Power of Conditionality Vs. Power of Ideas: The Influence of the EU and the OECD on National Policymaking Compared

This paper compares the influence of the EU and the OECD on national public policymaking in a EU candidate country. While the EU relies on conditionality and financial assistance mechanisms, the OECD relies on no mechanism other than the power of its ideas for exerting influence. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it seeks to demonstrate whether the EU’s transformative power in its own backyard (i.e. a pre-accession state) has been declining at a time of increasing doubts over the European integration project. This would be the case if policy ideas of the OECD, rather than EU conditionality, play a greater role in the recognition and instrumentation of policy problems, in justification and building legitimacy. Second, the domestic usages of the OECD, rather than the EU, would shed light on processes of ideational effect and hence contribute to the debate on how ideas matter. To this end, the paper analyzes regional development policymaking in Turkey. Content analysis of political and policy discourse including parliamentary debates, ministerial speeches, laws and programming documents throughout the 2000s is combined with insights from in-depth interviews with 10 senior OECD officials and 15 Turkish public officials. The findings show that the OECD has become more regularly relied on for policy inspiration in recent years whereas the EU’s role is limited to the administration of the financial assistance programme. The findings also show that the influence of OECD ideas has limits where strong domestic political and economic interests are at stake.