This book explores the activism promoted by organised networks of civil society actors in
opening up possibilities for more democratic supranational governance. It examines the positive
and negative impact that such networks of civil society actors - named interlocutory coalitions
- may have on the convergence of principles of administrative governance across the European
legal system and other supranational legal systems. The book takes two main controversial
aspects into account: the first relates to the convergence between administrative rules
pertaining to different supranational regulatory systems. Traditionally the spread of methods
of administrative governance has been depicted primarily against the background of the
interactions between the domestic and the supranational arena both from a top-down and
bottom-up perspective. However the exploration of interactions occurring at the supranational
level between legal regimes is still not grounded on adequate empirical evidence. The second
controversial aspect considered in this book consists of the role of civil society actors
operating at the supranational level. In its discussion of the first aspect the book focuses
on the relations between the European administrative law and the administrative principles of
law pertaining to other supranational regulatory regimes and regulators including the World
Bank the International Monetary Fund the World Trade Organization the United Nations the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development the Asian Development Bank and the
Council of Europe. The examination of the second aspect involves the exploration of the still
little examined but crucial role of civil society organised networks in shaping global
administrative law. These interlocutory coalitions include NGOs think tanks foundations
universities and occasionally activists with no formal connections to civil society
organisations. The book describes such interlocutory coalitions as drivers of harmonized
principles of participatory democracy at the European and global levels. However interlocutory
coalitions show a number of tensions (e.g. the governability of coalitions the competition
among them) that may hamper the impact they have on the reconfiguration of individuals' rights
entitlements and responsibilities in the global arena.
