Conspiracy Narratives and Conspiracy Mentality: Addressing the key challenges of current comparative empirical research.

Studies have shown both supply-side and demand-side conspiracy theories to have harmful political and social consequences. 'Walking hand in hand with populism' (Castanho et al. 2017, p. 423), conspiracy narratives continue to challenge liberal democracy, help radical actors reframe their agendas (Taggart & Pirro 2021), and shape public discourse in the post-truth era (McIntyre 2018). They work against the common good (Keeley 1999) and negatively influence policy-making, such as in climate policy (Biddlestone et al. 2022) or health policy in a pandemic (van Mulukom et al. 2022). They serve to undermine trust in liberal democratic institutions and also contribute to political violence (Vegetti & Littvay, 2021). However, other fields have a longer research tradition than political science (20-23; Plenta, 2020), and the latter has often focused only on specific countries (eg Krouwel et al., 2017; van Prooijen et al., 2018). This makes it difficult to systematically test theories about why people believe in conspiracies or what political views are associated with them. The effects are often indistinguishable from other factors that commonly influence political participation (Pilch et al., 2023). Research on the political consequences of conspiracy beliefs is still emerging and frequently produces contradictory results. It is often geographically limited, typically to Western democracies (Walter & Drochon, 2022; Bordeleau, 2023).Studies have also struggled with limited measures due to a lack of data and new theorising (Czech, 2022; Pantazi et al., 2021; Reiser & Küppers, 2022). Thus, more work is needed to better understand this interaction.

1: What are the most important political factors explaining the emergence/impact of conspiracy mentality/theories?
2: How should we conceptualize and measure the effect of conspiracy related concepts?
3: How can we meaningfully compare the role of CT across polities, including Western and non-Western countries?
4: How can we better assess the relationship between conspiracy-related concepts on the supply and demand side?
5: How can we better explain the impact of conspiracy narratives on democratic development and public policy.

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