The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (the OECD Convention) obligates signatory nations to make bribery of foreign public officials a criminal act on an extraterritorial basis. The purposes of this article are to describe the nature and consequences of bribery, outline the major provisions of the OECD Convention, and analyze its role in promoting transparency and accountability in international business. While the OECD Convention is not expected to totally (...) eliminate the seeking or taking of bribes, there are hopes that a uniform set of rules will curtail corrupt behavior, as long as those rules are both enforceable and enforced. (shrink)

The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) global governance of education has been gradually increasing. Its field of interest is currently expanding from educational evaluation through the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to curriculum reform through the Education 2030 project. Here, it is interesting to note that the nature of the terms the OECD has been creating reveals a ‘humanistic turn’. This shows up well in the frequent occurrence of terms such as ‘well-being’, ‘attitudes and values’, (...) ‘inclusiveness’, ‘responsibility’, and ‘sustainability’ in the ongoing Education 2030 project. Perhaps this new humanistic discourse increases the likelihood of the smooth adoption of the OECD’s proposed curriculum redesign in more countries. If the OECD’s new discourse captures and transforms contemporary people’s ways of thought and practice about education, then this is related to the problem of colonialism in our era. It is also worth noting that language plays a vital role in colonization. In particular, the need for translation between different languages serves as a useful means for colonization. Conversely, it is also seen as having a potential decolonizing power. In this context, I would like to examine the new language the OECD has adopted, specifically regarding student experience and the nature of knowing. Next, I shall attempt to criticize the underlying educational assumptions in the OECD’s pronouncements. Following this, I shall explore how the OECD’s new discourse has been translated in South Korea, taking this as an example of wider experience in the East Asian context and possibly elsewhere. Finally, I shall conclude by considering the direction of curriculum decolonization in terms of translation. (shrink)

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises have become increasingly relevant in the debate on the role of business in society. This instrument for responsible business conduct (RBC) is considered to be unique due to its implementation mechanism, the National Contact Point (NCP) procedure. The NCP procedure applies a pragmatic stakeholder engagement approach to contribute to the effectiveness of the OECD Guidelines. However, little is known about the effects of the NCP procedure. To fill this gap, this study provides (...) insights into the ex‐post effects of the Dutch NCP procedure on solving non‐compliance issues, the RBC performance of MNEs, and societal impact. This study developed a framework of different layers of effects. It used this framework to gather and analyze empirical data through interviews with parties that have participated in non‐compliance procedures. The effects found are mainly related to solving issues, while the effects on RBC within MNEs and their societal impact seem limited. Based on the findings, this study concludes that the full potential of the OECD Guidelines remains unrealized in most of the investigated cases. (shrink)

In July 1976 the OECD adopted voluntary guidelines for multinational enterprises. These guidelines deal, among other things, with transfer pricing and other transactions between companies which belong to the same multinational enterprise. The purpose of the present article is to analyze the OECD Guidelines from the point of view of business ethics. It is shown that inherent in the guidelines is a conflict between different goals. In the latter part of the article it is shown how this conflict (...) could be solved. (shrink)

This article discusses the effects of the OECD Convention on Combating the Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, which was signed in 1997 and is due to be implemented by the signatory nation‐states this year. The Convention represents the expansion of legal measures to combat the bribery of foreign public officials by individuals or corporations, and it has been accompanied by the Organisation of American States’ Convention Against Corruption. Previously the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act , which applied only to United (...) States individuals or corporations, ‘stood alone in the world as a legal barrier to transnational bribery’ . This article proceeds in stages to evaluate implications of the Convention. Firstly the Convention is placed in the context of the increased focus on transnational business bribery in recent years. Second, the main points of the Convention are outlined. Third, the issues and problems posed by the Convention for business are discussed. Finally some themes regarding enforcement by the relevant authorities are outlined. (shrink)

This study problematizes the global educational governance of OECD PISA and its statistical data as a governing technology in contemporary discourses of education reforms. The study examines princi...

Although corruption is ubiquitous, attitudes toward it differ among countries. Until the 1997 OECD Convention, the U.S. had been one of the only two countries with an explicit extraterritorial anti-bribery law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. The FCPA employs a two-pronged approach to control the supply side of corruption: (1) anti-bribery provisions; and (2) accounting (books and record and internal controls) provisions. I offer evidence, albeit indirect, to show that the FCPA had limited success. The (...) class='Hi'>OECD Convention adopts the same two-pronged approach, but, since it is a multilateral treaty, is likely to be more successful provided that enforcement is vigorous enough. The signatory nations effectively form a cartel to reduce the cost of doing business. As with any cartel, however, each multinational corporation has an incentive to deviate. Thus, the mutual enforcement of the agreement is crucial for its success. However, the two-pronged approach is not sufficient, since internal control does not adequately monitor decisions made at the top level. I argue that the two lessons drawn from the U.S. experience are: (1) law enforcement must be credible; and (2) internal controls alone are not sufficient. Stronger and more effective corporate governance within an appropriate regulatory framework is needed to ensure that multinational corporations conduct their business in an ethical manner. (shrink)

Can green growth policies help protect the environment while keeping the industry growing and infrastructure expanding? The City of Kitakyushu, Japan has actively implemented eco-friendly policies since 1967 and recently inspired the pursuit of sustainable development around the world, especially in the Global South region. However, empirical studies on the effects of green growth policies are still lacking. This study explores the relationship between road infrastructure development and average industrial firm size with air pollution in the city through the Environmental (...) Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Non-linear Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) methods were applied on nearly 50-years’ time series data, from 1967 to 2015. The results show that the shape of the EKC of industrial growth, measured by average firm size, depends on the type of air pollution: inverted N-shaped relationships with NO2 and CO, and the U-shaped relationships with falling dust particle and Ox. Regarding infrastructure development, on the one hand, our analysis shows a positive effect of road construction on alleviating the amount of falling dust and CO concentration. On the other hand, the emissions of NO2 and Ox are shown to rise when plotted against road construction. The decline of CO emission, when plotted against both industrial growth and road development, indicates that the ruthlessness of the local government in pursuing green growth policies has been effective in this case. However, the story is not straightforward when it comes to other air pollutants, which hints at the limits of the current policies. The case of Kitakyushu illustrates the complex dynamics of the interaction among policy, industry, infrastructure, and air pollution. It can serve as an important reference point for other cities in the Global South when policies are formed, and progress is measured in the pursuit of a green economy. Finally, as an OECD SDGs pilot city and the leading Asian green-growth city, policymakers in Kitakyushu city are recommended to revise the data policy to enhance the findability and interoperability of data, as well as to invest in the application of big data. (shrink)

The article analyses presuppositions in higher education policy documents of the OECD and the European Union from the point of view of their persuasiveness. Presuppositions set the assumed common ground, which in turn sets the frame of interpretation of texts. However, by presenting something as common ground, presuppositions also shape our views of the reality. Used in this way, presuppositions can be used to present contested views, which would be open to criticism if they were asserted explicitly. The analysis (...) does not evaluate the actual success of persuasion, but rather how policy documents are construed in a persuasive way. (shrink)

A common approach for measuring the effectiveness of an education system or a school is the estimation of the impact that school interventions have on students’ academic performance. However, the latest trends aim to extend the focus beyond students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills, and to consider aspects such as well-being in the academic context. For this reason, the 2015 edition of the international assessment system PISA incorporated a new tool aimed at evaluating the socio-affective variables related to the well-being (...) of students. It is based on a definition focused on the five dimensions proposed in PISA theoretical framework: cognitive, psychological, social, physical and material. The main purpose of this study is to identify the well-being components that significantly affect student academic performance and to estimate the magnitude of school effects on the well-being of students in OECD countries, the school effect being understood as the ability of schools to increase subjective student well-being. To achieve this goal, we analyzed the responses of 234,000 students from thirty-five OECD countries to PISA 2015 questionnaires. Specifically, we considered non-cognitive variables in the questionnaires and student performance in science. The results indicated that the cognitive well-being dimension, composed of enjoyment of science, self-efficacy and instrumental motivation, as well as the test anxiety all had a consistent relationship with student performance across countries. In addition, the school effect, estimated through a two-level hierarchical linear model, in terms of student well-being was systematically low. While the school effect accounted for approximately 25% of the variance in the results for the cognitive dimension, only 5-9% of variance in well-being indicators was attributable to it. This suggests that the influence of school on student welfare is weak, and the effect is similar across countries. The present study contributes to the general discussion currently underway about the definition of well-being and the connection between well-being and achievement. The results highlighted two complementary concerns: there is a clear need to promote socio-emotional education in schools, and it is important to develop a rigorous framework for well-being assessment. The implications of the results and proposals for future studies are discussed. (shrink)

This paper was presented at the Engineering Foundation Conference on “Ethics for Science and Engineering Based International Industries”, Durham, NC, USA, 14–17 September 1997. An earlier version of this paper appeared in OECD’s STI Review No. 21, 1998, OECD. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international organization founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. Information at WEB@OECD.ORG.

Son yıllarda başarılı yönetişimin ekonomik performansa etkisi tartışmaların odak noktası haline gelmiştir. Yönetişimin ekonomik büyüme ve gelişme üzerindeki rolünün önemli olduğu düşünülmektedir. Bu çalışmada OECD ülkelerinin, yönetişim değişkenleri ve bazı makroekonomik değişkenler açısından kümelenmeleri amaçlanmaktadır. Bu sayede söz konusu ülkelerin birbirlerine göre konumlarının yanı sıra Türkiye ile olan konumları da belirlenmiştir. Otuz beş OECD üyesi ülkenin ele alındığı araştırmada kümeleme analizi kullanılarak yedi değişkene ilişkin derlenen 2016 yılı verileri analiz edilmiştir. Analiz sonuçlarına göre; bu ülkeler üç farklı kümede (...) gruplanmış ve Türkiye’nin Meksika ile aynı küme altında toplandığı tespit edilmiştir. (shrink)

This analysis of Mexico’s nanotechnology policies utilizes indicators developed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which in 2008 conducted a pilot survey comparing the nanotechnology policies of 24 countries. In this paper, we apply the same questionnaire to the Mexican case, adding business information derived from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography survey on nanotechnologies, also an OECD instrument.

In recent decades, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has become a powerful forum for trade liberalization and regulatory harmonization. OECD members have worked to reconcile divergent national regulatory approaches, applying a single framework across sovereign states, in effect determining whose knowledge-making practices would guide regulatory action throughout the industrialized world. Focusing on US regulators, industry associations, and environmental groups, this article explores the participatory politics of OECD chemical regulation harmonization in the late 1970s to early 1980s. (...) These efforts were conditioned by differential institutional access and resources among stakeholders who sought to shape regulatory knowledge rules. Facing competing European and US approaches to chemical data—a minimum “base set” of test data versus case-by-case determinations—OECD members chose the European approach in 1980. However, US regulatory politics shifted with the election of President Reagan, prompting industry associations to lobby the US government to block the agreement. Examining the micropolitics of these standards in the making, I demonstrate that while long-term structures advantaged industrial actors, ideological alignment with the US government precipitated their decisive influence. The case illustrates the importance of attending to the distinctive politics of international harmonization and the effects on transnational knowledge-making and regulatory intervention. (shrink)

In discussions of the composition of wealth, a common distinction is made between non-financial assets and financial assets. Within the latter category the uncommon distinction is drawn between ‘capital ownership assets’ (referring to ownership in enterprises) and other financial assets. The reason is that capital ownership assets come with a degree of actual or potential economic power – in the sense of having the capacity to significantly influence enterprises’ policies. The article empirically applies this distinction to 24 OECD countries (...) that report uniform data on this (in line with the OECD guidelines). For the OECD average of these countries around 2019, it is shown that whereas the top 10% of households owns 51% of the total net wealth and 68% of the total financial assets, the top 10% owns 85% of the total capital-ownership assets. For individual OECD countries, the last figure ranges from 63% (Greece) to 97% (Lithuania). The figure for the USA is near to the latter, at 94%. (shrink)

Growing economic stratification each year in many countries is such a pressing issue that even the World Economic Forum, organized in 2014 in the luxury resort of Davos, recognized it as one of the most dangerous threats to social order. The problem of economic inequality, pushed by the apologists of economic liberalism to the margins of media discourse, once again became a “hot” topic with the World Economic Crisis in 2008, the effects of which are still felt in various countries (...) today, and which contribute to the expansion of global social stratification. The aim of the article is to describe the sample indicators typically used by organizations, i.e. OECD, theWorld Bank to measure economic inequality in the world, and then, on the basis of these indicators, create a synthetic instrument based on TOPSIS methodology, which will allow for preparing a multi-criteria ranking of OECD countries in terms of economic inequality. (shrink)

Can green growth policies help protect the environment while keeping the industry growing and infrastructure expanding? The City of Kitakyushu, Japan, has actively implemented eco-friendly policies since 1967 and recently inspired the pursuit of sustainable development around the world, especially in the Global South region. However, empirical studies on the effects of green growth policies are still lacking. This study explores the relationship between road infrastructure development and average industrial firm size with air pollution in the city through the Environmental (...) Kuznets Curve (EKC) hypothesis. Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Non-linear Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) methods were applied on nearly 50-years’ time series data, from 1967 to 2015. The results show that the shape of the EKC of industrial growth, measured by average firm size, depends on the type of air pollution: inverted N-shaped relationships with NO2 and CO, and the U-shaped relationships with falling dust particle and Ox. Regarding infrastructure development, on the one hand, our analysis shows a positive effect of road construction on alleviating the amount of falling dust and CO concentration. On the other hand, the emissions of NO2 and Ox are shown to rise when plotted against road construction. The decline of CO emission, when plotted against both industrial growth and road development, indicates that the ruthlessness of the local government in pursuing green growth policies is effective in this case. However, the story is not straightforward when it comes to other air pollutants, which hint at limits in the current policies. The case of Kitakyushu illustrates the complex dynamics of the interaction among policy, industry, infrastructure, and air pollution. It can serve as an important reference point for other cities in the Global South when policies are formed, and progress is measured in the pursuit of a green economy. Finally, as an OECD SDGs pilot city and the leading Asian green-growth city, policymakers in Kitakyushu city are recommended to revise the data policy to enhance the findability and interoperability of data as well as to invest in the application of big data. (shrink)

The article “Outline of article 5 of the OECD model Convention” is written on a relevant topic, which is important because the object of analysis has many meanings. The author analyzes the concept of permanent establishment, provided for in Article 5 of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Model Convention with respect to taxes on income and on capital. The main goal of the article is to discuss the institute of permanent establishment and to help understand it better. (...) The author does not seek to provide a thorough analysis of the content of Article 5, but rather, to concentrate on its main aspects. Even though the study of permanent establishment, provided in this article, related only to the context of the Convention, it can also be useful while analysing the concept of permanent establishment under the US Model Income Tax Convention and the 2001 UN Model Convention. (shrink)

From the mid 1990s, the OECD started the planning of the Program for International Student Assessment, now well known as PISA. 1 The first PISA testing took place early in 2000, and the results were published in December 2001. Since then, PISA results have gradually become a kind of global “gold standard” for educational quality, and educational policy has been globalized, lifted out of the domestic policy, as proudly stated by the PISA director, Andreas Schleicher in the TED-talk quoted (...) below. The presentation is transcribed in 29 languages and has been seen by some 758 thousand viewers. (shrink)

Bu çalışma, 2015 yılında Birleşmiş Milletler tarafından kabul edilen Sürdürülebilir Kalkınma Hedefleri (SKH) ile neoliberal politikalar arasındaki ilişkiyi incelemektedir. Odak noktası, "tam ve üretken istihdam ile insan onuruna uygun işlerin sağlanması" hedefidir. Araştırma, serbest piyasa güçlerinin ekonomik ve sosyal sorunları çözmedeki etkinliği inancının, bu hedefle olan uyumunu tartışmaya açmaktadır. İstihdamın iş güvencesi, sözleşmeler, ücretler, çalışma saatleri ve sendikal yapılarına dair makroekonomik analizler, neoliberal politikaların SKH'lerle çeliştiğini göstermektedir. Bu eksende, SKH'lerin mevcut politik yapıyla uyumlu olup olmadığı ve neoliberal politikaların sürdürülebilir kalkınma (...) hedeflerine ulaşma üzerindeki etkisini tartışmaktadır. Veriler Dünya Bankası, ILO ve OECD'den alınmış, veri madenciliği yöntemleri kullanılarak Türkiye, OECD ülkeleri ve Dünya düzeyinde karşılaştırmalı analizler yapılmıştır. Bu bağlamda, çalışma sürdürülebilir kalkınma hedeflerine, özellikle iş yaşamına ilişkin boyutlarında, neoliberal politikaların etkilerini değerlendirerek özdüşünümselliğimizi geliştirmeye katkıda bulunmaktadır. (shrink)

This study aims to examine the relationship between public financial management and indicators of well-being among 29 Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries using a balanced panel dataset over the period between 2005 and 2019. This study used a matrix of seven proxy measures of public financial management, which works as an integrated financial system to improve the objective quality of well-being measured by employment, education level, productivity, and wages. Using the generalised method of moments, the estimator's results, indicate (...) that higher government revenues, expenses (% of GDP) lead to lower well-being while the higher net lending /net borrowing, cost of business start-up procedures, and adjusted gross savings (% of GNI) lead to increase well-being measured by spending on education. The higher government revenues, regulatory quality, government effectiveness, and higher net lending /net borrowing lead to improved well-being, while the higher cost of business start-up procedures (% of GNI per capita) leads to lower well-being measured by wages. The higher government revenues, government effectiveness, and higher net lending/net borrowing lead to increased well-being. In contrast, the higher expense (% of GDP) leads to lower well-being measured by productivity labor. The higher government revenues, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, net lending /net borrowing and adjusted gross savings lead to lower well-being, while the higher cost of business start-up procedures leads to increased well-being measured by employment rates. The OECD countries should prepare fiscal policies to ensure the sustainability of public finances in the long run and identify emergency response mechanisms to overcome the challenges of improving the objective quality of well-being. (shrink)

Long presented as a universal policy-recipe for social prosperity and economic growth, the promise of innovation seems to be increasingly in question, giving way to a new vision of progress in which society is advanced as a central enabler of technoeconomic development. Frameworks such as “Responsible” or “Mission-oriented” Innovation, for example, have become commonplace parlance and practice in the governance of the innovation–society nexus. In this paper, we study the dynamics by which this “social fix” to technoscience has gained legitimacy (...) in institutions of global governance by investigating recent projects at two international organizations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Commission, to mainstream “Responsible Innovation” frameworks and instruments across countries. Our analysis shows how the turn to societal participation in both organizations relies on a new deficit logic—a democratic deficit of innovation—that frames a lack of societal engagement in innovation governance as a major barrier to the uptake and dissemination of new technologies. These deficit politics enable global governance institutions to present “Responsible Innovation” frameworks as the solution and to claim authority over the coproduction of particular forms of democracy and innovation as intertwined pillars of a market-liberal international order. (shrink)

The European Legacy, Volume 17, Issue 3, Page 410, June 2012.

The COVID-19 pandemic is global and affects all countries in the world. The difference in the financial impact assessment of its outbreak concerns, inter alia, the state of preparation of the public sector in the previous period. The article assumes that countries which coordinated the structure of sovereign assets and liabilities before 2020 were less exposed to the negative effects of financial risks resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. The study uses data and methodology of the International Monetary Fund and the (...) authors’ measures dedicated to the public sector to assess the sovereign asset and liability management (SALM). As part of the results, the negative value of net worth and the national net welfare index for the studied countries, including Poland in the period before the pandemic crisis, were indicated. In addition, the level of the loans mismatch on the public balance sheet and the scale of the increase in financial risk in the first year of COVID-19 are presented. Conclusions of research make it possible to assess the impact of COVID-19 on Sovereign Asset and Liability Management. (shrink)

SummaryUsing recent pooled data from the World Health Organization Global Infobase and the World Factbook compiled by the Central Int.

Public health agencies undertake a broad range of health promotion and injury and disease prevention activities in collaboration with an array of actors, such as the community, businesses, and non-profit organizations. These activities are “multisectoral” in nature and centered on public health agencies that oversee and engage with the other actors. Public health agencies can influence the hazardous activities in the private sector in a variety of ways, “ranging from prohibition and regulation to volunteerism, and from cooperation to cooption.” Hence, (...) a public health agency that possesses the necessary administrative resources and authority is vital to the effective implementation of health policies and regulations.In the developing world, however, many state health agencies lack these basic capacities in dealing with critical health threats, including their ability to avert epidemics of communicable diseases arising from poor sanitary conditions. A serious constraint is the shortage of public health funding for health agencies in the developing world for typical agency functions. This is often aggravated by the transaction-intensive demands entailed in enforcing regulations among an array of private and public sector actors including individuals, businesses, and local bodies responsible for providing civic services. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 212 Seiten: 97-110.

In this paper, we engage with the widespread and influential approach of National Innovation Systems (NIS). We discuss its adequacy to non-OECD countries, especially in Latin America where it tends to be reified. Although the NIS approach is meant to address the most pressing needs of the economies it applies to, we argue that it would benefit from developing a more encompassing scope, allowing integration of greater diversity and complexity. By retracing the history of regimes of science, technology and (...) innovation in Latin America, we explore the following paradox: whereas numerous Southern scholars urge the pressing need to develop an innovation agenda for Southern countries with a “Southern framework of thought”, they continue to heavily rely on a reductionist version of the NIS-approach that prevents such a “Southern perspective” to fully emerge. This creates problems for actors willing to use NIS more reflexively, and it also affects the effectivity of science, technology and innovation (STI) policies in non-OECD countries. We formulate a research agenda with three suggestions for further engaging NIS both conceptually and practically. Using such analytical perspectives, we argue, might benefit both to scholarly work about NIS, but could also allow for a better articulation with STI regimes in Southern countries. (shrink)

This essay explores how the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Norway became linked into a science policy discourse that radiated throughout the developed world. Despite political differences, this discourse changed forever the expectations by which Norway’s universities and its fundamental research institutions were to operate.

In his 1984 allegorical novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera explores existential questions around freedom and identity, meaning and purpose, in a period of upheaval in Soviet dominated Czechoslovakia. In this paper we draw on the rich symbolism in Kundera’s novel to bring into view upheavals in the social relations underpinning contemporary societies, and the tensions between freedom and commitment, lightness and weight that seem to characterise the nature of work in post-industrial societies. Our paper addresses three tasks. (...) Theoretically, we take up the invitation offered by this Special Issue to re-engage with critical theory, and in our case, the Frankfurt School tradition, to develop a more situated critique of education and work in contemporary capitalism and society. Substantively, we use this more reflexive and situated approach to critical theory to examine the tensions in the OECD’s current education futures policy work, and specifically their turn to a set of humanistic concepts. Normatively, we critique the OECD’s futures policies, and propose a set of propositions that might guide education into the future, as a matter of social justice. (shrink)

This study examines the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), one of the most influential tools of global education reform discourses in the 21st century. The study focuses on the governing role of statistical data in the discourse constructed by the international comparative assessment, referring to the global educational governance of the OECD. Disturbingly, the systematic collection and distribution of data does not merely quantify student achievement. Rather, students and participating countries are also qualified and classified. Here, OECD’s (...) PISA statistics act as a governing technology enabling the comparisons; through PISA’s statistics, the OECD has largely fostered the test-driven education reform trends worldwide. In this study, statistical data are examined as political instruments visualizing intangible concepts, constructing definitions of good practice and improvement, and fabricating the individuals whose knowledge and skills are normalized. In conclusion, it is necessary to rethink the new sociopolitical instrument – PISA’s statistics – not as a master rationale to reform the educational system of each country, but as a mere reference point based on the system’s distinctiveness. (shrink)

The present paper gives an overview of the reflections of and reactions to publishing the results of the first wave of the OECD study Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in the Czech Republic and in Germany. The choice of these two countries enables us to document how the same results could be perceived very differently in diverse country contexts and could lead to a different reaction from policy-makers. In spite of large reforms and numerous policy measures being adopted (...) in Germany in reaction to the PISA results, compared with no response from policy-makers in the Czech Republic, it is argued, that in both countries policy-makers failed to tackle the major problem of their educational systems—its selective nature. In the final section we discuss various mis(uses) of PISA and its supranational and global character influencing local policies. (shrink)

OECD figures reveal a sharply increasing flow of foreign workers into European countries. Ethnic diversification has become a generalized matter of fact. At the same time, rapidly developing technology and ‘intellectual globalization’ processes—the world wide web—have also become a reality. This complex cluster of changes has an impact on the perceptions of the self and of the other. Multilayered belongings and paradoxical meanings enter into interethnic relations in sometimes most surprising and unpredictable ways from outside of the boundaries of (...) local communities. But the developments also create new and very positive opportunities for education/schooling and social cohesion. The paper critically examines this changing context and also Europe’s educational responses to the new challenges: the European Socrates programme, the initiatives in the field of intercultural citizenship education and the issue of combating deprivation. (shrink)

The OECD asserts that the role of endogenous growth theory is a key input to research underlying technological processes that enhance productivity. Within neo‐liberal accounts of governance there is a paradoxical explanation of the free self, firstly as one who exercises some type of choice, and secondly as a self constituted through the exercise of choice. Neo‐liberalism, however, does not provide a robust account of self constitution. Foucault's notion of Governmentality therefore is advanced as a more adequate account of (...) the political conditions of self constitution. (shrink)

자살은 의식적으로 자기 신체의 죽음을 초래하는 행위를 지칭한다. 우리나라의 자살률 순위를 보면 2018년 현재 OECD 1위를 기록하고 있어서 심각한 실정이다. 에밀 뒤르켐에 의하면 사회는 변동을 겪지 않는 한 고유한 수치의 자살률을 보이며 그 자살률은 그 사회 집단의 특성을 나타낸다. 즉 자살률은 사회적 공동의식이라는 집단적 힘의 결과라는 것이다. 뒤르켐에 따르면 자살에는 이기적 자살, 이타적 자살, 아노미성 자살, 숙명론적 자살 등의 유형이 있으며 이들 모두 사회와의 연관성 속에서 나타난다. 이들 유형 가운데 현재 우리나라에서 가장 현저하게 대두되고 있는 것은 이기적-숙명론적 자살, 이기적-아노미성 (...) 자살이다. 자살의 사회적 성격을 염두에 두고서 본 연구는 사회 윤리적 관점에서 우리나라의 높은 자살률의 원인을 사회 구조 및 제도적 측면에서 탐색한다. 개인주의 문화의 확산, (신)자유주의의 경쟁 패러다임의 전제(專制), 복지 시스템 등 사회 안전망의 취약, 자존감의 훼손, 대중매체의 영향 등이 그 구체적 내용으로서 지적된다. 마지막으로 사회 윤리의 기본 원리를 간략히 살펴보고 이에 의거해서 사회 윤리적 관점에서 자살률을 낮출 수 있는 방안을 제시하였다. (shrink)

환경문제가 각 나라와 국제사회의 현안으로 대두하고 있으므로, 이를 해결할 정책적 접근이 요청된다. 이때 정책은 올바른 이념이나 철학이 인도하지 않으면, 시류에 편승하게 됨으로써 목표 달성에 이르지 못한 채 표류하기 십상이다. 따라서 환경정책은 규범적으로 정당화되기 위해서 환경정책철학에 의거해야 한다. 역사적으로 조망할 때 정책철학의 원리로 민주주의와 효용성, 정의 그리고 생태적 건전성의 원리를 분별할 수 있다. 이런 복수의 원리 가운데 어느 것에 가중치를 두느냐에 따라 사회적 성격이 달라지겠지만, 어떤 정책도 기본적으로 네 가지 원리를 유념해야 한다. 다만 환경문제는 지구적 차원에서 후진국의 사회발전 요구와 선진국의 자연보호 (...) 주장을 함께 고려해야 하는 복잡한 상황을 조성했다. 이 딜레마를 타개할 방안으로 지속가능한 발전이 제기되었다. 이 개념을 구체화하는 과정에서 환경정책철학의 원칙으로 형평성과 민주주의, 사전예방, 정책통합, 그리고 계획의 원칙을 우선적으로 드러낼 수 있다. 한국은 1996년 말에 OECD 가입국이 됨으로써 다른 선진국과 함께 공통의 평가를 받게 되었다. 이에 따라서 가장 최근에 ‘2006 OECD 한국 환경성과평가보고서’가 나왔다. 이것에 의거하면, 한국의 환경성과는 점차 좋아지고 있다. 그러나 필자가 제시한 환경정책철학의 원리에 의거하여 평가를 하면, 그것은 여전히 많은 문제를 드러내고 있다. 그러므로 한국에서 환경정책을 입안하거나 시행할 때, 정책철학의 원리에 보다 분명하게 의존해야 한다. 이럴 경우에만, 한국은 환경문제 해결에 보다 책임있는 역할을 하게 될 것이다. (shrink)

한국은 OECD국가들 중 유일하게 원조받는 나라에서 원조주는 나라로 탈바꿈하였다. 2009년 11월에는 개발원조위원회(DAC)의 24번째 회원국이 되었다. 이에따라 한국의 경제력에 부합한 원조의 확대가 요구되고 있다. 그러나 이에 앞서 보다 근본적으로 해외원조에 관한 의무 및 정당성과 관련한이론적 논의는 거의 이루어지고 있지 못한 실정이다. 미약하게 이루어지고 있는해외원조와 관련한 연구들은 공동체주의적, 자유주의적 관점의 연구인데, 이 두 측면의 논의들은 국가 차원에서만 다루고 있어 국제적 차원으로 확장시키기 어렵고해외원조의 의무에 대해 소극적인 입장을 취하고 있다는 한계가 있다. 이에 따라 본 연구는 해외원조의 새로운 대안으로 세계시민주의를 제시한다. 세계시민주의의 측면에서 우리가 (...) 왜 외국의 가난한 국가에 대해 원조를 해야 하는지, 우리에게는 해외원조의 의무가 있는지, 만약 의무가 있다면 그 방법이나 수준은 어떻게 해야 하는지에 관하여 논의하고자 한다. 세계시민주의는 제3세계 국가의 사람들도 우리와 같은 지구에서 살고 있고 전지구적 계획이나 미래를 공유하고 있기 때문에 우리 모두는 타인에 대한 의무가있고 동등한 권리를 누리도록 서로 도와야 한다는 입장이다. 기존 논의들은 해외원조에 대해 소극적·제한적 입장을 취하였지만 세계시민주의는 그 자체에 제3세계국가·사람들에 대한 의무를 내포하고 있기 때문에 논의의 적실성이 크다고 할 수있다. (shrink)

The article examines the effects of non-financial disclosure on corporate social responsibility. We conceptualise trade-offs between two ideal types in relation to CSR. Whereas self-regulation is associated with greater flexibility for businesses to develop best practices, it can also lead to complacency if firms feel no external pressure to engage with CSR. In contrast, government regulation is associated with greater stringency around minimum standards, but can also result in rigidity owing to a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Given these potential trade-offs, we ask (...) how mandatory non-financial disclosure has been shaping CSR practices and examine its potential effectiveness as a regulatory instrument. Our analysis of 24 OECD countries using the Asset4 database shows that firms in countries that require non-financial disclosure adopt significantly more CSR activities. However, we also find that NFD regulation does not lead to lower levels of corporate irresponsibility. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that, over time, the variation in CSR activities declines as firms adopt increasingly similar practices. Our study thereby contributes to understanding the impact of government regulation on CSR at firm level. We also discuss the limits of mandatory NFD in addressing regulatory trade-offs between stringency and flexibility in the field of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Machine unlearning (MU) is often analyzed in terms of how it can facilitate the “right to be forgotten.” In this commentary, we show that MU can support the OECD’s five principles for trustworthy AI, which are influencing AI development and regulation worldwide. This makes it a promising tool to translate AI principles into practice. We also argue that the implementation of MU is not without ethical risks. To address these concerns and amplify the positive impact of MU, we offer (...) policy recommendations across six categories to encourage the research and uptake of this potentially highly influential new technology. (shrink)