Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories in the Age of Trump (2024)

Conspiracy Theories as Vectors of Foreign Influence: Coordinating Counteraction between Public and Private Sectors

2022

Conspiracy and foreign policy

Security Dialogue, 2018

Conspiracies play a significant role in world politics. States often engage in covert operations. They plot in secret, with and against each other. At the same time, conspiracies are often associated with irrational thinking and delusion. We address this puzzle and highlight the need to see conspiracies as more than just empirical phenomena. We argue that claims about conspiracies should be seen as narratives that are intrinsically linked to power relations and the production of foreign policy knowledge. We illustrate the links between conspiracies, legitimacy and power by examining multiple conspiracies associated with 9/11 and the War on Terror. Two trends are visible. On the one hand, US officials identified a range of conspiracies and presented them as legitimate and rational, even though some, such as the alleged covert development of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, are now widely considered false. On the other hand, conspiracies circulating in the Arab-Muslim world were dismissed as irrational and pathological, even though some, like those concerned with the covert operation of US power in the Middle East, were based on credible concerns.

Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories

Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories, 2020

This handbook provides the most complete analysis of the phenomenon to date. It analyses conspiracy theories from a variety of perspectives, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It maps out the key debates, and includes chapters on the historical origins of conspiracy theories, as well as their political significance in a broad range of countries and regions. Other chapters consider the psychology and the sociology of conspiracy beliefs, in addition to their changing cultural forms, functions and modes of transmission. This handbook examines where conspiracy theories come from, who believes in them and what their consequences are.

2018. "Conspiracy Theory as Spatial Practice: The case of the Sivas arson attack, Turkey," Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 36(2): 255-272.

This article discusses the relationship between conspiratorial thinking and physical space by focusing on the ways conspiracy theories regarding political violence shape and are shaped by the environments in which it is commemorated. Conspiratorial thinking features space as a significant element, but is taken to do so mainly figuratively. In blaming external powers and foreign actors for social ills, conspiracy theorists employ the spatial metaphor of inside versus outside. In perceiving discourses of transparency as the concealment rather than revelation of mechanisms of governance, conspiracy theorists engage the trope of a façade separating the space of power's formulations from that of its operations. Studying the case of an arson attack dating from 1990s' Turkey and its recent commemorations, this article argues that space mediates conspiracy theory not just figuratively but also physically, and as such serves to catalyze two of its deadliest characteristics: anonymity and non-linear causality. Attending to this mediation requires a shift of focus from what conspiracy theory is to what it does as a spatial practice.

Conspiracy theories and their truth trajectories (2011)

Focaal: Journal of global and historical anthropology, 2011

This article aims to reinvigorate analytical debates on conspiracy theories. It argues that definitional attempts to set conspiracy theories apart from other theories are flawed. Blinded by the “irrational” reputation of conspiracy theories and deluded by the workings of institutionalized power such approaches fail to recognize that there are no inherent differences between the two categories. We argue that assessments of conspiracy theories should focus not on the epistemological qualities of these theories but on their interactions with the socio-political fields through which they travel. Since “conspiracy theory” is not a neutral term but a powerful label, attention to processes of labelling highlights these larger fields of power, while the theories’ trajectories illuminate the mechanisms by which truth and untruth are created. As such, this article offers a way forward for assessing both the truth and use value of conspiracy theories in the contemporary world.

Conspiracy Theories and The Vigilant Citizen: Sub-Title Redacted—You Do Not Have Clearance.docx

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2016 - Lexia 23-24 - Conspiracy - Preface

Preface to issue 23-24 of _Lexia_, on the semiotics of conspiracy theories

Conspirology: With the 2020 Election, Conspiracy Theory Moves to Center Stage

The Challenge of Conspiracy Theories for Strategic Communications

The RUSI Journal, 2020

Donald Holbrook highlights the role conspiracy theories play in relation to state and non-state strategic communications efforts that are hostile to Western security interests. Not only is their use and acceptance prevalent, but conspiracy theories also represent powerful rhetorical tools to justify indiscriminate or mass-scale aggression since they link shared grievances with alleged and purported networks of perpetrators, whose intent, secrecy, agency and connectedness are taken for granted.

Bridging the Great Divide: Conspiracy Theory Research for the 21st Century