More than a rational number-cruncher. The OEEC/OECD, international economic governance and power relations since 1948

Lecture of the ZGW Lecture series at December 2, 2015

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports and statistics are widely used by researchers and journalists alike as a recognized expert opinion on current affairs. OECD officials have described their tasks as assembling, producing, and diffusing »knowledge relevant to rational policy-making in every major field of economic activity«. OECD scholars have also tended to idealize the OECD's work as a rational process of »epistemic learning« that is »campaigning on expertise.« In short, the OECD has been described as a »communication system«, an »orchestrator of global knowledge networks,« or an »ideational artist" and has been analyzed as a relatively non-hierarchical, knowledge-based forum. Highlighting the OEEC/OECD soft power functions may shed light on its distinctive modes of governance, but this perspective impedes a more thorough understanding of its role within the postwar ecosystem of multilateral organizations and tends to downplay or even ignore the use and diffusion of power and (geo-)political interests within and through the OEEC/OECD as well as its competition and collaboration with other international organizations. Such narratives obscure the foundational role the OEEC/OECD's entanglements in the (post-)colonial period and its key function as a Cold War »Warden of the West«.