Excerpt
This policy brief discusses effects of associate non-membership in the EU with observations from Norway. It raises several interlinked questions: what room of manoeuvre does such states enjoy? What consequences does it have for national administrative governance? Does it provide avenues for coordinated governance? The policy brief also pays particularly attention to the role of public administration for five reasons: Public administration serves as a critical infrastructure for public governance in democratic systems, it is essential for the policy cycle by keeping governance processes moving, it is indispensable for impartial and noncorrupt governing systems, it safeguards long-term policy schedules by being at arm’s length distance from electoral cycles, and it is key for European integration for states without European Union (EU) membership.