International Organisations, Interplay and the Making of the Global Metrological Field

The dominance of International Organisations (IOs) in the production of global metrics has not only penetrated the transnational social and policy fields; numbers have become an integral part of the fabric of International Organisations themselves. However, amidst avid critics and unapologetic fans, surprisingly little is known about the ways in which global processes of quantification are reconfiguring the field. Metrics have infiltrated not only organisational cultures and the environments these organisations inhabit; crucially, they are reshaping the ways International Organisations co-exist, compete and survive in an increasingly quantified, yet uncertain world. Building on International Relations (IR) theory, Science and Technology Studies (STS), and using theoretical perspectives from Organisational Sociology, as well as the newly emerging field of the social studies of metrics, this paper will theorise on the interrelationships of International Organisations (IOs) in co-constructing the global metrological field. European and global education governance will be the focal cases for this examination: IOs have been central to the standardisation and commensuration of education, through their systematic statistical work since the 1960s and more recently the policy impact international education assessments have had. The OECD openly uses an economistic education discourse suggesting that comparisons are essential if education systems are to be competitive. Interestingly, because of PISA’s success, the OECD has begun expanding its work in the global South, previously in the sphere of influence of the World Bank and UNESCO. In Europe, similar alliances are being built between the European Commission and the OECD; both organisations signed a memorandum of cooperation in 2013, suggesting that they are going to collaborate in a range of education policy areas; indeed, the Directorate General Education and Culture has been the prime funder of OECD work in Europe for at least a decade. Thus, the paper will use the qualitative methods of discourse analysis and interviews to explore two cases of IOs’ collaboration, namely: the World Education Indicators (WEI), a joint UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) and OECD collaboration since 1997; and b. Education and Skills Online (ESO), the data portal which was the product of the ‘Education and Skills Cooperation Arrangement’, signed in 2013 by the European Commission and the OECD. The portal is expected to allow ‘intensified cooperation in three key areas: skills strategies; country analyses; and assessments and surveys’ (2013). The paper will focus on an analysis of the ways and reasons that the EC is now aligning itself entirely with the work of the OECD and agreeing to share expertise across most key policy areas. The paper will discuss the effects of quantification on the ways IOs reconfigure their work to ensure their legitimacy or survival. What types of new interdependencies can we observe and how do these play out in the field of education? How does quantification change the internal structures and external dependencies of organisations? Ultimately, how can we theorise on the interdependence of IOs and the rise of a global metrological field?