Taxation without Representation?

Through the European Economic Area (EEA) Norwaygained closeness to the European Union (EU) onlyshort of membership while at the same time retainingfull formal sovereignty. In practical terms howeverNorway ceded extensive sovereignty and at presentmakes a net contribution to the EU budget on par withthe Nordic member states. As Norway has norepresentation where decisions are made at the EUlevel, the democratic deficit inherent to the EEA isthus far bigger than that of the EU itself. Inaddition to being a first time mapping of theNorwegian public sphere on EU matters this bookexplores whether this democratic deficit is mirroredin public contention in the Norwegian public sphere,or if it is complemented by a publicity deficit.The main findings are that Norwegian state actors aredisplayed as the major losers in the opportunitystructure offered by the EEA, being under pressureboth from the EU level as well as from Norwegiannon-state actors using EU legislation as theirjustificatory basis. Further, the loss of practicalsovereignty and democratic control is, together withmost other contentious EU issues, explicitlyunder-communicated by Norwegian state actors.

Autorentext

Geir Olav Løken, Master of Politics: Studied Comparative Politics, History and Law at the University of Bergen (UiB), associated with ARENA, Center for European Studies, University of Oslo and Lehrstuhl für Vergleichende Strukturanalyse, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Presently he is a Research Coordinator at Institute of Biomedicine, UiB.

Klappentext
Through the European Economic Area (EEA) Norway gained closeness to the European Union (EU) only short of membership while at the same time retaining full formal sovereignty. In practical terms however Norway ceded extensive sovereignty and at present makes a net contribution to the EU budget on par with the Nordic member states. As Norway has no representation where decisions are made at the EU level, the democratic deficit inherent to the EEA is thus far bigger than that of the EU itself. In addition to being a first time mapping of the Norwegian public sphere on EU matters this book explores whether this democratic deficit is mirrored in public contention in the Norwegian public sphere, or if it is complemented by a publicity deficit. The main findings are that Norwegian state actors are displayed as the major losers in the opportunity structure offered by the EEA, being under pressure both from the EU level as well as from Norwegian non-state actors using EU legislation as their justificatory basis. Further, the loss of practical sovereignty and democratic control is, together with most other contentious EU issues, explicitly under-communicated by Norwegian state actors.