The European Productivity Agency (EPA) was initially designed as a means to "Americanize" Western Europe through the transfer of American techniques, know-how and ideas to the Old Continent. It increasingly became a framework within which the member countries sought "European" solutions to their problems. This study of the EPA sheds new light on the nature of European cooperation and transatlantic relations in the 1950s as well as on the changes these relations underwent during the early postwar period.

The first comprehensive historical overview of the OECD's role in the concept of economic growth becoming an international norm.

American ideals and models feature prominently in the master narrative of post-war European consumer societies. This book demonstrates that Europeans did not appropriate a homogenous notion of America, rather post-war European consumption was a process of selective appropriation of American elements.

Formed in 1947, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) was the first postwar international organization dedicated to economic cooperation in Europe. Linking the universalism of the UN to European regionalism, both Cold War superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, were founding members of the UNECE. Building on the League of Nations' difficult heritage, and in an increasingly challenging political environment, the UNECE's mission was to facilitate European cooperation transcending the boundaries set by the Cold War . With a number of competitor organizations set against it, the UNECE managed to carve out a niche for itself, setting norms and standards that still have an impact on the everyday lives of millions in Europe and beyond today. Working against an overwhelming geopolitical trend, UNECE succeeded in bridging the Cold War divide on several occasions, and maintained a broad system of contacts across the Iron Curtain. This book provides a unique study of this important but hitherto under-researched international organization. Incorporating research on the Cold War, the history of internationalism and European integration, Stinsky weaves these different threads of historical enquiry into a single analytical narrative.

The post–World War II period is typically seen as a time of stark division, an epochal global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But beneath the surface, the postwar era witnessed a striking degree of international cooperation. The United Nations and its agencies, as well as regional organizations, international nongovernmental organizations, and private foundations brought together actors from conflicting worlds, fostering international collaboration across the geopolitical and ideological divisions of the Cold War. Diving into the archives of these organizations and associations, Sandrine Kott provides a new account of the Cold War that foregrounds the rise of internationalism as both an ideology and a practice. She examines cooperation across boundaries in international spaces, emphasizing the role of midsized powers, including Eastern European and neutral countries. Kott highlights how the need to address global inequities became a central concern, as officials and experts argued that economic inequality imperiled the creation of a lasting peace. International organizations gave newly decolonized and “Third World” countries a platform to challenge the global distribution of power and wealth, and they encouraged transnational cooperation in causes such as human rights and women’s rights. Assessing the failure to achieve a new international economic order in the 1970s, Kott adds new perspective on the rise of neoliberalism. A truly global study of the Cold War through the lens of international organizations, A World More Equal also shows why the internationalism of this era offers resources for addressing social and global inequalities today.

This book explores the history of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its place within capitalist development. Since 1948, the OECD and its forerunner, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) worked on almost every subject of interest to national governments ranging from economic growth to education (PISA rankings), statistics, to the environment. With varying success the OEEC/OECD thus played a key role as a warden of the West and of capitalist development. However, it has remained one of the least understood international organizations. Bringing together a number of case studies by scholars from around the world, this first source-based volume on the history of the OEEC/OECD in global governance offers not only a new understanding of the Organization’s key areas of activities, but also its multiple relations to member states, other international organizations, and private networks. The volume thus critically re-examines postwar international history, most importantly decolonization and the Cold War, through the prism of one international organization in its various contexts.

This book examines the mechanisms and channels through which American managerial know-how and US management models were transferred to Europe after 1945, as well as the actual influence on European industries, companies and regions in the 1950s and 1960s. It explores the role of the European Productivity Agency, business leaders, US multinationals, regional networks and institutions, as well as the actual transfer process and potential political, cultural and institutional barriers. The final section contains the cases of three European companies which adopted American Management methods to a considerable extent during the 1950s and 1960s.

A study of European co-operation and transatlantic relations in the 1950s as well as on the changes these relations underwent during the early postwar period. The European Productivity Agency (EPA) was created in 1953 as a semi-autonomous organization within the framework of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) and wound up eight years later, in 1961, when the United States and Canada joined the OEEC countries and founded the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It was initially designed as a means to "Americanize" Western Europe through the transfer of American techniques, know-how and ideas to the Old Continent, but, as Boel demonstrates, it increasingly became a framework within which the member countries sought "European" solutions to their problems. The EPA was the product of American ideas, actions and money, and embodied the merger of two of the United States' main foreign policy goals after World War II, namely increasing productivity and furthering integration among the countries of Western Europe. The agency was conceived as a major instrument for the "politics of productivity" which would enable Western European societies to overcome their social and political problems resulting from scarcity, particularly in countries such as France and Italy with strong communist parties. During its short-lived existence the EPA acted as an operational arm of the OEEC, accounting on average for over 40 percent of the overall OEEC expenditures. It implemented a vast array of activities aimed at improving productivity in industry, commerce, agriculture and distribution. Among its endeavours were efforts to develop management education, improve labor-management relations, and assist underdeveloped areas in the member countries. Many of its projects met with contrasted reactions and thus highlighted conflicts between trade unions and employers, differences amongst the OEEC countries as well as transatlantic squabbles. Bent Boel, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Aalborg.

"This book is the outcome of the conference held in Caen (France) in September 1997, in preparation for the International Economic History Congress in Madrid (August 1998). This collection of essays provides, for the first time, a systematic overview of the productivity missions organised in the years following the Second World War, to investigate in situ the production and management techniques adduced to account for the American lead. Bringing together research workers from many countries (Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States), the volume addresses four successive themes. The first one concerns the part played by the United States and that country's action on the international scene. This, in turn, leads to the subsequent query: Did the productivity missions constitute tools for modernisation, or were they devices of domination? The second part considers three national experiences: the United Kingdom, France, and Japan. The third part examines a number of branches: iron and steel, electrical engineering, petrochemicals, and the tyre industry. The final part seeks to assess the impact of the missions. Ultimately, one needs must make a distinction between the rhetoric of productivity, on the one hand, and actual achievements, on the other; the missions were part of a wider process of Americanisation, wherein lies one of the keys to the economic miracles of the post-war era."--Page 4 of cover.

International Organizations play a pivotal role on the modern global stage and have done, this book argues, since the beginning of the 20th century. This volume offers the first historical exploration into the formative years of international public administrations, covering the birth of the League of Nations and the emergence of the second generation that still shape international politics today such as the UN, NATO and OECD. Centring on Europe, where the multilaterization of international relations played out more intensely in the mid-20th century than in other parts of the world, it demonstrates a broad range of historiographical and methodological approaches to institutions in international history. The book argues that after several 'turns' (cultural, linguistic, material, transnational), international history is now better equipped to restate its core questions of policy and power with a view to their institutional dimensions. Making use of new approaches in the field, this book develops an understanding of the specific powers and roles of IO-administrations by delving into their institutional make-up.