Norwegian version of this page

Benchmarking Brexit: Norway and the Legitimacy of UK-EU relations after Brexit (BENCHMARK) (completed)

How do we arrange relations between EU members and non-member democracies in ways that secure core standards of democratic legitimacy? Will Brexit aggravate this difficulty? 

Photo of two soldiers preparing to give medical aid to a ship crew they rescued at the sea outside of Somalia.

Illustration: Pixabay

About the project

The European Union (EU) is the main source of shared political and legal order in contemporary Europe. It shapes the political, economic and security systems under which all European democracies live. Yet it is structurally difficult to arrange relations between EU members and non-member democracies in ways that secure core standards of democratic legitimacy for all of them.

BENCHMARK investigates whether any Brexit will aggravate that difficulty. Given that Norway has developed what is probably the most ambitious model to date for how a non-member state can co-operate with the EU, BENCHMARK will distinguish four scenarios for any Brexit in which (i) UK/EU relations break down completely or the UK and EU commit after Brexit to (ii) fewer; (iii) similar or (iv) even more obligations than Norway's present relationship with the EU.

BENCHMARK will then use the scenarios to investigate whether avoiding or replicating Norway's relationship with the EU will make any Brexit more or less legitimate: (a) in the UK as a whole; (b) in Scotland and Northern Ireland; (c) with the European Union; and (d) in Norway itself.

BENCHMARK will use official documents and parliamentary and media debates to analyse how far claims about detailed institutional implications of each of the scenarios are accepted as legitimate. BENCHMARK will likewise analyse whether there is variation in the legitimacy of the four scenarios across policies of importance to Norway: trade, security, migration, agriculture and fisheries, development aid, energy and climate.

Throughout the research, in close cooperation with project partner CICERO, climate policy will also be used as a reference case for how collective-action problems and constitutional problems can interact differently across policies to shape the legitimacy of alternative ways of structuring relations between the EU and non-member democracies after any Brexit.

    Cooperation

    BENCHMARK involves a cross-disciplinary European network of researchers that includes leading scholars on Brexit in the UK and beyond.  

    Financing

    BENCHMARK is financed by the Research Council of Norway’s research initiative ‘Europe in Transition’ (EUROPA).

    Project period: 1 November 2018 – 31 October 2021

     

    GDPR and processing of personal data

    In the frame of the Benchmark project, we collect and analyse news articles and parliamentary transcripts already publicly available in the following sources and countries: the UK, Norway and Switzerland. In the course of our analysis, we collect and temporarily store information on individuals whose names and statements appear in the documents that we analyse. GDPR rights apply for all persons whose data we will be processing throughout the course of the project (see articles 15-21 of the GDPR). This entails that all such persons have the right to:

    • Ask for access to their personal data being processed.
    • Request that their personal data be deleted.
    • Request that incorrect personal data is corrected/rectified.
    • To receive a copy of their personal data (data portability).

    A full list of the texts by title, source and country will be uploaded on the project website soon. In select cases, we publish analysis that may directly or indirectly identify public persons or private individuals and their opinions on Brexit. Please contact research advisor Geir Kværk (g.o.kvark@arena.uio.no) if you:

    • Identify yourself in our work as one of these individuals and have any concerns regarding your GDPR rights.
    • Identify yourself as having contributed your opinions in any of the texts that will appear listed here and have any concerns about the way we have processed and stored your personal data.
    Tags: Brexit, Legitimacy, EEA-agreement, European Union, European integration, United Kingdom, Climate Policy
    Published Oct. 23, 2018 3:33 PM - Last modified Oct. 6, 2022 1:52 PM

    Contact

    Coordinator

    Christopher Lord

    ARENA Centre for European Studies
    P.O. Box 1143 Blindern
    0318 Oslo
    Norway

     

    Partner

    Merethe Dotterud Leiren and Solveig Aamodt

    CICERO Center for International Climate Research
    P.O. Box 1129 Blindern
    0318 Oslo
    Norway

    Participants

    • Christopher Lord Universitetet i Oslo
    • Jørgen Bølstad Universitetet i Oslo
    • Asimina Michailidou Universitetet i Oslo
    • Helena Seibicke Universitetet i Oslo
    Detailed list of participants