Theodore Tallent

The US could see a 30-40% decline in new international student enrollment, resulting in nearly $7 billion in lost revenue and more than 60,000 fewer American jobs. https://www.nafsa.org/fall-2025-international-student-enrollment-outlook-and-economic-impact

Only 29% would back Brexit now — poll proves tables have turned We asked Britain about Europe, China and their least favourite world leaders, but one answer stands out

“Only 29% would back Brexit now — poll proves tables have turned”
- @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

People’s tendency to underestimate how much others support climate action is recurrent finding in empirical studies of climate policy support, and is a huge sore point for political climate action.

Thank you Federica! You and your team are doing such an awesome work 🙏

Thank you to all those who provided feedback on previous drafts along the way, for instance at EPG and EPSA in June.
Special shout out to the incredible team of @fgenovese.bsky.social who all provided fantastic comments during my stay in Oxford this year 🙏

This paper makes an important contribution by advancing a novel place-based framework for understand people's attitudes towards the green transition, insisting that cultural and material concerns are co-produced and intertwined (it's not ALL about money!).

Read more: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Qual findings reveal shared narratives of discontent, grounded in both perceived material constraints and cultural conflicts. Structural conditions shaped how residents experienced policy burdens, but discontent was also mediated by cultural narratives – about rural identity, norms, and landscapes.

The quant reveals spatial patterns of discontent aligned with key structural dimensions:
- composition (prevalence of vulnerable workers)
- economic structure (reliance on carbon-intensive sectors)
- material conditions (low density, limited infrastructure, constrained access to local services)

I show this with a mixed-methods approach. I start with a preliminary quantitative analysis of geo-coded survey data from France, combining individual responses on climate policy support with local-level contextual indicators. I then turn to qualitative evidence from fieldwork in rural France.

When policies are perceived to threaten these narratives and place unfair burdens, they can provoke intertwined cultural and material grievances. Rural discontent thus reflects not just opposition to costs or inconvenience, but a broader misalignment between policy logics and localised ways of life.

Residents’ responses to climate policies are also shaped by how their impacts are interpreted through locally embedded cultural narratives of place – about who people are (rural identity), how they live (rural norms), and how they relate to their environment (rural landscapes).

Structurally, climate policies often generate tensions within rural contexts because their distributional impacts interact with specific territorial features of rural contexts: (i) their composition, (ii) their economic structure, and (iii) their material characteristics.

To explain rural discontent, I advance a place-based framework: I argue that it is the interplay between the *structural conditions* of rural life and the *cultural narratives* of place that together inform how residents interpret and evaluate climate policies.

A green divide? Climate policy support and its rural geography in Europe Opposition to the green transition is often attributed to the direct costs of climate policies, with particularly vulnerable individuals perceived as more resistant. While recent studies suggest ru...

While rural contexts differ greatly, they indeed appear increasingly bound by a common sense of
unease about the direction and costs of climate policy.

I talk about this in another paper recently published in @wepsocial.bsky.social ⤵️
doi.org/10.1080/0140...

🚨New working paper 🚨

Excited to share my new working paper on rural discontent with climate policies in Europe.

As the climate backlash materialises, especially in rural places, I ask: why do people oppose the green transition in rural areas?

A quick 🧵

The paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Merci au @cnrs.fr de partager les résultats de mon article de recherche récemment publié dans @wepsocial.bsky.social

J'étudie la question du soutien aux politiques climatiques entre territoires urbains et ruraux.

Un résumé ci-dessous, et l'article complet ici: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I am speechless 🫠

Oops 😬

We deserve this one

Dua Lipa as a symbolic policy
⤵️
doi.org/10.31219/osf...

Far-right challenges to liberal democratic press norms: “indexing by proxy” in a German immigration debate Abstract. This study examines the mechanisms by which illiberal politics make the news by disrupting democratic systems. During the late 20th century, a li

This is such a great new piece of research by @curdknupfer.bsky.social et al. It should be mandatory reading for journalists. academic.oup.com/joc/advance-...

C'est pas du vent - Transition (s) : mode d'emploi Les 2/3 des Européens s’inquiètent des conséquences du changement climatique, mais sont de moins en moins motivés pour lutter à l’échelle individuelle, ils attendent des politiques publiques fortes.…

#Danslesmédias 🎙️
Transition(s) : mode d'emploi ♻️

@theodoretallent.bsky.social sur @rfi.fr revient sur le paradoxe entre l'inquiétude des européens face aux conséquences du changement climatique et l'action très mesurée des décideurs politiques en matière transition écologique.

À (ré)écouter👇

C'est pas du vent - Transition (s) : mode d'emploi Les 2/3 des Européens s’inquiètent des conséquences du changement climatique, mais sont de moins en moins motivés pour lutter à l’échelle individuelle, ils attendent des politiques publiques fortes.…

I was invited on the radio yesterday to discuss the current backlash against climate action...and what we can do about it.

Could also discuss the recent reintroduction of a dangerous pesticide in France by a coalition going from the centre to the radical right...
@rfi.fr
www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/...

‘A war of the truth’: Europe’s heatwaves are failing to spur support for climate action Voters may feel hotter summers are ‘too much’ but they appear to tolerate roll-back of policies to stop global heating

‘A war of the truth’: Europe’s heatwaves are failing to spur support for climate action #Climate

Thanks Federica!
I now need to publish paper 2, discussed with you in Oxford, on the finer mechanisms behind rural discontent ;)

Thank you Sarah! First big milestone of my academic career ;)

A green divide? Climate policy support and its rural geography in Europe Opposition to the green transition is often attributed to the direct costs of climate policies, with particularly vulnerable individuals perceived as more resistant. While recent studies suggest ru...

After this, we are left with open questions into "why" rural discontent emerges ... My second paper will answer this question, with a mixed-methods approach (geo-coded survey data + interviews with rural residents). Coming soon :)

Full article accessible here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Takeaways (2)
I bring insights both for the POLITICS of the green transition – shedding light on place-based discontent (materially & culturally) and emerging spatial cleavages – and for the POLICY dimension of climate action – informing more context-sensitive approaches to design & implementation.

Key takeaways (1)
Opposition is not monolithic: climate policies and their specific impacts matter (for both the significance of the divide and the extent of the divide – which tends to be real but limited).

I perform a range of analyses showing that rural CONTEXT matters in explaining discontent (it's not just a matter of WHO lives there - but what how place is shaping these attitudes across people).