Diane Bolet – The green backlash and support for the radical right

Hi, my name is Diane Bollet, and I'm a newly appointed Assistant Professor at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics here at Sciences Po.

I'm specialised in voting behaviour and comparative politics, with a special focus on radical right voting and climate politics.

I started my research journey in the UK when I did my Bachelor’s in International Politics at King's College London, and then went on to do a dual degree: a Master's in European Affairs here at Sciences Po for one year, and another year at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). I then decided to do a PhD at the LSE. I did postdocs at the University of Zurich and King's College London and then had Assistant Professorships at the University of Durham and the University of Essex, before coming to Sciences Po. 

My research revolves around trying to understand how communities respond to structural changes, such as globalisation, rising immigration, or more recently, the green transition. 

My PhD worked on trying to understand the link between local context and the support for radical right parties in Western Europe. Among other findings, I found a link between the closure of social spaces, such as pubs in the UK, and support for radical right parties.

I'm currently working on another structural change: the green transition. After the Paris Agreement and the enactment of the European Green Deal, a lot of climate policies have been implemented in multiple European countries and I'm trying to understand the electoral consequences of these policies among affected communities. 

So, I've looked at several fossil fuel communities. In a published paper, I looked at Spanish coal mining communities and how they are rewarding the incumbents, so the Socialist Party in Spain, for implementing just transition policies. 

I've just won a European Research Council grant. I go beyond coal: I'm also interested in oil and gas communities as well as farmers and how they respond to having more environmental regulations or policies that could impose some costs, but also long-term societal benefits. And so, I'm looking at whether that could trigger a backlash, what we call a ‘greenlash’, but also what kind of policies could compensate or mitigate such backlash.

I’ve joined the Centre because it is a landmark in EU studies. What I particularly like, and I find enriching and stimulating is to be able to talk about the same topic from different perspectives and fields. When you talk about the role of climate change or climate issues in politics, you can see it differently whether you are a political economist, or a sociologist, or historian, or political scientist like me.

I'm also very honoured to be part of this great research community that is Sciences Po. I'm particularly interested to work with other members of the climate school to advance climate mitigation policies with people from various fields.