About

Justin Farrell is a Professor of Sociology at Yale School of the Environment. His research focuses on how values, history, and landscape shape the social worlds people build. He writes about people as they see themselves, utilizing both computational and qualitative methods. Farrell's work reaches both academic and public audiences, and he frequently presents his research to policymakers including the U.S. Senate, the White House, the Vatican, and the United Nations. His research has been published in prominent outlets such as Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Sociological Review, and Nature Climate Change, with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation. Farrell is a first-generation college graduate and Wyoming native. He earned his Ph.D. from Notre Dame and divides his time between Yale and the Mountain West, where he directs a research program on rural communities and landscapes.

Research topics

• Political science
• Sociology
• Environmental ethics
• Epistemology
• Geography

Selected publications

• Climate Policy Obstruction on the Right and the Far Right

  2025-10-14 · 1 citations

  book-chapterOpen access

  Abstract This chapter considers scholarly research on the constellation of actors and movements situated on the right wing of the political spectrum and the strategies, tactics, and narratives they engage in to obstruct climate action. It begins by clarifying conceptual and empirical boundaries around the related terms “conservative,” “neoliberal,” “right-wing,” and “far right,” and then briefly traces the history of these concepts. The chapter then analyzes climate obstruction by the neoliberal and conservative right followed by that of the revolutionary and authoritarian far right. Next, it examines right-wing obstruction in various segments of civil society including think tanks, foundations, conservation organizations, religious groups, and the global Atlas Network, an umbrella group providing an arena for right-wing organizations to unite around common values and projects including climate obstruction. The chapter emphasizes both the multiplicity and interdependencies of conservative reform and the reactionary forces delaying and blocking climate policy and concludes with a call for further research.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Conservatism, the Far Right, and the Environment

  Annual Review of Sociology · 2024-04-22 · 24 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Sociology operates with an impoverished understanding of conservatism and the natural environment. The discipline's focus on antiregulatory and antiscience dimensions of conservative politics can obscure a more comprehensive, historically deep, and theoretically rich understanding of conservatism's connection to nature. We review and integrate sociological research with a large multidisciplinary global literature on conservative and far right environmental thought. Our analysis shows an intellectual tradition built around three commitments concerning the moral order of nature and society: naturalism, organicism, and pastoralism. Rather than being antiscientific, these traditions have drawn heavily on natural science for their authority. After tracing their history, we consider several contemporary manifestations, sometimes in ways that are counterintuitive to sociology's dominant understanding of conservatism. Conservative thought, including its far right edges, maintains a firm hold on global politics while climate change transforms the planet. To better understand these dynamics, sociology must continue to integrate work from other socioenvironmental fields. This review begins to correct this neglect and charts a path for future research at this increasingly impactful intersection.

  PublisherDOI

• The Influence of the Nature-Culture Dualism on Morality

  Handbooks of sociology and social research · 2023-01-01 · 4 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Informal Modes of Social Support among Residents of the Rural American West during the <scp>COVID</scp>‐19 Pandemic^☆

  Rural Sociology · 2023-07-31 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract During the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic, federal spending on government safety net programs in the United States increased dramatically. Despite this unparalleled spending, government safety nets were widely critiqued for failing to fully meet many households' needs. Disaster research suggests that informal modes of social support often emerge during times of disruption, such as the first year of the pandemic. However, use of formal government programs and informal support are rarely examined relative to each other, resulting in an incomplete picture of how households navigate disaster impacts and financial shocks. This study compares estimates of informal social support to formal government program use in the rural U.S. West, drawing on data from a rapid response survey fielded during the summer of 2020 and the 2021 Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS‐ASEC). We find that informal social support systems were, on aggregate, used almost as extensively as long‐standing government programs. Our findings highlight the critical role of person‐to‐person assistance, such as sharing financial resources, among rural households during a disruptive disaster period. Routine and standardized data collection on these informal support behaviors could improve future disaster research and policy responses, especially among rural populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Conservatism, the Far-Right, and the Environment

  2023-12-08 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Sociology operates with an impoverished understanding of conservatism and the natural environment. The discipline’s focus on anti-regulatory and anti-science dimensions of conservative politics can obscure a more comprehensive, historically deep, and theoretically rich understanding of conservatism’s connection to nature. We review and integrate sociological research with a large multi-disciplinary global literature on conservative and far right environmental thought. Our analysis shows an intellectual tradition built around three commitments concerning the moral order of nature and society: (a) Naturalism, (b) Organicism, (c) Pastoralism. Rather than anti-scientific, these traditions have drawn heavily on natural science for their authority. After tracing their history, we consider several contemporary manifestations, sometimes in ways that are counterintuitive to sociology’s dominant understanding of conservatism. Conservative thought, including its far right edges, maintains a firm hold on global politics while climate change transforms the planet. To better understand these dynamics, sociology must continue to integrate work from other socio-environmental fields. This review begins to correct this neglect and charts a path for future research at this increasingly impactful intersection.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Psychological Distress, Economic Disruption, and COVID-19 Survey

  PsycTESTS Dataset · 2022-01-01

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Climate change contrarian think tanks in Europe: A network analysis

  Public Understanding of Science · 2022-12-15 · 17 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Drawing from network theory and previous findings from US-based analyses, we measure the structure and interconnectedness of climate contrarian think tanks in Europe. This exploratory analysis can illustrate European organizations' capacity to promote or disrupt political discourse. To this end, we use social network analysis to conduct actor-focused research. We identify the individuals bridging European think tanks, as well as their ties with the US climate change contrarian network. Our analysis reveals a discernible network structure for European climate change contrarian think tanks, with a profile connected to neoliberal organizations, including a few, but highly relevant links, with the US countermovement. We also find that the European think tanks' institutional structure is very much shaped by a strong predominance of men, which aligns with previous research on masculinity and climate contrarianism.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of land dispossession and forced migration on Indigenous peoples in North America

  Science · 2021-10-28 · 201 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  What are the full extent and long-term effects of land dispossession and forced migration for Indigenous peoples in North America? We leveraged a new dataset of Indigenous land dispossession and forced migration to statistically compare features of historical tribal lands to present-day tribal lands at the aggregate and individual tribe level. Results show a near-total aggregate reduction of Indigenous land density and spread. Indigenous peoples were forced to lands that are more exposed to climate change risks and hazards and are less likely to lie over valuable subsurface oil and gas resources. Agricultural suitability and federal land proximity results—which affect Indigenous movements, management, and traditional uses—are mixed. These findings have substantial policy implications related to heightened climate vulnerability, extensive land reduction, and diminished land value.

  PublisherDOI

• Political Support for a Green Recovery from the Covid-19 Pandemic in Rural America

  2021-05-29

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Rural residents in the western United States, a politically conservative region reliant on natural resources and amenities tied to a land-based economy, strongly support government relief spending in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, rural people show bipartisan support for low-carbon development in residents' local counties. These results suggest an opportunity for climate-conscious development policies that bundle pandemic recovery andclimate change mitigation while securing sustainable rural livelihoods.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Elevated serious psychological distress, economic disruption, and the COVID-19 pandemic in the nonmetropolitan American West

  Preventive Medicine · 2021-12-17 · 16 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• RAPID: Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on Rural Attitudes about Federal Aid and Recovery

  NSF · $179k · 2020–2021

• CAREER: Energy Transition on Rural America: Studying Cultural, Technological, and Economic Change

  NSF · $400k · 2018–2023

Frequent coauthors

• Kathryn McConnell

  John Brown University

  9 shared

• Paul Berne Burow

  Stanford University

  8 shared

• J. Tom Mueller

  University of Kansas Medical Center

  6 shared

• Alexis Merdjanoff

  New York University

  5 shared

• Jesse Callahan Bryant

  Yale University

  3 shared

• Robert J. Brulle

  2 shared

• Kyle Powys Whyte

  1 shared

• Jude Bayham

  1 shared

Education

• PhD, Sociology

  University of Notre Dame

  2014