Disippel eller misjonær? Norge og OECDs familiepolitiske anbefalinger

Disciple or missionary? Norway and OECD family policy recommendations

There is a growing body of literature suggesting that welfare policy is shaped by the interplay of national and international levels. This article seeks to contribute to the debate on how these two levels interact by investigating OECD family policy recommendations and by determining whether these have influenced recent Norwegian family policy reforms. The main thrust of the article is that the OECD is increasingly emphasising family policy, i.e. evaluating national policy and issuing specific reform proposals, and that Norwegian family policy resembles policies identified by the OECD as best practice, but with few signs of influence. Instead, Norway and Nordic countries are considered forerunners by the OECD –potentially exporters of «good» family policy ideas to other countries and organisations such as the OECD. The article also suggests studying more closely how recommendations are developed to avoid exaggerating OECD’s role.

Keywords: OECD, family policy, peer review, concordance method, process-tracing