Despite growing attention, there is still a lack of coherent understanding of the impact conspiracy theories (CT) and conspiracy mentality on democracy. The workshop tackles this by addressing five key challenges: (1) Understand the phenomenon from a political science perspective (complementing existing research, eg in psychology), (2) better theorise distinguishing conspiracy narratives from related concepts, ie populist discourses, (3) better operationalise conspiracy-related concepts including political behaviour/ scenarios related to, but not fully engaging with CT; (4) better understand the impact of CT on voting, party competition, democratic engagement, and policy implementation at the national, international, and supranational levels.
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.
1: the political dimension and its underlying causal mechanisms related to conspiracy theories/mentality.
2: the impact of regional, regime-related, cultural, or other forms of contextual diversity related to CT.
3: the questions of conceptual delimitation and operationalization of conspiracy-related concepts.
4: the questions of comparative measurement and data procurement of conspiracy-related phenomena.
5: the political consequences of conspiracy beliefs on democratic development and public policy.
