Introduction to the Symposium Conspiracism and Democracy : New Perspectives and Challenges

Abstract

This Introduction outlines the rationale for the symposium by providing an overview of the main information pathologies that are increasingly affecting liberal democratic polities, including misinformation, disinformation, fake news, rumours, and conspiracism. It then zooms in on Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum’s (2019) book A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, from which this symposium takes inspiration and outlines its key argument. Finally, the Introduction provides a brief summary of the articles in the symposium, explaining their contribution to debates on conspiracism and on other key areas of research in contemporary political theory and political science.

Over the past few decades, technological advances such as the Internet and social media have improved exponentially people’s ability to access and communicate information (McGinnis, 2012). Yet, this undoubtedly positive phenomenon has also increasingly presented a ‘dark side’, in the form of various information pathologies that pose a threat to social and political life in liberal democracies.

One of these pathologies is ‘misinformation’, which arises ‘when people hold incorrect factual beliefs and do so confidently’ (Jerit and Zhao, 2020: 78; see also Kuklinski et al., 2000: 792). Misinformation is often driven by psychological factors, especially people’s tendency to evaluate information based on their pre-existing beliefs, goals, and motivations. As Jerit and Zhao (2020: 80) point out,

[a]n important aspect of political information processing . . . is that preexisting attachments to a political party or ideological worldview impart strong directional goals. Directional motives contribute to the problem of misinformation insofar as they lead to biases in how people obtain and evaluate information about the political world.

A related yet different type of information pathology is ‘disinformation’. Unlike misinformation, disinformation involves an agent’s deliberate attempt to deceive their audience, leading them to acquire incorrect information about some aspect of reality (e.g. an event, a person, and so on), and it is often motivated by that agent’s desire to advance their personal or ideological agenda (Chadwick and Stanyer, 2022; Fetzer, 2004). A distinctive subtype of disinformation is ‘fake news’, which can be understood as the deliberate attempt to deceive one’s audiences by apparently complying with (while in fact contravening) the professional standards of journalism (Aikin and Talisse, 2018; Gelfert, 2018; Rini, 2017), and to do so in order to realize certain goals (e.g. political, economic, and so on; Rini, 2017: E45).

A third kind of information pathology involves ‘rumours’, that is, ‘statements that lack specific standards of evidence’ but which can acquire credibility ‘through widespread social transmission’ (Berinsky, 2017: 242–243). In contrast with misinformation and disinformation which, by definition, are based on false information, rumours can at least occasionally be true (Flynn et al., 2017: 129).

A fourth type of information pathology is ‘conspiracism’, which consists of explaining historical or political events by tracing them back to ‘the machinations of powerful people’ (Sunstein and Vermeule, 2009: 205; see also Cassam, 2019; Cíbik and Hardoš, 2020; Coady, 2018; Moore, 2018). Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum’s (2019) book A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, from which this symposium takes inspiration, constitutes one of the most thought-provoking analyses of conspiracism to have emerged in political science in recent years. The book’s central claim is that although conspiracism per se is not a new phenomenon, and has existed for a long time in many societies, we are increasingly witnessing what Muirhead and Rosenblum identify as a ‘new conspiracism’, which came to prominence during the Donald Trump presidency. According to Muirhead and Rosenblum (2019: 2), ‘[c]lassic conspiracism [or “conspiracy with the theory”, as they define it] . . . tries to make sense of a disorderly and complicated world by insisting that powerful people control the course of events’. Importantly, like rumours, conspiracy theories of the classic kind can sometimes be true. In fact, Muirhead and Rosenblum (2019: 9) argue, ‘[b]y probing and uncovering the nefarious intentions and actions of agents opposed to the public welfare, conspiracy theory sometimes has been an instrument for reforming democratic politics’. However, the ‘new conspiracism’ or ‘conspiracy without the theory’ (Muirhead and Rosenblum, 2019: 2) operates in a very different way. More specifically, Muirhead and Rosenblum (2019: 3) point out, the new conspiracism

dispenses with the burden of explanation. Instead, we have innuendo and verbal gesture: ‘A lot of people are saying . . . ’ Or we have bare assertion: ‘Rigged!’ – a one-word exclamation that evokes fantastic schemes, sinister motives, and the awesome capacity to mobilize three million illegal voters . . . What validates the new conspiracism is not evidence but repetition.

Like classic conspiracism, the new conspiracism aims to provide narratives to make sense of complex political events. Yet, rather than engaging in a meticulous collection of facts to create persuasive (though not always truthful) narratives, as its classic counterpart does, the new conspiracism relies on allegations and insinuations that spread through repetition, especially via social media. In so doing, it delegitimizes democratic politics, including parties, partisanship and legitimate opposition. Countering this threat, Muirhead and Rosenblum argue, requires both common sense and scepticism, as well as speaking out against it and ‘enacting democracy’ (2019: 159) by complying with democratic institutions and processes, and persuading others to do the same.

Taking inspiration from Muirhead and Rosenblum’s book, this symposium reflects on contemporary conspiracism by focusing on its relationship with democracy. More specifically, each of the contributions enlightens our understanding of conspiracism by employing a distinctive theoretical lens grounded in democratic theory while at the same time leveraging the analysis of conspiracism in order to advance debates about democracy.

In their contribution, Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum reassert the distinction between classic and new conspiracism, explaining how new conspiracists employ mere assertion and repetition (rather than sophisticated argumentation and the gathering of evidence) in order to engage their audiences. This, they argue, threatens democracy in three key ways: by undermining the very possibility of democratic debate (including disagreement), which is grounded in argument and evidence; by delegitimizing political adversaries and failing to accept legitimate opposition; and by challenging the legitimacy of experts and knowledge-producing institutions, thus weakening the foundations for evidence-based policy.

Matteo Bonotti and Steven T. Zech take a different perspective on conspiracism by focusing on its relationship with incivility and democracy. More specifically, they argue, conspiracism can contribute to incivility and, therefore, threaten democracy by undermining the functionality of politeness rituals that are central to democratic life (incivility as impoliteness); by inspiring violent, hateful and discriminatory behaviour (moral incivility); and by challenging the moral and epistemic foundations of public justification (justificatory incivility). Yet, Bonotti and Zech argue, conspiracism can sometimes be harmless or even helpful for democracy, particularly when it helps advance the interests of oppressed and vulnerable groups. As well as advancing the debate on both conspiracism and democracy, their contribution also shows how debates on civility and incivility, which have normally focused on the moral dimensions of democratic life, should pay more attention to its epistemic dimensions.

Zim Nwokora tackles the relationship between conspiracism and democracy head-on, by focusing specifically on the potential responses to conspiracism that political elites can employ. Nwokora proposes three potential approaches – ignore, rebut and embrace – and explains under which conditions each of them might be most effective in countering conspiracism and should therefore be employed. As well as contributing to the debate about how to tackle conspiracism, Nwokora’s article also opens up new potential avenues of research on the role and skills of political leaders who are faced with the task of sustaining democratic institutions and values while operating in an increasingly pathological informational context.

Finally, Mark Warren examines conspiracism through the lens of corruption and, more specifically, the corruption of speech. The new kind of conspiracism discussed by Muirhead and Rosenblum in their book, Warren argues, is an instance of corrupted speech in the sense that it undermines certain fundamental normative commitments that are central to the relationship between speakers and listeners, and which require them to be responsible for their claims and justify them to one another.

Since democracy depends on these commitments, Warren concludes, it is important to create or strengthen institutions that disincentivize corrupted speech. As well as contributing to debates on conspiracism, Warren’s article also importantly opens up new avenues of research in a number of other areas including not only, of course, corruption but also deliberative democracy (where most scholars, as he rightly points out, have neglected the constitutive role of language) and free speech (where little attention has been paid to the relational nature of language).

Together, therefore, the contributions to this symposium help to unveil new intersections between conspiracism and other key dimensions of democratic life, thus also revealing the complex and multifaceted nature of this phenomenon, and the importance of understanding its ramifications in contemporary democratic societies.