Taking these investigations and concerns as a point of departure, it is now possible to present the main findings in this discipline. In brief, it appears that conspiracy theories are not a marginal phenomenon and their presence extends throughout the entire political spectrum and up and down the social ladder (Goertzel 1994). No ideology, no party, no social class, no gender, in short, no one, is immune to beliefs in conspiracy theories by virtue of inherent nature or acquired education. Oliver and Wood argue that ‘predispositions are widely distributed across the population and vary by a wide variety of political and psychological variables. These predispositions are not a uniform expression of any one demographic or psychological characteristics’ (2014: 961).
[…]
Step by step, they [‘citizen sleuths’] come to devote their lives to investigating the case. Some of them, like Edward Epstein and other prominent ‘Warrenologists’ (Penn Jones, Lilian Castellano or Sylvia Meagher), or the 9/11 ‘Jersey Girls’ (Kirsten Breitweiser. Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken and Mindy Kleinberg – four widows who pressed the American administration to commission investigations on the 9/11 attacks), for example, manage to gain visibility in the public sphere, and even sometimes to professionalise. Notice that, if conspiracist leaders are nearly always male, there are many women amongst the citizen sleuths. Like many social fields, it seems that conspiracism, too, has a glass ceiling (Giry 2018).
[…]
Many political scientists agree that conspiracy theories are a political myth (Girardet 1986; Giry 2015), a global vision of the world that can espouse different kinds of ideologies even though they have, in democratic countries at least, affinities with government distrust […], extremism […], populism […] and far-right activism […]. More generally speaking, in terms of affiliation. political scientists have found that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories when they feel involved, when they tend to exonerate them or the group they belong to […] and when they implicate their political opponents […]. Hence, conservative or right-wing social actors are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories that implicate liberal actors on the left, and vice-versa. Moreover, Usinscki [sic!] and Parent argue that ‘conspiracy theories are for losers’ (2014: 130; see also Crocker et al. 1999), i.e. the political camp that loses the election is more likely to endorse conspiratorial views than the winning side. Consequently, it seems that conspiracy theories are misleading form of politisation. To some extent, conspiracy narratives constitute enthosociologies – ‘theories that ordinary people or laymen use to explain social phenomena (Waters 1997: 114; see also Jameson 1981) – and theories of power that try to give and make sense of harmful social phenomena (unemployment, drug addictions, epidemies, etc.). or political dysfunctions (misrepresentation of certain social groups, power confiscation, etc.). Going further, Uscinski considers that, in democratic regimes, conspiracy theories are ‘necessary for the healthy functioning of society’ because they act like ‘defense lawyer(s)’
They are opposing counsel in the war of political ideas, where the establishment is the prosecution, and they challenge prevailing wisdom. … Fundamentally conspiracy theories are about the views of the strong versus the weak, the pros versus the amateurs, and the experts versus the novices.
(2018: 238)
The link between education level and conspiracy theories is widely disputed. Some researchers argue that actors with some cultural capital and political resource are more likely to believe conspiracy theories than those with less education (Simmons, Parsons 2005; Frampton et al. 2016). Other studies suggest that those with fewer academic qualifications are more prone to believe conspiracy theories (Stempel et al. 2007; Uscinski, Parent 2014; Ifop 2018). In accordance with Waters (1997), Renard (2015) assumes that beliefs in conspiracy theories follow an inverted ‘U-shaped’ curve, with those with high-school degrees or little higher education more supportive of conspiracy theories than others. Contrary to common assumptions, however, conspiracism does not seem to be an expression of political ignorance (Nyhan 2012) and people ‘who endorse conspiracy theories are not less informed about basic political facts than average citizens’ (Oliver, Wood 2014: 964). In contrast to preconceived notions prevalent in the media […], conspiracy theory believers are not solely paranoid kooks or cranks, naive young people with little education and/or individuals from lower classes raised in economically deprived areas.
– ‘Conspiracy theories in political science and political theory’, in Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (2020), pp. 111-2
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