Alina is a postdoctoral researcher for the LUDEMO project “Land Use, Sustainability, and Democratic Backsliding” at the Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain. She holds a PhD from Nottingham Trent University, UK, where she explored the politics of climate change in Central Asia. She completed her BA in Sociology and MA in Mixed Methods Social Analysis at the Higher School of Economics, Russia. Alina’s research is situated within critical discourse studies and examines the ideological component of green governance, focusing on authoritarian political regimes. Topics of expertise include the influence of the historical past on modern green politics, climate change scepticism and fossil fuel governance amid the environmental crisis. Her current work focuses on the interlinkages between declining democracies and land use dynamics.