Packaging OECD policy advice: universal policy models and domestication of recommendations

Abstract

The dynamics between international organisations’ activity of scriptwriting universalised models and theorising the local effects of such models has been a little studied aspect of world society research. In this paper, we seek to bridge this gap in the existing research. We examine one prominent IO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and its flagship reports, and how the policy proposals promoted therein have changed from the 1960s to the 2010s. Our analysis reveals that from the 1990s onwards the themes addressed proliferate and the language becomes more abstract, while references to other countries’ policies also increase. In parallel, the actual policy proposals aimed at the countries evaluated expand and become more detailed, containing explicit links to national contexts and conditions. We suggest that these changes in the issuing of policy recommendations reflect strategic decisions by the OECD to facilitate the domestication of its reform ideas.