Richard Woodward

The organisation for economic cooperation and development

Paris, 28 October 2011 As part of its on-going review of compliance with the AML/CFT standards, the FATF has to date identified the following jurisdictions which have strategic AML/CFT deficiencies for which they have developed an action plan with the FATF. While the situations differ among each jurisdiction, each jurisdiction has provided a written high-level political commitment to address the identified deficiencies. The FATF welcomes these commitments.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Introduction 1. Origin and Evolution 2. Organization and Functioning 3. A Framework for Understanding 4. Current Issues 5. OECD Reform 6. The Future of the OECD

Implementing the Third Way: The Delivery of Public Services under the Blair Government

This article focuses on the implementation of the Blair governments’ agenda for the delivery of public services in England. A distinctive approach to policy is identified which has effectively nationalized the implementation process in England. This has been achieved by a move from negotiated discretion towards centralized prescription in resource allocation by the Treasury; the construction of a ‘new center’ for joined–up and integrated policy–making; and the application of the principle of ‘earned autonomy’ to the delivery of public services’ reform. Devolution has been confined to the delegation of responsibility for delivering services within a centrally–defined national framework.

Pathologies in International Policy Transfer: The Case of the OECD Tax Transparency Initiative

Abstract The importance of international organizations to the development and diffusion of international policy norms is widely recognized but is increasingly tempered by an appreciation of the pathologies of policy transfer. Using a case study of the OECD’s campaign to promote transparency in global tax affairs, this paper identifies a new and relatively distinctive form of dysfunctional policy transfer. Specifically it argues that international organizations face bureaucratic incentives to promote weak or lowest common denominator standards in order to maximize their prospects of brokering successful international agreements. However the paper also notes that while international organizations may have a short-term interest in promoting weak standards, their longer-term legitimacy is often tied to the effectiveness of the standards they promote. It is argued that this dynamic often leads to incremental policy change.

Offshore Strategies in Global Political Economy: Small Islands and the Case of the EU and OECD Harmful Tax Competition Initiatives

This article investigates how recent attempts by the European Union (EU) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to clamp down on harmful tax competition will affect small island economies with offshore financial centres (OFCs). It argues that although there are legitimate concerns about the initiatives, the likelihood that small island OFCs will disappear is remote. A confluence of factors have forced the EU and OECD to dilute their original proposals to the extent that while some marginal OFCs may be driven out of existence, more sophisticated OFCs will be unharmed and may even benefit from this supposed regulatory offensive.

Fifty More Years?: Reform and Modernisation of the OECD

On the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developments golden anniversary, Richard Woodward accesses its role in a changing world. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is a vital, if frequently unnoticed, cog in the machine of global governance. On the organisations 50th anniversary, Richard Woodward assesses whether the OECDs reform programme can secure its future in a changing world.

Governance in a globalised world

The concept of globalisation fundamentally challenges the methodological territorialism that has long defined the parameters of social research. Nowhere is the encounter between the social sciences and globalisation better illustrated than in the discipline of international relations which, as the ‘international’ prefix connotes, takes nation states as the locus of the world’s power, authority and, hence, governance. This chapter contends that the novelty of globalisation for the social world and social research lies in its specification as an ‘ation’ not a ‘nation’. Whereas ‘national’ perspectives proceed on the premise that governance is synonymous with governments, globalisation as an ‘ation’ makes no prior assumptions about the sources of power, authority and governance but instead deems them a matter for empirical interrogation. These investigations have produced new, or lent credence to existing, frameworks and vocabularies that seek to depict the fluidity and messiness of governance in a globalised world. The chapter concludes by considering the merits of three such frameworks: multilevel governance; transgovernmental networks; and neo-medievalism.

From Financing Social Insurance to Insuring Financial Markets: The Socialisation of Risk and the Privatisation of Profit in an Age of Irresponsibility

Since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007 states have expended trillions of dollars on salvaging ailing financial institutions and providing fiscal stimuli to fend off the spectre of depression. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by 2009 governments had poured

Global governance and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

432 billion of capital into financial institutions and underwritten debts worth

Fifty More Years

4.65 trillion (The Economist, 2009, p. 20). The legacy is record public sector indebtedness. Between 2007 and 2011 gross government liabilities amongst OECD countries increased from 72.9 to 100.7 per cent of GDP. The effects have been most pronounced in small economies that experienced major banking meltdowns including the Republic of Ireland, where gross government debt has quadrupled from 28.9 to 112.7 per cent, and Iceland, where it has more than doubled from 53.3 to 116.9 per cent, but there are a further 11 OECD countries, including the United States and United Kingdom, where such liabilities as a proportion of GDP have swelled by over half (OECD, 2010).