Institutional Distrust, Conspiracy Worldviews and Political Discourse. Conceptualizing the Dynamic Between Conspiracy Narratives and Worldviews.

The CONSPIRE project investigates the challenges that conspiracy narratives and generalized conspiracy worldviews pose to society and democracy in Austria. The paper presents preliminary empirical results and conceptual ideas. Belief in conspiracy narratives can foster rejection of democratic institutions, drive radicalization processes, promote authoritarianism, and contribute to hostility toward science as well as the emergence of post-factual discourses. Quantiative empirical research has flourished in recent years, helping to develop a more robust understanding of the prevalence of conspiracy narratives in different countries. Beyond measuring belief in specific narratives various concepts grasp the general tendency of individuals towards conspiratorial thinking, which has been variously deemed „conspiracy mentality“, „conspiracy worldview“, „conspiracy ideation“ or similar. Starting from empirical results, showing that people, who believe in one conspiracy narrative, tend to believe in others as well, researchers derived more general measurements of conspiracy thinking e.g. the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ), Conspiracy Mentality Scale (CMS) or the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale (GCB). These instruments promise to lead to less situationally specific results than measurements of believe in individual narratives, thereby allowing for more meaningful comparisons across countries as well as across time. Yet, conceptually the link between believe in specific narratives and a generalized leaning towards conspiratorial thinking has not been clearly developed. Regular exposure to conspiracy theories probably promotes a corresponding mindset, which in turn leads people to seek conspiratorial explanations for more and more social phenomena. However, this says little about how conspiracy worldviews actually develop. Which situational factors make conspiratorial explanations attractive for individuals, how does the adaptation of a conspiracy worldview impact their lives, and – most importantly – which consequences does this have for political agency? Last but not least, a fuller understanding of the relevance of conspiracy thinking has to take the deliverance of conspiracy narratives in political discourse into account. Conspiracy narratives fit well with the communication strategies of right-wing populists and form a building block of various extremist ideologies. Nevertheless, there are still gaps in research on conspiracy narratives in political discourse. We argue that these desiderata call for mixed-methods research that combines quantitative, qualitative and discourse-based methods in order to provide insights into believes and trajectories of individuals, who show conspiratorial reasoning as well as into the supply-side of conspiracy-narratives. The CONSPIRE project examines 1) the prevalence of conspiracy worldviews and narratives and explores their relationship to individual as well as social factors through a representative survey of the Austrian population, 2) complements these quantitative findings through narrative interviews with (former) conspiracy believers as well as relatives and close relations, offering insights into life histories and situational influences, and 3) investigates the supply side through discourse analysis, focusing on conspiracy entrepreneurs and their argumentative strategies, emotional appeals, and the creation of overarching meta-narratives that provide coherent worldviews. The integrated findings will serve as a foundation for developing targeted prevention strategies aimed at strengthening democratic resilience.