Harder governance built on soft foundations: experience fromOECD peer reviews

Abstract

The OECD international peer reviews represent a typical example of ‘harder soft governance’ at the international level. Lacking direct regulatory power, the Organisation exerts its influence via soft persuasion through peer pressure, entailing attention from the media, civil society, and other member country governments. Drawing on interviews and documentary material from the period 1996 to 2017, and participant observation from 1996 to 2005, this article examines the implementation of various measures of ‘hardening’ in three OECD peer reviews: the Environmental Performance Reviews and Economic Surveys carried out by the OECD proper, and the Energy Policy Reviews of the OECD International Energy Agency. The three reviews differ along the different dimensions of hardness, yet none of the reviews can be unambiguously classified as the hardest. The article highlights the multiple trade-offs between different types of hardening, as well as between hardness and softness. Hardening is not an end in itself and does not necessarily equate with greater impact. Greater attention should be paid to the directionality and multiple pathways of review influence, the roles of reviews in the service of socialisation, norm-creation and policy advocacy, and the essential function of soft elements as a foundation for hardening.