A critical conceptualization of conspiracy theory

Conspiracy theory has lately come under greater scrutiny in countries around the world, with several conspiracy theories having gained infamy for encouraging dangerous behaviors and attitudes among their followers: QAnon in the United States (see Coaston, 2020); claims that COVID-19 was brought to China by Americans (see Chunshan, 2020); and the broader international anti-vaccination movement (see DiRusso & Stansberry, 2022; Sturm & Albrecht, 2021), to name just a few of the most prominent. These and other conspiracy theories have contributed to undermining trust in political institutions and have even played a role in motivating political violence, as exemplified by events such as Donald Trump's claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and the subsequent Capitol Building riot of January 6, 2021 (see Argentino, 2021; Bessner & Frost, 2021); the arrest in late 2022 of members of the Reichsbürger movement, a monarchist group associated with Holocaust revisionism and anti-Semitic conspiracism more broadly, for their involvement in a plan to overthrow the Federal Republic in Germany (see Burchett, 2022; Hill, 2022); and the storming of the Brazilian Congress by supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, on the pretext that his 2022 election defeat was also fraudulent (see Nicas, 2023).

Despite the plainly political aspects of such conspiracy theories—both in terms of the content of their claims and their implications—when conspiracy theory is conceptualized or defined, politics has too often been overlooked. Conspiracy theory has often been conceptualized primarily through the lens of epistemology, seen as a particular sort of truth claim, though precise definitions and assessments of this type of claim vary (e.g., see Buenting & Taylor, 2010; Cassam, 2019; Clarke, 2002; Coady, 2007; Dentith, 2018; Keeley, 1999; Pigden, 2007; Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009). This epistemological framing is not constrained to philosophical discussions on conspiracy theory, being also present in research by political scientists on conspiracy theory. For example, in their study of how governments could respond to conspiracy theories, Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule (2009) argue that belief in harmful and false conspiracy theories is the product of what they term as a “crippled epistemology.” Similarly, while their broader argument is that conspiracy theories are more likely to be endorsed by political losers, Uscinski and Parent (2014, Chapter 2) also conceptualize conspiracy theory chiefly through the lens of epistemology; the political aspects of conspiracy theory are largely omitted from their conceptualization, and instead they focus on the standards that could be used to judge the likely truth or falsity of a conspiracy theory, such as Occam's Razor and falsifiability.

The question of truth is certainly a very important aspect of conspiracy theorizing, as any conspiracy theory will try to persuade us that things are one way and not another. However, the role of persuasion here has been largely overlooked. A conspiracy theory will indeed make truth claims, but those claims are not made in a vacuum; they are articulated in a particular context and are influenced by factors such as the identity of the conspiracy theorist's audience, the medium through which they are communicating, and the political moment in which they are expressed. In this way, rhetoric and politics are of key importance, and yet have been largely excluded from definitions and conceptualizations of conspiracy theory.

My primary argument in this article is that we should adjust how we think about the very idea of conspiracy theory. Rather than just taking the term as referring to a particular type of truth claim—one that posits the existence of a conspiracy—we should also see politics and rhetoric as necessary parts of the concept of conspiracy theory. Therefore, instead of viewing only conspiracy theories through the lens of truth and falsity, or rationality and irrationality, we should also ask about what a conspiracy theory is doing in a political sense; what are the political ideas and assumptions it is expressing? What are the identities it is constructing? To whom is it being addressed, and in what context? By focusing more on such rhetorical and political questions, the conceptualization I outline here encourages us to take conspiracy theories themselves as our objects of study, and to examine the political content of their claims, how they are articulated, and how they seek to persuade.

The conceptualization I develop in this article draws on a combination of Adorno's (2007, 2008) negative dialectics as well Billig (1991) and Finlayson's (2004, 2007, 2012) writing on rhetoric and political thinking. I refer to this as a “critical conceptualization,” as, in the spirit of critical theory, it seeks to think “against the flow of the (reified) world” by neither taking the concept for granted nor treating it as natural, instead examining its social constitution and place in social life (Best et al., 2018). This critical conceptualization builds on invaluable research by historians and cultural studies researchers, which has helped to trace the development of conspiracy theory from a legitimate to an illegitimate form of knowledge (e.g., see Bratich, 2008; Butter, 2014, 2020, 2021; Fenster, 2008; McKenzie-McHarg, 2020; Thalmann, 2019).

In approaching the task of conceptualization, I am also interested in how the concept of conspiracy theory influences the practice of conspiracy theorizing. As many scholars have already noted, the term conspiracy theory as we encounter it today comes with a set of pejorative connotations (e.g., see Bratich, 2008; Thalmann, 2019; Uscinski & Parent, 2014). Besides referring to particular entities and activities (conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorizing), then, the concept itself has developed a social significance of its own. As Uscinki and Parent note, “To label a theory as a conspiracy theory or someone a conspiracy theorist may place him or her on uneven terrain” (2014). Via an overview of its changing meaning and significance, I argue that conspiracy theory as a concept contains a tension—if not an exact contradiction—between two ways in which it has been used: On the one hand, conspiracy theory has been used to denote a particular type of explanation that posits a conspiracy as the cause of something; on the other hand, it is used to mark out this type of explanation as illegitimate, assuming it to be unwarranted, irrational, or false. While the former aspect is neutral and descriptive and does not judge the truth or falsity of specific claims made in a conspiracy theory, the latter aspect is pejorative and assumes such claims should be treated with suspicion.

The tension between the descriptive and pejorative meanings of conspiracy theory produces a dilemma of a rhetorical kind. For the person whose utterance is at risk of being labeled as a conspiracy theory, the question is how best to respond to the likely marginalization as a speaker. For the speaker, then, the question is how best to persuade an audience and improve the chances of a conspiracy theory being treated as the exception to the general rule of suspicion and stigmatization. While this dilemma affects conspiracy theories generally, a speaker or author's response to it will vary from one case to the next. As Finlayson explains, attempts at being persuasive “can be grasped only as strategic and contextual rather than as abstract and generalizable” (2004). How a conspiracy theory is articulated, and what is said and left unsaid, will vary depending on the specific context. In some cases, a speaker may refrain from expressing their claim for fear of stigmatization and delegitimization. In other cases, a strategy of preemption may be used, whereby the speaker anticipates the dismissal of their claim and tries to head it off early on, as we see in phrases such as “I am not a conspiracy theorist, but…” (McKenzie-McHarg & Fredheim, 2017). Alternatively, a speaker may even turn the stigma to their advantage, using their delegitimization as proof that they must be on to something, as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been able to do (Thalmann, 2019). Therefore, our analyses of conspiracy theories must be grounded in the particular context of each one. As such, the critical conceptualization I develop here does not offer a one-size-fits-all approach to studying conspiracism, but instead encourages us to pay greater attention to the specific context and content of a conspiracy theory, without losing sight of the general concept.¹

Now for some preemption of my own, and a brief word on what I am not trying to achieve. To avoid confusion, I should stress that my argument is not assessing the epistemic or conceptual value of conspiracy theory. I am not arguing that any particular conspiracy theory should be rescued from the stigma, nor that the broader category is undeserving of its pejorative status. Moreover, this is not an argument about how to determine whether any conspiracy theory might be true. Rather, my focus here is on developing a stronger basis for analyzing conspiracy theories from a political theoretical perspective.

I am not the first to push for greater attention to be paid to the political content of conspiracy theories. In his influential book, Conspiracy Theories, Fenster (2008) emphasizes the political aspects of conspiracy theory, arguing that “conspiracy theory has always been a significant element of American political rhetoric,” and sees it as closely linked to populism. For him, both populism and conspiracy theory posit an opposition between “the people” and a shadowy elite (Fenster, 2008). In an article on conspiracy theories during the Algerian Civil War, Silverstein (2002) argues that conspiracy theorizing contributed to the construction of a common political culture for Algerians, amid a climate of censorship and strict control of the national media. Similarly, Iqtidar (2016) argues that we should pay greater attention to the content of specific conspiracy theories, their historical context, and their role in political change. Focusing on conspiracy theories from Pakistan about the Blackwater private military firm, she takes these to be political imaginaries that hold potential for collective change, serving as possible strategies for calling for greater accountability of such companies in the areas where they operate.

The argument I outline in this article seeks to complement these earlier pieces on the politics of conspiracism, rather than contradicting them. As with these earlier authors, the critical conceptualization of conspiracy theory encourages us to focus on what conspiracy theories are saying about politics, and how they are saying it. This will involve studying the discursive construction of political identities and narratives, as exemplified in the populism Fenster detects in conspiracy theory. However, it will not presume all conspiracy theories to be articulating a uniformly populist political vision—while there is a clear structural affinity between conspiracy theory and populism, we should avoid with conflating populism and other related beliefs, such as authoritarianism and ethnonationalism (Bonikowski, 2017). The argument I will make here also encourages us to pay far greater attention to conspiracy theory's conceptuality, recognizing that the concept itself occupies the same reality as the phenomenon it describes and influences the articulation of conspiracy theories.

This article begins by outlining my approach to conceptualization, starting by describing the solely epistemological conceptualizations to which I am opposed. In this section, I also highlight the relevance to my approach of Adorno's negative dialectics as well as Billig and Finlayson's work on rhetoric and political thinking. The next section examines the history of conspiracy theory as a concept, drawing on previous research showing its development from a neutral term in the 19th century to a pejorative term in the mid-20th century. I show that this change in meaning brings about a tension within the concept between its neutral descriptive aspect and its pejorative aspect. While this tension can be overcome from a philosophical perspective, in the final section I argue that it causes a dilemma that the conspiracy theorist can only overcome through rhetoric; the conspiracy theorist faces the challenge of persuading an audience while starting from a position of marginalization and stigmatization.

As stated above, my aim is to outline a new conceptualization of conspiracy theory that emphasizes its political and rhetorical aspects. The conceptualization I develop here contrasts with previous attempts that view the concept of conspiracy theory solely in terms of epistemology, while also overlooking the context in which the concept has been situated. The form of conceptualization I have in mind is about more than briefly defining the term “conspiracy theory,” and involves thinking not just about conspiracy theories themselves, but also about how the concept is used in discourse.

Having argued against treating the concept of conspiracy along line solely epistemological lines and detached from context, and having proposed an approach based on Adorno's negative dialectics and Finlayson's account of political ideas, I now begin to construct my own conceptualization, starting with the historical and social context in which the concept of conspiracy theory has developed. Drawing in particular on invaluable research by McKenzie-McHarg (2018,2020), Thalmann (2019), and Wood (1982), I describe how conspiracy theory as a concept has developed and changed over time, paying particular attention to its stigmatization since the mid-20th century. Conspiracies have long been a feature of human history, but as we will see, the way we think about them has changed over time.

In this section, I develop my critical conceptualization of conspiracy theory further by describing a rhetorical dilemma that emerges as a result of the two contrasting moments in the concept's history. From one perspective, conspiracy theory denotes a particular type of explanation that posits a conspiracy as the cause of something. This descriptive aspect of the concept corresponds to the original 19th century meaning of the term. However, this aspect stands in tension with the pejorative meaning of the term, which characterizes this particular type of explanation as either unwarranted, irrational, or false. As McKenzie-McHarg and Thalmann's research indicates, this pejorative aspect of the concept can be traced to the mid-20th century and the work of scholars such as Popper and Hofstadter. The result is an intractable challenge for the conspiracy theorist: As Moore observes, “the rise of ‘conspiracy theory’ as a pejorative label has raised a new problem—namely how to talk about conspiracies without sounding like a conspiracy theorist” (2018). Put differently, how should the conspiracy claim be expressed so as to persuade an audience, bearing in mind the stigma that is likely to be attached to that claim?

Jones’ case is particularly noteworthy as it demonstrates precisely how the stigma applied to conspiracy theorizing has helped to give a greater definition to the role of the conspiracy theorist and has become part of the conspiracy theorist's appeal for some audiences. Here, we see that the strategic response to the stigma can have a creative impact of its own, not only by pushing the conspiracy theorist to find their own way of persuading others, but also contributing to the general understanding of what a conspiracy theorist is, and what conspiracy theories are.³ As Finlayson notes, “in politics ideas are always aspects of strategy in a way that is not secondary to or derivative of the ‘real’ idea” (2004). We should therefore avoid seeing cases of conspiracy theory as just examples of the broader category, and instead encourages us to see them as actively drawing upon and influencing understandings of that category. In this way, the critical conceptualization developed in this article allows for the possibility that the concept of conspiracy theory may change further in the future, as conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists push and pull at the boundaries of the category in different directions. To reiterate, the aim of thinking of conspiracy theory in this way is not to decide whether conspiracy theorizing is valid from an epistemological point of view, nor to judge the (ir)rationality of those who believe in conspiracy theories. Instead, its aim is to draw attention to political and rhetorical aspects of conspiracy theory, and so to provide a more robust framework for the analysis of the politics of particular cases of conspiracy theory.

When we try to grasp the concept of conspiracy theory, we should not leave society out of the picture. The critical conceptualization I have been developing in this article views the concept itself not as transhistorical, but rather as historically specific, as is its pejorative status which came about during the mid-20th century. While conspiracy theories are indeed making claims about what is true and false, if our focus is on conspiracy theories as we find them in society, then we must also recognize the crucial role of rhetoric. That is, conspiracy theories are articulated in a particular context, to a particular audience, and such factors will impact upon the way in which the claims are expressed. Moreover, we should pay greater attention to the political nature of conspiracy theorizing, recognizing that conspiracy theories do more than just expressing truth claims—they articulate political identities and narratives, express political beliefs and assumptions, and make claims about what should be done in light of the alleged conspiracy. Therefore, we should be careful not to focus too heavily on conspiracy theory in the abstract, and should instead analyze cases of conspiracy theories in their particular contexts, along with their use of rhetoric and the political claims they make.

Drawing on a combination of Adorno's (2007, 2008) critical theory and Billig (1991) and Finlayson's (2004, 2007, 2012) writing on rhetoric and political thinking, in this article I have highlighted a key tension in the concept of conspiracy theory, between its descriptive and pejorative aspects. Again, this tension is not a transhistorical feature, but is historically specific, the result of the changes in how the concept has been used over time, whereby a neutral way of explaining a particular event by means of a conspiracy took on a new, pejorative meaning. The neutral descriptive meaning of the concept has not disappeared entirely, such that all conspiracy theories are subject to the same pejorative connotations as the irrational explanations of social phenomena that Popper and Hofstadter criticized.

The critical conceptualization put forward in this article points to a rhetorical dilemma emerging from this tension in the concept. Unlike previous conceptualizations, this approach grounds the concept in particular historical and social contexts rather than dealing with it in the abstract. It therefore avoids reifying conspiracy theory, without also abandoning the concept altogether (as Coady, 2018, would have us do). The critical conceptualization of conspiracy theory thus improves our understanding of our object of study by refusing to see it as unchanging and isolated from history, society, and politics. Just as we should study particular cases in their specific contexts, so too should we be aware of the context within which conspiracy theory as a concept exists. Doing so could enable us to strengthen our understanding of conspiracy theory's place in modern societies, and to incorporate a critique of conspiracy theorizing into a broader critical theory of society. The critical conceptualization developed here does not mean that we can or ought to separate the good conspiracy theories from the bad, nor that we should seek to rehabilitate the concept of conspiracy theory. Instead, it requires us to take conspiracy theories seriously as cases of political communication and rhetoric, without accepting the truth of their claims.