Conspiracy theories have long played a part in political debates. Following the recent meeting of the Bilderberg group in Watford, Joseph E. Uscinski assesses why the popularity of conspiracy theories has proven so resilient. He argues that some of the most common explanations, such as the notion that a belief in conspiracy theories reflects psychological defects like paranoia or mental illness, do not stand up to scrutiny. Rather conspiracy theories gain traction simply because many people are predisposed to viewing the world in conspiratorial terms

Uscinski, Joseph E.

LSE Research Online

Alex Jones (Credit: Tyler Merbler, CC-BY-SA-3.0)26/06/2013Why are conspiracy theories popular? There’s more to itthan paranoia.blogs.lse.ac.uk /europpblog/2013/06/26/despite-alex-jones-best-efforts-to-prove-otherwise-belief-in-conspiracy-theories-is-not-simply-limited-to-the-paranoid-or-mentally-ill/Conspiracy theories have long played a part in political debates. Following the recent meeting of theBilderberg group in Watford, Joseph E. Uscinski assesses why the popularity of conspiracytheories has proven so resilient. He argues that some of the most common explanations, such asthe notion that a belief in conspiracy theories reflects psychological defects like paranoia or mentalillness, do not stand up to scrutiny. Rather conspiracy theories gain traction simply because manypeople are predisposed to viewing the world in conspiratorial terms.Recently the Bilderberg group met in Hertfordshire for their annual conference. They were greetedby thousands of protesters claiming that the group secretly controls world financial markets fornefarious purposes. Conspiratorial beliefs such as those impugning the Bilderbergers are nothing new and haveflourished across time and space. Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?Researchers from across disciplines (psychology,sociology, political science) have invested greatly inunderstanding why people hold the opinions they do.For decades, scientists have had a pretty goodunderstanding of why people belong to political parties,have a political ideology, take certain issue positions,and support certain candidates. But until recently,researchers knew very little about conspiratorial beliefs.Why do majorities of Americans  believe Kennedy waskilled by a conspiracy? Why do many people continueto believe that Princess Diana was killed as part of aplot, or is secretly still alive?Beliefs such as these seem silly to some, and oddlyintriguing to others. But, if taken too far, conspiratorialbeliefs can impede government policy, stymiecooperation, and even lead to violence. To name but afew examples, opposition to President Obama’s healthcare proposals were hampered by a belief that sinister“death panels” lurked beneath the administration’splans. Anders Behring Breivik killed more than seventyas a response to supposed eco-Marxist and Islamofascist conspiracies. More recently, the Boston Marathonbombers frequently visited 9/11 conspiracy theory websites and were convinced the CIA pulled off the 2001 attacks.Recent efforts by scholars have immeasurably improved our understanding of the illusive origins of conspiratorialbeliefs. For such ubiquitous opinions, they have seemed to defy understanding, and popular accounts of conspiracytheorising provide as many explanations as there are conspiracy theories. We might say conspiracy theories haveconspired to hide their causes. But, with increased effort, scholars have now been able to test many popularexplanations of conspiracy theories, and we are at a point where many proposed explanations can be done awaywith (or at least recognised as having less explanatory power than has often been claimed). So, rather than focus onthe factors that contribute to conspiratorial thinking, let me instead clear some brush from the dense forest ofexplanations.1/3To begin, let’s take the often used psychopathological explanation, that those believing in conspiracy theories arecrazy. Despite Alex Jones’ recent efforts to convince BBC viewers otherwise, mental illness is neither anantecedent, nor the product of conspiracy theorising. Most people believe in at least one conspiracy theory; manypeople believe in several. It would be difficult to label them all crazy. Some attribute conspiracy theorising to morebenign afflictions such as paranoia, feelings of powerlessness, and alienation. These explanations don’t get us veryfar either: first, the causal direction is not clear. People may believe powerful actors are out to get them becausethey are paranoid, but conversely, people may feel paranoid because they believe powerful actors are out to getthem. Second, given the numbers of people that believe in conspiracy theories, we could not label all or most ofsociety as paranoid.Conspiracy theories are often seen as the result of cognitive quirks, that in a complex world, people seek to accountfor complicated events and messy circumstances with simple theories. However, this often cited explanation doesnot stand up to scrutiny. While each person can decide for him or herself how complicated an explanation is,conspiracy theories are generally far more complicated than the official stories they often attempt to refute. Which ismore complicated, the suggestion that 19 terrorists boarded planes and crashed them on 9/11/2001, or that Bush,Cheney, the FBI, the CIA, Israel, all major news outlets, the NYPD, the 9/11 Commission, and Popular Mechanicsmagazine are all secretly conspiring together to hide airplanes, plant explosions, destroy evidence, and deceive thepublic? Put simply, conspiracy theories are usually never more parsimonious than the official explanations they rival.Many have blamed the media, particularly the internet, for fostering conspiratorial beliefs. In fact, no discussion ofconspiratorial beliefs seems complete without blaming the web. Just as for other modern maladies, the internetmakes a great scapegoat. It is true that there are many conspiracy theories tucked away on webpages just waitingto be found. The only problem is most people are not looking for them. And conspiracy theories comprise only a tinyportion of what the web has to offer. Of the top 200 websites visited in the US, none are devoted to conspiracytheories. People go to the web to shop, get recipes, find dates, book vacations, and check the headlines, but findingthe latest conspiracy theory is not one of the top reasons for web use. And research Joseph Parent, MatthewAtkinson, and I have been conducting for the last year suggests that the web is not as kind to conspiracy theories asis often thought: the majority of discussion of conspiracy theories on the net is not only anti-conspiracy theory, butderogatorily so. Finally, the web has only been in wide use for 15 years, but conspiracy theories have been with usfor most of recorded history – and the only measures of conspiracy theorising over time suggest that there has beenno increase accompanying the introduction of the net.Political ideology is often accused of being a culprit, with those on the political Right often cast as being moreconspiratorial than those one the Left. But, in the US at least, conspiratorial beliefs tend to be spread evenly acrossparty and ideological lines – it’s just that members of each party believe in different theories with different villains(the Left accuses the Right of conspiring while the Right accuses the Left of conspiring). And oddly, as partisansaccuse each other of conspiring, they accuse each other of being prone to conspiracy theorising at the same time.For fear of bursting everyone’s bubble, no side is more prone.Finally, evidence of conspiracies is often cited as the reason for conspiratorial beliefs. This explanation is given mostoften by those citing irrefutable evidence in favour of their pet conspiracy theory. But, evidence is in the eye of thebeholder. The same evidence that drives belief in a conspiracy theory for one person drives belief in the official storyfor another. In the end, conspiracy theories gain traction because many people are simply predisposed – to onedegree or another – to view the world in conspiratorial terms. If you are a person who views the world as a productof collusion, then you are likely to see conspiracies everywhere. If you don’t view the world in conspiratorial terms,then you are less likely to see plots lurking behind the corner.Please read our comments policy before commenting .Note:  This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.2/3Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/183zmwa _________________________________About the authorJoseph E. Uscinski – University of MiamiJoseph E. Uscinski is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami.3/3

Why are conspiracy theories popular? There’s more to it than paranoia.

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