The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is a much cited but little studied institution, and its role in international governance is poorly understood. Nevertheless, the OECD plays an important role in the emerging structure of global governance. Focusing upon the OECD's core functions, contributors to this volume trace the OECD's history, structure, and role in international governance as well as its function as a "policy ideas generator" and purveyor of "best practices" in a variety of economic and social policy domains.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction / Rianne Mahon and Stephen McBride Part 1: The OECD and Transnational Governance 1 From Reconstructing Europe to Constructing Globalization: The OECD in Historical Perspective / Robert Wolfe 2 Role of the OECD in the Orchestration of Global Knowledge Networks / Tony Porter and Michael Webb 3 Inversions without End: The OECD and Global Public Management Reform / Leslie A. Pal 4 Towards Complex Multilateralism? Civil Society and the OECD / Richard Woodward 5 Making Neo-Gramscian Sense of the Development Assistance Committee: Towards an Inclusive Neoliberal World Development Order / Arne Ruckert Part 2: Governance and Economies 6 The OECD and Foreign Investment Rules: The Global Promotion of Liberalization / Russell Alan Williams 7 The OECD's Local Turn: "Innovative Liberalism" for the Cities? / Neil Bradford 8 Policy Learning? The OECD and Its Jobs Strategy / Stephen McBride, Kathleen McNutt, and Russell Alan Williams 9 "Crafting the Conventional Economic Wisdom": The OECD and the Canadian Policy Process / Andrew Jackson 10 Lost in Translation? OECD Ideas and Danish Labour Market Policy / Holly Grinvalds Part 3: Governance and the Social 11 The OECD's Guidelines for the Licensing of Genetic Inventions: Policy Learning in Response to the Gene Patenting Controversy / Lisa Drouillard and E. Richard Gold 12 The OECD's Social and Health Policy: Neoliberal Stalking Horse or Balancer of Social and Economic Objectives? / Bob Deacon and Alexandra Kaasch 13 OECD Education Policies and World Hegemony / Kjell Rubenson 14 Babies and Bosses: Gendering the OECD's Social Policy Discourse / Rianne Mahon Conclusion / Stephen McBride and Rianne Mahon References Contributors \Index