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Paper short abstract

Why are conspiracy theories unprecedentedly more appealing in today’s world? How did they become ever more mainstreamed and legitimised? Drawing on research with high income and high status professionals in Western Europe, this presentation explores how conspiracism fuels populist imaginaries.

Paper long abstract

Conspiracism is ever more influential in sociopolitical debates across the world. Crucially, once secluded to the ‘fringes’, they have steadily moved to the ‘centre’, becoming unprecedentedly legitimised and credible. Striving to go beyond conventional articulations in political science and social psychology, which reduce conspiracism to individual/socioeconomic pathologies, this presentation takes conspiracy theories as alternative political imaginaries through which radical political critique is levelled against politics and society. It refrains from treating conspiracy theories simply through their epistemological qualities (that they are always already wrong) but focuses on the sociopolitical effects generated through their circulation. Through focusing on the findings from an ongoing study with educated elites (physicians, lawyers, and managers) in Germany, UK, and Sweden, this presentation explores how conspiracism engages with the political arguments of populist and radical right political movements, mainstreams them in the face of decline an inertia by ‘establishments’, and through conspiratorial forms, come up with radical political critiques against increasing socioeconomic inequality and political polarisation. This exploration reveals how the terrain upon which scientific ‘truth’ reigned supreme is radically reconfigured with competing political claims challenge the way society and politics are organised.