Introduction to The Elgar Companion to the OECD

Although without funds and few legal instruments, the position of the OECD in the global competition for ideas, policy instruments, reform agendas, production of indicators is remarkable. How is this possible? This is the research question that guides us in this introduction as well as throughout this volume. Two standing points have characterised this editorial project. First, although there is a consensus on how the OECD operates to establish global standards of what works in tackling a huge range of wicked and transnational issues, its role is also contested in terms of accountability and, in diametrically different ways, irrelevance. The second standing point of this volume is a single reference point on the advancement of the studies in several disciplines. With our contributors, we provide a mix of scholarly reviews of the state of knowledge of the OECD as well as original empirical analyses.