Marianne Riddervold is Professor in Political Science at the Inland School of Business and Social Sciences (INN) and at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), Norway. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of European Studies (IES), University of California Berkeley, USA.

Akasemi Newsome is Associate Director at the Institute of European Studies, and Executive Director at the Center for German and European Studies, University of California Berkeley, USA.