ABSTRACT

The previous chapter described the OECD’s main achievements and failures. To advance the reader’s understanding of how these issues arrived at the OECD and how they are then dealt with this chapter abseils into the bowels of the organization. Although a resolution on a new governance structure entered into force in June 2006, it made limited changes to decision-making procedures and did not fundamentally alter the roles and powers of the OECD’s principal organs and offices.1 Thus, the scheduled functions of OECD bodies still derive from the articles of the OECD Convention and the Rules of Procedure of the Organization, to which this chapter refers.2 These documents allow OECD bodies leeway to institute their own working practices resulting in a spectrum of bodies and policy processes across the organization. The few universal rules include that all OECD bodies convene in private (Rule 5) at the organization’s Paris headquarters (Rule 4b), and proceed in English or French, the two official languages of the organization (Rule 27) but even here the Council or Secretary-General may decree otherwise. Starting with the member states, the chapter introduces the central

protagonists in the OECD’s work. Although many other bodies intrude on its deliberations, the OECD is a quintessentially intergovernmental organization whose members are at the reins. This is not to say that non-members plus individuals within the OECD cannot exert power, but to note that members govern the extent of their influence. The chapter then moves on to look at bodies responsible for the OECD’s management and day-to-day work, namely the Council, the SecretaryGeneral, the secretariat, and the labyrinth of committees and working groups. The Council is the OECD’s executive chamber where members take collective decisions and direct the OECD work program. The secretariat supports the work program by acquiring and dissecting data, proposing policy ideas and providing administrative and logistical backing. The OECD committees and working groups are the

place where government officials and selected civil society representatives gather with the secretariat to exchange information, contemplate proposals and review their implementation, including the conduct of the OECD’s esteemed peer reviews. The final part of the chapter puts all these pieces of the OECD jigsaw together, showing how the interactions of these bodies drive the organization’s work, and concludes with a detailed exposition of what is probably the best known and most revered OECD peer review process, the Economic Survey.