Title: Converging Methods of Governance at the Supranational Level. The Role of Civil Society Coalitions
Abstract: This paper aims at portraying the commonalities (and discussing the controversies) of common methods of administrative governance pertaining to supranational regulatory regimes and regulators – e.g. the European Union, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization. The analysis focuses on the role of coalitions of civil society actors in favouring policy convergence between different supranational regulatory regimes. The following three aspects will be explored: first, the nature of the described coalitions of civil society actors and the activities in which those coalitions are engaged; second, the capacity of such coalitions to operate as drivers of harmonized principles of administrative governance (e.g. transparency, due process in decisions affecting private parties and review mechanisms to ensure legality) across different supranational regulators; and, third, the controversies raised by these coalitions.
This paper will make an attempt to answer two main questions:
(1) how the convergence of administrative principles among supranational legal regimes is encouraged by coalitions of civil society actors?
This paper suggests that the cooperation between coalitions of civil society actors and supranational regulators encourages convergence of administrative rules through attractiveness and imposition. Attractiveness signifies learning and voluntary imitation of a superior model perceived as more functional or legitimate, whereas convergence conveyed through imposition is based on the use of authority and power that bring to a compulsion to conform;
(2) which are the main controversies raised by coalitions of civil society actors?
Possible tensions are those related to the functioning and flexibility of coalitions of civil society actors, especially when they grow bigger (and the likeliness of controversial positions increases). Other tensions may come from competition among different coalitions, or lack of experimentation in developing new principles or standards.
The paper proceeds as follows. The first section will be devoted to describing civil society coalitions and briefly illustrating the reasons motivating their existence. The second section will focus on the role of coalitions of civil society actors in spreading principles of administrative governance across supranational legal systems. The third section will shift the focus of analysis to the problematic aspects related with civil society coalitions as drivers of convergence of principles of administrative law at the supranational level.
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-07-10
Language: en
Type: article
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