Gregg Bucken-Knapp – författare

Across Europe, the prospect of a rapidly shrinking workforce has put increased labor migration back on the political agenda. However, for many on the left, concerns exist that less restrictive labor migration policies threaten core features of the social democratic project. This is perhaps clearest in Sweden, which in late 2008 adopted a liberal approach to third-country national labor migration, allowing employers to hire freely from outside the European Union. Defending the Swedish Model explores the debate leading up to this reform, focusing on the preferences of the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO). While generally positive to the economic potential of increased labor migration, these allies remained highly skeptical towards calls from employers and bourgeois parties for liberalization.Bucken-Knapp argues that the SAP and LO develop their labor migration policy preferences on the basis of whether specific reform alternatives are perceived as being consistent with, or as undermining, the Swedish model. In the case of third-country nationals, both allies considered liberalization a threat to full employment aims, instead seeking to preserve an influential role for the state labor market board and organized labor. Bucken-Knapp also focuses on the Swedish labor migration debate prior to the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, showing how SAP concerns over potential abuse of the universal welfare state led to its support for transitional arrangements. Defending the Swedish Model illuminates the challenges faced by social democrats and trade unions when considering the need for increased labor migration.

This book studies the dynamics of political discourse in governance processes. It demonstrates the process in which political discourses become normative mechanisms, first marking socially constructed realities in politics, second playing a role in delineating the subsequent policy frames, and third influencing the public sphere.

This book studies the dynamics of political discourse in governance processes. It demonstrates the process in which political discourses become normative mechanisms, first marking socially constructed realities in politics, second playing a role in delineating the subsequent policy frames, and third influencing the public sphere.

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine that dominated headlines around the world. Millions of Ukrainians would flee the country, and a third of the population would be displaced. In the days following the invasion, Swedish migration expert Gregg Bucken-Knapp sent text messages to his Ukrainian colleagues, offering support and assistance. These were their responses.In a series of graphic vignettes, Messages from Ukraine takes the words of Ukrainian migration professionals and transforms them into snapshots of how war affects the lives of everyday people: those who are forced to flee home and seek safety elsewhere, those who choose to stay and volunteer or fight, those who witness events unfolding from afar, and those who find themselves trapped in cities under siege. Messages from Ukraine captures a moment in time to tell a timeless story about war, displacement, determination, and resilience.Proceeds from the sale of Messages from Ukraine will go to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, a national charitable foundation that provides humanitarian aid to the people of Ukraine.

This book examines the integration experiences of refugees to Sweden from Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995), and more recently from Syria (2014-2018) - two of the largest-scale refugee movements in Europe for the last thirty years.It focuses on refugees’ interactions with key institutions of integration including language training, civic orientation, validation of previous educational experience, organizations and multiple labour market initiatives targeting refugees. Drawing on interviews with the refugees themselves, it offers a nuanced analysis of how the institutions of integration operate on a daily basis, and the effects they have on the lives of those who take part in them. The authors’ comparative approach highlights the particularities of each refugee movement while also revealing developments and persistent issues within institutions of integration in the intervening years between the Bosnian-Herzegovinian and Syrian conflicts.Its conclusion, which situates the Swedish case within the broader European context, demonstrates the wider significance of this timely study. It will provide a valuable resource for policymakers in addition to students and scholars of migration studies, social policy, and public policy and business administration.

Det vi bär med oss är en kort serieroman om en ukrainsk kvinnas flykt efter Rysslands fullskaliga invasion av Ukraina i februari 2022. Och den som berättar är hennes resväska, som följer henne genom en vardag som bryts upp, en hastig flykt och ett liv som fortsätter i krigets skugga. Genom väskans ögon följer vi hur vardagen förändras av kriget och hur livet fortsätter efter flykten. Resväskan finns där som resekamrat och vittne när hon lämnar sitt hem, tar sig vidare och fortsätter genom ett liv som fortfarande präglas av kriget. Resväskans röst ger berättelsen både närhet och distans och låter det vardagliga, det svåra och det hoppfulla finnas sida vid sida. Texten är skriven av Gregg Bucken-Knapp och Olga Ivanova, med teckningar av Julia Nascimento.Det vi bär med oss bygger på Olga Ivanovas egna erfarenheter. Gregg Bucken-Knapp är professor i offentlig förvaltning vid Göteborgs universitet och medförfattare till serieromanen Messages from Ukraine (University of Toronto Press, 2022), ett samarbete med den estniske serietecknaren Joonas Sildre. Olga Ivanova arbetar för den ukrainska civilsamhällesorganisationen Stabilization Support Services och bor för närvarande i Polen. Julia Nascimento är en brasiliansk serietecknare och illustratör verksam i Sverige. Hennes arbete präglas av ett mångkulturellt och tvärdisciplinärt perspektiv, med ett särskilt intresse för självbiografiskt berättande och samarbeten. Hennes serier har publicerats internationellt, och 2026 blev ett av hennes verk en del av den permanenta utställningen Existence på Världskulturmuseet i Göteborg.

Uses Norway to test the claim that elites are central to the politicization of linguistic conflict.Why and when do linguistic cleavages within a nation become politicized? Using Norway-where language has played a particularly salient role in the nation's history-as a case study, Gregg Bucken-Knapp explores these questions and challenges the notion that the politicization of language conflict is a response to language problems. He shows that political elites often view language conflict as a political opportunity, placing it on the policy agenda as an effective mobilizing tool to serve their own nonlinguistic political ends. Although language-oriented interest groups may fight to achieve desired language policies, they are generally unsuccessful when their preferences clash with the broader objectives of political elites. This book focuses on understanding just how language policies emerge.