Conspiracy theoryConspiracy theories and the people who believe in them: Book review

By Max Burda

Published 21 June 2019

In Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe in Them, Joseph Uscinski presents a collection that brings together contributors to offer an wide-ranging take on conspiracy theories, examining them as historical phenomena, psychological quirks, expressions of power relations an political instruments. While this is an interesting and expansive volume, it overlooks the conundrum posed by conspiracy theories that succeed in capturing the epistemological authorities.

In Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe in Them, Joseph Uscinski presents a collection that brings together contributors to offer an wide-ranging take on conspiracy theories, examining them as historical phenomena, psychological quirks, expressions of power relations an political instruments. While this is an interesting and expansive volume, it overlooks the conundrum posed by conspiracy theories that succeed in capturing the epistemological authorities. 

The greatest challenge in studying conspiracy theories—a task likened to trying to housebreak a chicken in a recent New Yorker article may well be simply defining what a ‘conspiracy theory’ is in the first place. The term encompasses a dizzying array of phenomena, from contrails to Elvis Presley’s mortality, and cuts across several academic disciplines. No surprise, then, that Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe in Them (Oxford University Press, 2018) a recently published collection of essays edited by Joseph Uscinski, takes an expansive view of the topic. The essays examine conspiracy theories as historical phenomena, psychological quirks, expressions of power relations and as political instruments. Understandably, many of the essays fall back on simple description—the authors’ incredulity can be read between the lines.

In what may be a sign of the difficulty of the task, a definition of ‘conspiracy theory’ is only offered by Uscinski roughly fifty pages into the book. A conspiracy theory is, as he defines it: “an explanation of past, ongoing, or future events or circumstances that cites as a main causal factor a small group of powerful persons […] acting in secret for their own benefit and against the common good” (48).