The Exercise of International Public Authority through National Policy Assessment: The OECD's PISA Policy as a Paradigm for a New International Standard Instrument

Education for Sustainable Development and International Student Assessments: Governing Education in Times of Climate Change

“…In particular, we compare the measures to promote ESD and the measures used to assist policy development through PISA as two different processes of global governance, each employing different governing technologies. Approaching OECD's PISA initiative and UNESCO's ESD initiatives in terms of global governance builds on several studies that have analysed PISA as a way of exercising global governance (Grek, ; Bogdandy and Goldmann, ; Sellar and Lingard, ), and also on the recognition that UNESCO has become a relevant organization for the shaping of national education policy (Rizvi and Lingard, ). However, we are not aware of studies that have analysed ESD as a way of exercising global governance, and how this is affected by PISA.…”

“…In spite of the absence of any legal obligation to ensure high score on the PISA tests, the system for measuring and comparing test results is difficult to ignore because it creates yardsticks that are applicable in political discourse and media coverage, which again creates communicative pressure (Bogdandy and Goldmann, ). In countries that are not top ranked, the media and citizens have come to expect their decision makers to act in order to improve student performance on the tests, so that the country might achieve higher ranking.…”

“…But data that contradict these links are also overlooked (Bulle, ). On this basis, a standardization of the discussion of education policy has emerged as perceptions of best practices, concepts, problems and solutions are shaped by aspirations to improve PISA scores (Bulle, ; Bogdandy and Goldmann, ). Accordingly, the techniques by which PISA shapes education policy and practice are based upon certain ways of collecting and presenting information, which are referred to by some as ‘governance by information’ (Bogdandy and Goldmann, , p. 53).…”

“…Moreover, these resolutions have entrusted the authority to govern PISA to a governing board. Because of the binding force of the resolutions, the decision to confer authority to the governing board is also binding for the OECD members and associated PISA countries (Bogdandy and Goldmann, ).…”

Global Administrative Law Dimensions of International Organizations Law

“…17 Several unifying threads woven through these issues are of particular significance for this paper. First, the growth of IO activities in these areas raises specific normative pressures for what is already a fast-growing application of various mixes of GAL principles, particularly concerning transparency (a governance of information, including demands for active transparency and access to information, but also demands for confidentiality and privacy, and for legal or political controls on the gathering and use of policy-shaping information), 18 participation, and reason-giving, along with more general pressures for review of administrativetype actions, and for heightened accountability with consequences for regimes of liability and immunity. 19 Second, the proliferation of IOs and other institutions exercising public power or authority in global governance, accompanied by various forms of institutional differentiation and decentralization as well as complex field operations, has intensified the need for principles to structure the relations amongst these enterprises.…”