Administrative Styles in the OECD: Bureaucratic Policy-Making beyond Formal Rules

ABSTRACT

As we know from comparative public policy, bureaucracies contribute to a considerable degree to the contents and the ways of policy-making. One important driver of administrative policy-making are their specific “styles” or “cultures”. “Administrative styles” are understood here as the standard operating procedures and routines that characterize the behavior and activities of administrative bodies in initiating, drafting and implementing policy. In this article, we convey the concept of Administrative Styles to the level of International Organizations (IOs) and apply it to the Organization for Economic Development and Co-Operation (OECD). The article proceeds in three steps: First, the concept of administrative styles is introduced and refined. Drawing on expert interviews with OECD staff, we secondly show that consideration of OECD administrative styles significantly advances the literature’s understanding of the organization. Finally, we give an outlook on new research avenues and the relevance of our findings for the study of International Public Administrations (IPAs) more generally.

KEYWORDS:

• Administrative styles
• bureaucratic governance
• international public administration
• informal routines

Notes

^1. However, the OECD Council postponed activities related to the OECD accession process for the Russian Federation in the aftermath of the Crimean crisis on March 12, 2014.

^2. We will cite the majority of our interview material in the following section. Some interviewees will not be cited, however, either because the interview was rather designed as a general background fact check or would cause unnecessary redundancies.

^3. The OECD budget consists of regular member state contributions and voluntary contributions under the auspices of the “OECD programme of work” (OECD, 2013).

^4. Our own data reflect this insight, as the majority of our interviewees hold an academic background (often a PhD) in economics or a related discipline. Staff from the HR section also confirmed this (Interview 21).