ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine the relationship between policy transfer and the accession to existing international, intergovernmental organizations focusing on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It first provides a brief description of the relevant literature before moving on to outline a simple model of the accession process that is used to structure the analysis undertaken in the chapter, as well as providing background information on the OECD for those unfamiliar with its work. The second, third and fourth parts examine, in turn, the OECD's experience of three stages of accession and policy transfer, pre-accession, accession and post-accession transfer. They are followed by a conclusion in which it is argued that accession is an important mechanism for policy transfer, characterized by its occurrence, to varying extents, in one or more of the three stages.
