Max Bradley
Biography
Bradley is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at The Watson School of International and Public Affairs. His research sits at the intersection of political economy and political behavior, and he studies the politics of the green transition, focusing on how different actors respond to and are shaped by the pressures of decarbonization and climate change.
Bradley completed his PhD in Political and Social Sciences in 2026 at the European University Institute. In 2024, he was a Junior Visiting Scholar at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Bradley also holds an MSc in Political Science from Leiden University and a BA in Economics from Trinity College Dublin.
Research
Bradley's research has focused on how different actors, such as individuals, communities, or firms, respond to, and are shaped by, decarbonization policies. In his doctoral work he emphasized the role of economic geography, human capital, and education in shaping both the economic and political outcomes of these policies.
Bradley is building on this work through two new research projects. The first examines insurance as a key channel through which the economic costs of climate change are levied on various actors. This project explores how these costs are reshaping the demographics and politics of local communities. The second is a book project which asks why some countries have decarbonized faster and with less political conflict compared with others.
Publications
Educational Policies Can Strengthen Climate Coalitions (with Rens Chazottes, Susanna Garside, and Nina Lopez-Uroz). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, (2026)
Mass attitudes towards Russia's aggression against Ukraine: Tentative support for top-down opinion formation. (with Filip Kostelka, MartÃn Alberdi, Toine Fiselier, Alexandra Jabbour, Nahla Mansour, Eleonora Minaeva, Silvia Porciuleanue, and Diana Rafailova). European Journal of Political Research, (2026)
The Ethnic Origins of Affective Polarization: Statistical Evidence from Cross-National Data (with Simon Chauchard). Frontiers in Political Science, 4, 920615 (2022)