GREENLOSS - Lost in the Green Transition: Local Collective Greenloss Identity, Anti-Climate Attitudes and Radical Right Support

THE PROJECT

What links exist between feelings of social decline, opposition to climate and environmental policies (“greenlash”), and support for the far right? This is what GREENLOSS will uncover, by studying the repercussions of such policies for communities dependent on fossil fuels or exposed to environmental regulations (e.g. farmers), in several European countries. 

The project is funded for a period of five years (June 2026 – May 2031) by an ERC Starting Grant. 

ERC Starting Grants are awarded to early-career researchers of any nationality with two to seven years of experience since completion of the PhD (or equivalent degree) and a scientific track record showing great promise. 

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

Tackling climate change and the rise of radical right support are two of today's biggest political challenges. These issues are often treated separately, yet they are deeply interconnected. Stringent climate policies face resistance from carbon-intensive communities, while the radical right performs well among these groups. 

Why do those who lose out under climate policies turn to the radical right? GREENLOSS bridges the gap between climate policy and radical right scholarships, providing a new theoretical framework for understanding anti-climate radical right behaviour. The project posits that carbon-intensive communities develop a strong place-based collective identity, shaped by actual and perceived material and symbolic losses due to the (threat of) fossil fuel industry closures or green regulations — a concept termed “greenloss” identity — which radical right parties exploit. 

Using a mixed-methods approach, GREENLOSS examines how greenloss identity affects opposition to climate policies and support for radical right parties in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Poland. 

GREENLOSS will: 

• identify the losers of climate policies by mapping their geographic and sectoral contexts;
• analyse the formation and variation of their greenloss identity across industries and locations through focus groups and interviews;
• assess the impact of greenloss identity on opposition to climate policies and support for radical right parties using novel surveys and contextual data;
• analyse how radical right parties activate this greenloss identity in their rhetoric through computational text analysis of elite data;
• test which aspect(s) of this identity drives support for climate policies using survey experiments. 

TEAM

• Diane Bolet, Assistant Professor, Sciences Po, CEE (Principal Investigator)
• Doctoral student (ongoing recruitment)
• Post-doctoral researcher (call for applications open until 29 July)