The lack of a clear methodological framework also characterizes Mikhail Khlebnikov’s work on the subject (Khlebnikov, 2012). Khlebnikov traced the emergence of conspiracy theories in Russia from two sources: the movement of Judaizers (eres’ zhidovstvuiushchikh) in the late medieval period, and secret societies, most notably Freemasonry, in the eighteenth century. Taking these two groups as the progenitors of conspiracy theories in Russia, the author documented the secret societies and various conspiracy theories which existed in Russia in the past. As with Bagdasarian, the lack of a clear methodology significantly reduced Khlebnikov’s ability to investigate the roots and development of the phenomenon, as well as its social and political impact on post-Soviet Russia. Russian anthropologist Viktor Shnirel’man (2017) also focuses on conspiracy theories in his study of eschatological fears and anti-Semitic attitudes among Russian nationalists. This work does contribute to our understanding of the phenomenon within the Russian context. However, given the growing presence of conspiracy theories in mainstream political discourse, more has to be done.
A clearer conceptual framework can be designed using the US scholarship on the subject. In the USA conspiracy theories have been an object of scholarly research for almost seventy years, starting with Karl Popper’s Open Society and its Enemies (1973, vol.2). Almost a decade later, Richard Hofstadter’s concept of ‘paranoid style’, a term he coined in the 1960s, became a significant lens through which to analyse the phenomenon. Hofstadter’s approach is sometimes referred to as ‘symbolic’ due to its emphasis on the symbolic dimension of politics and its stress on the non-rational part of political logic (Rogin, 1987, pp. 272–300). Hofstadter described how conspiracy theorists perceived the world by means of a merging of the clinical term ‘paranoid’ with historical analysis. He saw the conspiracist as a paranoid person who understood everything as part of an overarching plan to rule the world and perceived himself as involved in a struggle with an infallibly rational and evil enemy; who believed that the history of humankind itself was a grand conspiracy that could be packed into one theory (Hofstadter, 1996, pp. 29–37).
This judgemental conceptualization of conspiracy theories was the dominant approach to the subject for many years. Hofstadter, who developed his ideas in the era of McCarthyism, thought the main threat of conspiracy theories lay in right-wing populism. Daniel Pipes (1997), however, under the influence of the Cold War, extended the ‘paranoid style’ to left-wing politicians, focusing on conspiracy theories which were popular among Communists. Pipes carefully set out the structural elements of conspiracy mythmaking, depicting the adherent of conspiracy thinking as someone who interprets history as a process directed exclusively towards the realization of a grand plan. Lust for power and a firm belief that nothing happens by accident but is always the result of secretive agreements on the part of powerful people become the crucial pillars of the paranoid mentality, resulting in an oversimplification which is always a part of conspiracy theories (Robins and Post, 1997).
Neither Hofstadter nor his followers offered a robust framework for dealing with conspiracy theories. Pipes, instead, suggested that everyone concerned about the popularity of conspiracy theories should join a ‘perpetual struggle’ against conspiracy thinking whenever its elements were exposed (p. 49). As some scholars have noted, judgemental suggestions about how to define a conspiracy theory render authors advancing such arguments not entirely dissimilar to the objects of their studies (Dean, 2002, pp. 63–4). The ‘symbolic’ approach is certainly helpful in detecting conspiracy theories in public narratives. However, it fails to provide the necessary tools for a balanced analysis of the causes and prerequisites for conspiracy fears in the modern world.
Another approach sees conspiracy theories as tools of political manipulation and is often described as ‘realist’ or ‘rationalist’. Scholars who adopt this position argue that ‘it is neither accurate nor useful to portray right-wing populists as a “lunatic fringe” of marginal “extremists” since they represent ordinary people, our neighbours and co-workers, whose rhetoric and actions have mundane reasons’ (Berlet and Nemiroff Lyons, 2000, pp. 3–4). This approach sees conspiracy theories as the product of small marginal groups (mostly on the Far Right) who exploit populist anti-elitist rhetoric to scapegoat certain groups. Consequently, conspiracy theories become a tool of manipulation for right-wing groups and politicians for the purposes of mobilization and the delegitimization of their opponents. Unlike ‘symbolists’ such as Hofstadter, scholars of the ‘rationalist’ approach argue that popular conspiracy fears become part of comprehensible projects that are used by the political leaders to achieve political and economic goals. Although these fears sometimes seem bizarre and exaggerated, their rationalist core points to the clearly identified interests of certain groups.
The ‘realist’ concept is relatively instrumentalist and is based on the perception of conspiracy theories as a political tool. However, the emphasis on the psychological component of beliefs in conspiracy theories gives it common ground with the ‘symbolist’ approach. Yet the evocation of psychopathology and references to anxiety among advocates of conspiracy theories (which at times is indeed manifested) are still unable to explain the popularity of conspiracy theories in modern culture. Moreover, it would be incorrect to label as paranoids many people who believe in conspiracy theories, as they often express the ideas that reflect key social issues (Harambam and Aupers, 2016). While the ‘symbolist’ approach overlooks the ‘functional’ aspect of conspiracy thinking, the ‘realist’ approach is unable to clearly locate the conspiratorial mode of thinking in various domains of political and popular culture. A common shortcoming of the concepts we have discussed is their over-stigmatization, even though both Hofstadter and Berlet point out that sometimes conspiracy theorists could be ‘on to something’, and that their beliefs might have some factual basis in real politics – that is, that there are some real conspiracies.
The extraordinary development of conspiracy theories in the USA in the 1990s in all spheres of public life demonstrated that they were not merely tools enabling deranged people to comprehend the world. Accordingly, in the late 1990s a new approach was introduced which considered the possibility that conspiracy theories could, in fact, constitute a mode of rational thinking, a portal ‘through which social phenomena were discussed’ (Bratich, 2008, p. 6). Its adherents pointed out that existing interpretations failed to explain the popularity of conspiracy theories among people with different political views, and that while they had previously been associated with particular social or political groups, they had evolved into a more widespread way of interpreting reality. No longer seen as marginal, the idea of conspiracy was now considered to be a regular feature of cultural life, even a mainstream concept, which was used by writers, filmmakers and musicians (Birchall, 2006).