.

Second, countries seek also to influence knowledge production. The work in education is primarily dependent on countries’ involvement (Kallo 2006; Centeno 2017). Countries get closely involved in the OECD’s workings either by providing staff and consultants to the organisation, or by supplying national expertise through studies and reviews (Eide 1990; Henry et al. 2001; Centeno 2017; Kallo 2020). This direct involvement enables countries to subordinate the working programmes to their countries’ interest– an aspect to which I return in the next section. However, the geometry of influence and interests, and related conflicts, does not seem to follow any predicable institutional matrix (Martens and Jakobi 2010; Centeno 2017).

The OECD as an instrument – reactions and interactions

The word instrument is used here to keep Archer’s triptych, acknowledging that it was an attempt to capture IGOs’ complexity. Archer (2001, 135) suggested that IGOs were instruments ‘used by their members for particular ends’, since states used IGOs as means of diplomacy and to promote foreign policy interests. Although it would be excessive to say that countries no longer use IGOs for those purposes, it would also be quite unreasonable to understand this dimension in that narrow sense only.

The dimension of instrument reveals instead that, as any organisation, IGOs are also empowered and constrained by their embeddedness in their external environment. The external environment refers to what takes place on the international and domestic scales. These developments constitute the broader socio-political context in which the OECD operates, and on which it depends for its own existence. Historical accounts show that the OECD has been able to secure its position by interacting with its external environment (Henry et al. 2001; Centeno 2017; Ydesen and Grek 2019; Grek and Ydesen, 2021). On the one hand, the OECD is compelled to react to external changes because they affect the organisation’s functioning. Periods of international economic crises and political changes, as those of the early 1970s, clearly illustrate how internal and external environments permeate each other, linking in-house and out-of-house dynamics. On the other hand, the OECD also needs to interact directly with other IOs and ‘specific countries that initiate policy development and respective governance mechanisms within the OECD’ (Martens and Jakobi 2010, 7). It is in this sense that the notion of ‘instrument’ gains its empirical and analytical purchase. Evidently, to be an instrument does not mean to lose agency, but rather to engage in symbiotic processes of acting and being acted upon.

Instrumental competitions and mobilizations

Analyses of the OECD’s interactions with other IOs (Grek 2014; Centeno 2017; Ydesen and Grek 2019) show two types of instrumental interactions. Instrumental competitions refer to when IOs compete with the OECD for policy attention, legitimation and funds; competition being used for further positioning. Instrumental mobilizations refer to when other IOs deliberately act upon the OECD to obtain resources, influence and opportunities, as to push their own agendas further. These dynamics may alternate, i.e. instrumental competitions may develop into instrumental mobilizations, which in turn may end up into competition (Grek 2014). These instrumental interactions prove to be determinant in the history of the OECD’s activities.

Synergetic agendas

Countries’ engagement in the OECD’s activities is crucial for its operation. The OECD’s workings rely not only on countries’ funding and legitimation, but also on their direct involvement in the projects, such as in working together on the production of papers and pilot studies, as well as organising internal and external events. These dynamics reveal synergies, rather than a simple merging of agendas. Agendas are deliberately developed and disseminated in cooperation, as to ensure common purposes; ‘synergetic agendas’ refer to this internal and external close cooperation between domestic actors and the Secretariat (Centeno 2017). In contrast to other IGOs, the OECD lends itself not only to be ‘instrumentalized’, but also to be so in a straightforward and quick way, through discreet dynamics and manageable procedures (Grek, 2004). Synergetic agendas have been crucial for agenda-setting and knowledge production within the OECD.

The OECD’s educational activities in the early 1970s: challenges, conditions and coalitions

This section applies the ontological framework developed previously to explore a critical moment in the history of the OECD: the early 1970s. Throughout the years, at each round of international turmoil related institutional uncertainty has surfaced within the OECD (Wolfe 2008). The early 1970s proved to be one of these critical moments, in which challenges and changes reshaped the OECD’s enabling environment, and consequently its own structure, work and interactions.

The dimension of actor: transforming challenges into opportunities

It was under the leadership of James Ronald (Ron) Gass (1958–1989) that the OECD’s agency in education was initially carved out. Gass perfectly embodied – or set the model for – the Secretariat’s characteristic profile. He was recognised within the OECD for his diplomatic skills, expertise on social science, networks (Eide 1990; Papadopoulos 1994), and forceful personality (Bürgi 2019). Gass skilfully navigated the OECD’s work in education through international and institutional challenges. When the OECD replaced the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (1961), Gass kept his position as Deputy Director of the Directorate for Scientific Affairs (1958–1974). He headed the Secretariat to the Committee for Scientific and Technical Personnel, under which the initial OECD’s educational activities were undertaken. Gass was behind the creation of CERI, of which he became director (1968), and later of the Education Committee (1971). Thereby, he anchored education research and policy to the organisation’s structure (Centeno 2019). Gass later became the founding director of the Directorate for Social Affairs, Manpower and Education (DSAME, 1974–1991), in addition to being Director of CERI. Ron Gass worked in the OECD until his retirement. He was pivotal in creating the ‘social arm’ of the organisation (Papadopoulos 1994), while simultaneously preventing the dilution of educational activities, as shown in the next section.

The creation of the DSAME, under which the committees for education and manpower and social affairs were brought together, made part of a larger reorganisation of the OECD’s activities. The 1971 collapse of the international monetary system, the 1972/1973 enlargement of the European Community (EC) and the 1973 reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) threatened the OECD’s role and work (Wolfe 2008). The political changes were aggravated by the instability provoked by the 1973 oil crisis, triggering strong scepticism within the OECD about its previous work, and a ‘round of soul searching’ (Wolfe 2008, 40). In practical terms, this meant a systematic review of the OECD’s activities. While the Council implemented strong budgetary cuts, the Secretariat strove to prove the relevance of the OECD’s activities to its constituency.

In line with the OECD’s institutional dynamics, the Council invited the Committees and other organisational bodies to examine their activities but asked the Secretariat for guiding proposals. The Secretary-General suggested that an integrated approach to policy would lead to a ‘realistic and socially acceptable balance between the economic and social objectives of growth’ (C(73)104(final), p.1), stressing that the horizontal approach was the OECD’s vantage point in relation to other IGOs. The countries praised this position and welcomed the Secretary-General’s proposal for an evaluation of the OECD’s socioeconomic policies with a focus on education and employment. This study was accompanied by the swift publication of the ‘Social Concerns Common to Most Member Countries’, which represented the first stage in the OECD’s Social Indicator Development Programme (SI/88). The countries had asked the Secretariat to elaborate a set of social indicators in the 1970 Conference on Policies for Educational Growth (DAS/EID(71)89,1stRevision), and this list was the result of an arduous process of: gathering and synthesising countries’ and other IGOs’ statistics; analysing commissioned reports; and setting a framework on which all concerned policy committees agreed. Yet the pace was unexpectedly fast in 1973. The impression conveyed by the internal documents is that the rapidity in disclosing the list was not a quirk of fate. The list strengthened the OECD’s identity and exemplified the type of endeavour that the countries saw as unique to the OECD. Indeed, neither the renewed IMF nor the enlarged EC was in a position to propose such massive though pragmatic measures to tackle the relation between social and economic development, which countries considered essential to achieve a ‘sustained economic growth’ (C(73)104Final, p.6). As Gass stressed, the OECD’s broad spectrum of policy-making distinguished the OECD from UNESCO and the Council of Europe (CE), while the OECD’s multilateral studies distinguished it from the EC (CERI/CD/M(74)3Annex). With the 1974 reorganisation, Gass sought to realign the educational activities within the new social objectives, and to secure the work done so far by integrating education into larger social policies (ED(73)11). At both the summit and activities-related levels, the Secretariat’s proposals and arguments resonated with the countries (ED(73)27, DAS/EID(73)40).

In-house, the Secretariat overcame the international and related institutional challenges by transforming them into opportunities to strength the OECD’s capabilities in autonomy and influence. The Secretariat increased its concentration of expertise and control of information by tapping into its multifaceted expertise and tasks; it entrenched the OECD’s identity by accentuating its institutional ‘uniqueness’; and it reinforced its ability to structure knowledge by starting to produce social indicators. This development was possible because the OECD’s constituency supported, in-house, these sources of agency. This might be understood in light of recent findings in management research, which show that in moments of uncertainty successful change leadership stresses continuity, i.e. despite changes, the essence of what the organisation is will be preserved (Venus, Stam, and van Knippenberg 2019). Indeed, the response to uncertainty was continuity. The continuity of the OECD as a policy actor.

The dimension of arena: setting conditions for internal change

The 1974 reorganisation resulted from ambiguities and frictions in the OECD’s institutional setting. On the one hand, at the summit level, education was on the fringes of OECD activities. The Council was progressively reducing the appropriations for education for some years already, and a growing scepticism about the OECD’s work in education was noticeable (e.g. ED/M(72)1). Countries claimed that the work was too speculative, and, in face of the rising unemployment among school and college graduates, they pointed out the limitations of the OECD’s previous work on manpower and educational planning (e.g. CERI/GB(68)9). The cutting of everyday expenditures threatened the work in education (e.g. ED/M(72)1, CERI/CD/M(72)1, ED/M(74)2), signalling its eventual fading. This danger became obvious when the Council included the review of CERI’s and the Education Committee’s mandates, which were to expire only at the end of 1976, in the general review of the OECD’s activities. On the other hand, within the education section, dissatisfaction with the activities’ content and, particularly, with CERI’s methods of work was also noticeable, and tensions were aggravated by the Council’s review (e.g. CERI/CD(74)1). In fact, only a few years before, the Council’s review of both mandates resulted in disunion among the different organisational actors in the education section, as well as much contestation at the Council’s table; consensus was achieved when the education programme and methods of work met the Education Committee’s demands, and funding prospects met the Council’s views (Centeno 2019). The 1974 reorganisation was arguably an attempt to prevent such a situation to reoccur.

In 1972, the preliminary reports of the Social Indicator Development Programme already indicated countries’ interest to consider the interrelationship of policy issues such as manpower, social welfare, economic growth, education and training (e.g. DAS/EID(71)80, ED(72)7, ED(72)16 and ED(72)17). These ‘common interests’ and the growing focus on the ‘education-labour market relations’ led the Education and the Manpower and Social Affairs Committees to further develop their cooperation (ED/M(72)2); the Manpower and Social Affairs Committee adopted the Recurrent Education idea – to which I return in the next section – as a referential framework to consider these issues and the new institutional cooperation with the Education Committee (ED/M(72)3). It was also in this context that both the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) decided to create educational groups (ED/M(73)1); both committees considered Recurrent Education as an interesting framework to develop the relationship between work and training, and began to cooperate with the educational bodies on these issues. This cooperation contribute to the legitimation of the Recurrent Education agenda within the OECD (Centeno 2017).

These renewed socio-economic concerns, and related internal changes, were at the basis of the Secretary-General proposal for commissioning a study on education and employment, and for readjusting the social aims of the organisation (ED/M(73)1). The 1974 reorganisation reflected and reinforced those changes. This process followed the typical logic of policy change (Hall 1993), in which conceptual changes motivate institutional changes that in turn are meant to reinforce the aimed conceptual changes. The socio-economic interests and related educational views caused institutional changes, which in turn strengthen those views. A new joint programming group brought together the Education and the Manpower and Social Affairs committees. The educational agenda progressively moved from a focus on formal education to adult education, training and transition from school to work (Centeno 2017). The 1974 reorganisation seemingly tried to smooth the Council’s review of the educational bodies’ mandates: the merging of the two directorates reduced the OECD’s operational costs, and the programmatic changes allowed the educational activities to respond to the OECD’s new social objectives. Simultaneously, within the education section, it also secured countries’ interest and, consequently, funding. The subsidiary relationship with the Council profoundly affected the educational activities, owing to their dependency on temporary mandates and external funding.

This process of change brought however instability in the education section. As during the changes triggered previously by the creation of the Education Committee and CERI (Centeno 2017, 2019), disagreements among countries and the Secretariat staff emerged. In response to both the Council’s request to examine the CERI’s activities, and countries’ demands for reviewing the CERI’s working methods, the Secretariat undertook a long and extensive survey of countries’ views. The results of this survey prompted discussions about CERI’s future and its adequacy to countries’ needs (CERI/CD/74.05 and CERI/CD/M(74)2). Once again, the discussions became long and heated. There was a lack of consensus within the CERI, including among the staff, about the idea of turning the CERI into an educational and social innovation centre (CERI/CD(74)3). Months of informal and formal discussions came to an end when Ron Gass, the head of the Secretariat, formally elaborated on his unfavourable personal opinion, and the countries against such transformation threatened to withdraw their funding. The USA was among these latter, and its contribution was vital to the function of the CERI. Against the existing strong budgetary constraints (CERI/CD/M(74)3), funding was a successful influence mechanism (CERI/CD/M(75)1). This episode illustrates well as positions are unpredictable, and unforeseen internal dynamics might reveal surprising views. It could be expected that Gass would be in favour, and even behind, the eventual transformation of CERI into a social centre, as this would fit well his views and the 1975 reorganisation. Yet, his unfavourable opinion seems to have been crucial in keeping the CERI as an exclusive educational body. The same reasoning could be applied to the US position. The USA was initially against CERI and it threatened to cut funding as to prevent its creation; while its position and influence was unsuccessful at that time, it later proved to be crucial in keeping CERI.

In terms of influence, the OECD’s new educational framework progressively opened room for a new geometry of influence within the education section. While until the 1970s the Nordic countries clearly used their influence to place Nordic experts in the OECD education section (Eide 1990; Centeno 2017). In the 1980s, for example, Australia funding and involvement in the OECD’s educational activities grew substantially (Henry et al. 2001; Centeno 2017), and, seemingly not by chance, two consecutive OECD directors for education were afterwards Australian, Malcolm Skillbeck (1991–1999) and Barry McGaw (1999–2005), the previous having worked initially as a consultant. Kallo’s interviewees (2020) also report that a particular Anglo-American neoliberal perspective became perceptible in the educational agendas from the 1980s onwards.

These episodes illustrate well how internal dynamics related with the OECD as an organisational setting, as well as intergovernmental place, profoundly shaped the educational activities.

The dimension of instrument: shaping internal and external coalitions

In the education section, the 1974 reorganisation and the OECD’s new social objectives were supported by particular synergetic agendas, as well as instrumental competitions and mobilisations. In contrast to the most active IOs in the field, such as UNESCO and the CE (Centeno 2011), the OECD lacked a coherent educational agenda, or at least a ‘labelled’ framework under which it could reassemble its work. This changed in 1971, when OECD published its first report on ‘Recurrent Education’. This term was introduced by the Swedish Minister of Education at the Standing Conference of the European Ministers organised by the CE in 1969. Briefly, Recurrent Education was based on the principle of educational equality and originally referred to alternate periods of full-time education and work, as to enable adults to resume their studies, while allowing youth to enter the labour market; it implied, among other measures, the general reform of secondary and post-secondary education. The Recurrent Education agenda later progressively focused on adult education, and related aspects such as the creation of educational leaves of absence (Centeno 2017).

The emergence of Recurrent Education was the result of a synergy between Swedish and OECD’s interests. In the 1960s, a Swedish Educational Commission developed the ideas underpinning Recurrent Education with the aim of reforming the Swedish education system. However, similar ideas could also be found within the OECD. But despite Swedish efforts, other countries were rather sceptical towards such radical reforms. In 1961, Sweden hosted an OECD conference on educational opportunity (OECD 1961); in 1965, the Swedish Minister of Education and the OECD provided the background material for the Standing Conference of the European Ministers’ discussions about upper secondary education³; the Ministers invited the OECD to study further these issues and, in the 1967, at an Ad Hoc Conference, they again welcomed the OECD’s reports and requested further policy analyses. In response, the OECD later reported on the policy issues deriving from the OECD’s studies (STP/M(69)1); this report served as background for the 1969 Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education, in which the Swedish Minister of Education coined the idea of Recurrent Education. A few days after this conference, Recurrent Education emerged within CERI as a ‘possible alternative future’ (CERI/GB(69)6, CERI/GB/M(69)2). Afterwards, Sweden supplied personal to the Secretariat, as well as national expertise (Centeno 2017).

It seems that the urgency in adopting Recurrent Education agenda also resulted from the need to position the OECD on the larger educational scene. There was pressure within OECD to draw on other IGOs work in education, or at least to collaborate closer with them, instead of engaging in so many educational activities. Instrumental competitions between IGOs in the field were also evident. In the 1960s, education surfaced as a particular key policy area for many IGOs (Centeno 2011), which were arguably competing not only for political legitimation but also funding. The internal documents frequently convey the ‘urgency’ to have reports ‘brought to a broader public’ (CERI/CD/M(72)3). This seemingly also contributed to an accelerated pace at which the Recurrent Education agenda was developed within the OECD.

In tandem with the European conferences, and supported by Swedish interests, the work progressed quickly within the OECD: in 1971 the first report was published (OECD 1971), while the European Ministers of Education considered the provision of recurrent studies, and invited the OECD to continue its work and provide further studies; in 1973 a milestone report was published (OECD 1973), and the European Ministers of Education gave ‘particular weight’ to Recurrent Education, praised OECD for its analytical studies and chose Recurrent Education as the main theme for its next conference; in 1975, the OECD published the latest analyses on Recurrent Education (OECD 1975) and the Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education – which perhaps unsurprisingly was hosted by the Swedish Minister of Education in Stockholm – discussed and adopted Recurrent Education as a ‘concept of public policy’. Sweden-OECD synergetic agendas were crucial for the development of the Recurrent Education agenda within the OECD, and apparently they were also important to carry out educational changes in Sweden (Waldow 2009).

It was not by chance that these developments took place in tandem with the Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education. The CE attempted to harmonise the educational systems of its members, and to devise a European policy based on the concept of Permanent Education, in order to create a European educational space in which education had a pivotal role in broader socio-cultural policies (Centeno 2011). Yet, neither the European Commission (EC), which started to engage with education, nor the CE had the capacity to produce the desired ‘policy evidence’, or even the political power to influence domestic policies; in mobilising the OECD to produce studies and policy proposals, the CE arguably tried to trigger policy changes by using the ‘policy evidence’ of a legitimate producer of international data, but also by exerting influence on domestic policies through the OECD. The internal documents show that since 1962, and at least throughout the next two decades, this particular interaction continued to take place between the CE and the OECD, and it had a significant impact on the OECD work in education, as many ideas that raised resistance before leaving the OECD headquarters (e.g. STP/M(68)2 and STP/M(68)3), returned home legitimated by the European Ministers’ recommendations, and were thereafter developed within the OECD (Centeno 2017).

Interestingly, in the wake of the OECD’s internal turbulence, the Recurrent Education agenda contributed to the legitimisation of the OECD’s educational activities at the Council’s table. The commissioned report on the relations between education and employment (OECD 1975) supported the OECD’s horizontal approach to policy and saw Recurrent Education as exemplifying that particular approach; yet it embraced the countries’ social concerns, as conveyed in the 1973 list of social indicators, and underlined the training of adults, policies for working life and integrative policies for education. The report reinforced the merging of educational, social and manpower issues, as reflected in the 1975 reorganisation, and suggested an educational agenda focused on the relationships between education and the labour marked. This not only resonated with the Council, but also with the Education and Manpower and Social Affairs Committees, and the Governing Board of CERI. Countries were more interested in a piecemeal approach and on projects on the interface between education and work. As previously mentioned, the geometries of influence progressively started to change within the OECD educational section, and new synergetic agendas started to take form; among those, Australian and OECD synergetic agendas were particularly noticeable. The Australian government was very interested in school-to-work transition policies and lifelong learning issues (Henry et al. 2001), and strongly supported related projects within the OECD (Centeno 2017); later, the Australian government legitimated a restructuring agenda at home with reference to these same OECD projects (Henry et al. 2001). The rise and fall of educational agendas within the OECD is a process greatly defined by instrumental relationships and synergetic agendas.

Concluding reflections

The OECD work in education has received considerable scholarly attention, but still little is known about how the educational activities not only secured their existence within the OECD, but even moved to the forefront of the OECD’s agenda – at least as seen in terms of publicity and internal growth. This insufficient knowledge may result from a preponderant research focus on the impact rather than on the conditions of the OECD’s activities. An ontological perspective, as this article suggests, closes this gap by: looking at the backstage; avoiding top-down approaches; drawing on less studied archival material; and adopting heuristic lenses that promote textured understandings and multiple layers of analysis. Viewing the OECD from this perspective implies considering the three ontological dimensions of actor, arena, and instrument, and to examine how they are constitutive of the OECD and, consequently, of its work. This alternative approach, the article suggests, reveals that it is precisely in the vicissitudes of the in-house developments that we can better grasp the OECD’s ‘lively’ pluridimensionality that has underpinned the strengthening of its educational activities.

The study focused on the early 1970s, a particular moment in the history of the OECD in which political and economic crises shook the enabling environment from which the OECD drew its authority. The examination of the three dimensions along its constitutive elements, relations and processes enabled the empirical study to explore how they determined the OECD’s operation at that critical moment. Thereby the study sought to understand how such moments led, in general, to the OECD’s empowerment rather than to its weakening; and, in particular, to the continuation and even strengthening of the OECD’s educational activities. The analysis demonstrated the overlapping and interplay between the three dimensions of actor, arena and instrument, as well as their constitutive effects on the OECD’s work.

Moreover, read together with the introduction to this special issue, the analysis hints to patterns in the development of the OECD’s educational activities. Looking at the dimension of actor, these patterns relate to how the OECD has consistently overcome uncertainty by continually strengthening its ontological sources of bureaucratic authority, from which its autonomy flows. Focusing on the dimension of arena, patterns surface concerning the apparent everlasting ambiguous place of education within the OECD; an ambiguity that is at the core of the complex internal dynamics that set the conditions for the OECD’s work in education. Considering the dimension of instrument, patterns emerge regarding the linkages between OECD’s internal and external dynamics. The OECD achieved is pivotal position in the global scene not only because it is a purposive policy actor that shapes its own position, but also because it has been useful in shaping that of others.

In suggesting alternatives to consider the OECD’s processes of policy formation ‘from within’, this article provided a preliminary basis for a re-reading of the OECD as a complex intergovernmental organisation. The OECD’s pluridimensionality reveals that the organisation does not operate in a vacuum, and that it is neither a monolithic nor an insulated organisation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor change. This change do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 In keeping the ontological and historical perspectives, this article focuses on the crucial intergovernmental structure of the OECD. However, it must be noted that the OECD’s environment is also populated by other actors. Since the beginning, the OECD established channels to work with civil society through the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC). Both committees are based in Paris and participate in many OECD bodies. Woodward (2009) remarked that BIAC’s and TUAC’s actions have in some ways become assimilated into the work of the OECD. Both committees have been involved in the educational activities (Centeno 2017; Sorensen and Robertson 2020). Besides these traditional mechanisms for social dialogue, the OECD has meanwhile developed further links with civil society organizations. In its core fields, such as economic policy and financial issues, the OECD is considered a top performer in engaging civil society (Blagescu and Llyd in Woodward 2009, 77); the same holds true for some complementary fields, such as environmental policy (Ougaard 2010), but seems to apply less to fields such as education – further research is however needed.

2 What freedom do these ‘OECD-experts’ (Centeno 2017) actually have at home, or whether they perceive themselves as independent consultants or countries’ representatives, is a moot point. Besides subjectivity, many of these experts frequently shift roles, and even join the Secretariat at some point in their careers – I return to this aspect later.

3 The reports of the Standing Conferences of European Ministers of Education are made available on request.