How do conspiracies happen, how can historians use them to understand more about the past, and where do they begin and cease to be relevant to the study of history? 

Conspiracy and Democracy

Jonathan Haslam, Professor of the History of International Relations
The history of Russia’s Secret Services from the Revolution to the Fall of the Wall: the Military Intelligence, the codes and ciphers and the KGB. 

Near and Distant Neighbours 1917–1989

Dr Girard will describe how the “red scare” greatly varied depending on the period, the political affiliation or the country; and the main long-lasting conspiracy theory actually concerned the threat of the far-right and, to a certain extent, of the government itself. 

Conspiracy Theories in France and Italy during the Cold War and Decolonization

Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, will speak about ‘Holocaust Denial: A Flat Earth Theory or a Clear and Present Danger?’

Holocaust denial, the attempt to deny that the Third Reich engaged in the annihilation of approximately six million Jews, has been depicted as a serious threat to historical truth. Others have dismissed it as the equivalent of the theory that the earth is flat, i.e. absurd, illogical, and unworthy of serious consideration. In this presentation Professor Lipstadt will explore these two contradictory perspectives on Holocaust denial. In addition, she will explore the difference between “hardcore” or traditional Holocaust denial and the more recent phenomenon of “soft core” denial. 

Holocaust Denial: A Flat Earth Theory or a Clear and Present Danger?

A Public Lecture by Conspiracy & Democracy Visiting Fellow Professor Cornel Zwierlein (Ruhr-Universität Bochum). 

It seems as if Conspiracy Theories are a particularly modern phenomenon. By relying on some examples and cases, this lecture gives a long-term overview of what they looked like and when they appeared. We possess full-fledged conspiracy theory texts only since the 16th century. While examples may have existed already in Antiquity, we do not possess any textual evidence for them. The lecture tries to develop an explanation for why conspiracy theories emerged only at this point in European history. In order to do so, it is necessary to distinguish between conjurations, any kind of revolts, conspiracies and conspiracy theories. We will show how their coming into being is linked to the emergence of the ‘Information Public Sphere’, as a by-product of the early inter-state diplomatic communication (which has, first, little to do with the later famous ‘Enlightenment Public Sphere’), and how those narratives filled in where knowledge gaps existed. In a hasty run through history, we will distinguish several phases or ‘epochs’ of Conspiracy (theory) communication. Finally, we will ask how Democracy comes in: ‘Real’ democracies were practiced rather nowhere after Ancient Europe, and were rare even during the 19th century. So, in pre-modern times, often it was ‘democracy’ or ‘democrats’ that were ‘conspiring’ against the good order of the commonwealth – not vice versa.

Cornel Zwierlein is Associate Professor at the University of Bochum, Germany. Currently, he is on leave as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. His research focuses on the intersection of political, religious and scientific knowledge. Cornel is the author of ‘Discorso und Lex Dei die Entstehung neuer Denkrahmen im 16. Jahrhundert und die Wahrnehmung der französischen Religionskriege in Italien und Deutschland’ (Göttingen, 2006), and, more recently, ‘Der gezähmte Prometheus. Feuer und Sicherheit zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Moderne’ (Göttingen, 2011). 

The Early Modern Foundations of Conspiracy & Democracy

Mr Dwight Smith Jr will speak about ‘The Mafia & Conspiracy’. Mr Smith’s paper will explore how the idea of the mafia and conspiracy emerged in America, developed and became entangled in very different contexts.

Mr Smith will describe the ideas, experiences, and events through which his book, ‘The Mafia Mystique’ (1975), took shape; the consequences of those events that have led to contemporary public understanding and use of ‘Mafia’ in the United States; and the consequences in a democracy of strategies that were developed for organized crime control. 

The Mafia & Conspiracy

A Public Lecture by Conspiracy & Democracy Visiting Fellow Stef Aupers (Erasmus University of Rotterdam).

In the social sciences, a conspiracy theory is often disqualified as ‘irrational’ superstition or religious belief. In defense, conspiracy theorists present their methods of inquiry as utterly rational – often even more scientific than ‘dogmatic’ institutionalized science. In this lecture, it is argued that both definitions of conspiracy theories are inadequate: they are basically moral labels and informed by a power struggle over ‘true’ knowledge. At closer empirical inspection, conspiracy theorists combine aspects of science and religion to find the ‘truth out there’. On the one hand, they embrace modern skepticism about contemporary institutions, experts and the knowledge they produce. On the other, they are motivated by a desire to believe in a progressively ‘disenchanted world’: by making claims about invisible, yet powerful forces operating beyond the empirical surface of everyday life, they attribute ultimate meaning to a modern, rationalized and globalized society. Conspiracy culture is a complex constellation of skepticism and belief – a rational form of re-enchantment. 

Conspiracy theories between secular scepticism and religious salvation

A public talk by Professor Joseph Parent (University of Miami) & Professor Joseph Uscinski (University of Miami).

Are conspiracy theories overtaking deliberative societies, inflaming discourse and degrading democracy? How much more prone to violence are conspiracy theorists? Which political party is more likely to traffic in conspiratorial talk? Has the Internet ushered in a new era of conspiracy-fueled paranoia? Using original data sources spanning more than a century, Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent provide surprising answers. In taking stock of American conspiracy theories, Uscinski and Parent argue that much of what we thought we knew about conspiracy theories needs amending.

Joseph E. Uscinski is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He earned his Ph.D. in American Politics at the University of Arizona. Professor Uscinski teaches and studies mass media, public opinion, and campaigns.

Joseph M. Parent is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami. He received his bachelors from the University of Chicago and doctorate from Columbia University. Professor Parent teaches international relations theory, foreign policy, and security studies. 

American Conspiracy Theories

This paper examines British and American anticommunist conspiracy theories in the 1920s and 1930s. In both countries, former wartime intelligence agency chiefs set up private intelligence networks in the post-World War I era to spy upon and blacklist radicals -- and, not incidentally, to monitor and control labour union leaders. Also in both countries, businessmen created and lavishly funded anticommunist propaganda organizations. The propagandists in each country exploited quite different anxieties, yet they shared the same goal: to use the fear of communism as a weapon in the struggle against organized labour.


Kathy Olmsted is professor and chair of history at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI; Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley; and Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11. 

Anglo-American Conservatism and the Transatlantic Threat between the World Wars

"Is Democracy Conspiratorial?: Koselleck, Furet, and the Debate on the French Revolution"

Since the time of the abbé Barruel, the French Revolution - the source of democratic claims eventually the world over - has been unmasked as the outcome of a dark conspiracy. This talk will examine some of the contemporary legacies of this claim about the secret agenda of democratic self-rule, with a focus on some famous main twentieth-century commentators like Reinhart Koselleck and François Furet who were insufficiently critical of the old allegation even in renovating our sense of where the Revolution fits in modern politics. Dwelling on some of the intellectual origins of Furet's "Interpreting the French Revolution," in which the conspiracy claim figured, the talk will distinguish that strand of the book from other and more valuable impulses, which had other sources, notably the view that democracy is the rule of no one, so that it is very hard to justify or even securely locate its legitimate authorities at any given time.

Samuel Moyn is James Bryce Professor of European Legal History at Columbia University, where he has been teaching since 2001. He is author of "The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History" (2010) and a new collection of essays entitled "Human Rights and the Uses of History" (2014). From July 1, 2014, he will take up a new position as professor of law and history at Harvard University. 

Is Democracy Conspiratorial?

Technological conspiracies are good conspiracies - at least from the perspective of their proponents. Understanding their dynamics, especially within the context of liberalism, may help shed light upon an apparent puzzle of twenty-first century living: why, when individual privacy is being systematically undermined by both governments and corporations, so few people seem to care. The answer, I suggest, has much to do with rapidly changing conceptions of self and society, but also a prior, fundamental commitment to imagining both self and society as quantifiable and controllable. Leading liberal theorists today tend to see the digital challenge to privacy as undermining one of the core commitments of liberalism. However, I wish to suggest that our current predicament is the result of liberalism's internal logic , a political theory that formally eschews conspiracy thinking in favour of science and modernity, yet one that manages to employ theories of good conspiracy, nonetheless. Technological conspiracies are the fulfilment of a modern, liberal dream, bringing together political power and technology so that citizens are fully known to their governments and corporations such that older concerns with privacy simply become irrelevant.

A public lecture by Professor Lawrence Quill (San Jose). 

Technological Conspiracies

Stolen Votes, Secret spooks and the hidden oil: Conspiracy theories in an age of transparency

A public talk by the journalist and broadcaster David Aaronovitch (The Times). 

Stolen Votes, Secret spooks and the hidden oil: Conspiracy theories in an age of transparency

This talk will explore Mark Twain’s perspective on conspiracy theory in late-nineteenth century America. In Twain’s time, public attitudes towards conspiracy theory went through a somewhat unusual change. Namely, conspiracy theory was becoming increasingly identified with amusement and entertainment. Figures such as Josiah Strong and Ignatius Donnelly drew enormous crowds and sold bestselling books by offering conspiratorial interpretations of history that bore a closer resemblance to P.T. Barnum’s promotions than to conventional political rhetoric.

For his part, Twain was ambivalent about these developments. On the one hand, he expressed appreciation for the “solid satisfaction” to be had from a good conspiratorial mystery. Twain even penned a conspiracy theory history on Shakespeare where he commented on his enthusiasm for what he termed the “conjecturability” associated with conspiracy. On the other, Twain also regarded the public’s amusement with conspiracy thinking as a disturbing trend. If historical events were only considered interesting when they provided a thrilling mystery or visceral head rush, this encouraged people to drift towards political insularity and extremism. In tracing these currents in Twain’s thought, the discussion will delve into widely-known works by Twain like Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court as well as lesser-known pieces such as the unfinished novel Tom Sawyer’s Conspiracy. 

Paranoid Masculinities: Conspiracy Theory in Mark Twain’s Fiction

A public talk from Dr Andy Martin (Cambridge).

In 1940s New York, FBI alarm bells are ringing: the Existentialists are coming! J. Edgar Hoover has to know: what the hell is this Existentialism all about anyway – and is it some kind of code for Communism? He sets his agents on the trail of first Jean-Paul Sartre (1945) and then Albert Camus (1946). Sartre and Camus, Resistance heroes and intellectual emissaries, are sending back their reports about New York to Paris; and, at the same time, G-men are sending in their reports about Sartre and Camus. Through their reading of French philosophy, the FBI and CIA develop contrasting approaches to the concept of conspiracy. 

Nausea in New York: the FBI & CIA vs Sartre and Camus

What happens when a prime minister proposes conspiratorial accounts of a momentous event in a democracy? Although conspiratorial rhetoric is the backbone of ideologies of social intolerance and hatred, such as anti-Semitism, the academic literature does not comprehensively address its impacts. The Turkish government’s reaction to the Gezi Park protests, a reaction centred on a conspiracy theory about an ‘interest rate lobby’, provides an up-to-date case with which to explore the impacts of conspiracy theories. Relying on quantitative and qualitative content analysis of responses to the government’s conspiracy theories on the most popular Turkish forum website, Ekşi Sözlük, this study discusses the socio-political significance of conspiratorial rhetoric. It focuses on the relationship between the previous political views of online users and their responses to the conspiratorial rhetoric. The study proposes that there is a relationship between online users’ previous political orientations and their perceptions of the conspiracy theory concerning the Gezi Park protests. The findings support this premise: (1) binary logistic regression tests show that the previous political views of online users predict their responses to conspiracy theories, and (2) the online users’ comments were centred on their perceptions of the government. The study concludes that people accept or reject conspiracy theories in line with their political values and interests, and, accordingly, that the government’s rhetoric concerning the protests augmented the political fragmentation in Turkey by enhancing the existing division between AKP supporters and opponents. 

Impacts of the Turkish Government Response to the Gezi Park Protests

An open lecture with Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (writers).

'Story-telling is how we make sense of the world - especially the bits we don't understand'
Two leading writers talk about how this surfaces in - and influences - their work. Join the Conspiracy and Democracy Project as we host Nicci Gerard and Sean French - collectively Nicci French - for a talk and discussion. 

Lying in the Dark: the stories we tell to keep ourselves sane

In 2003 Jenny Clay Strauss, daughter of the German Jewish historian of political philosophy Leo Strauss and herself a professor of classics, wrote to the New York Times to protest articles that presented her father “as the mastermind behind the neoconservative ideologues who control United States foreign policy.” She went on: “He reaches out from his 30-year-old grave, we are told, to direct a "cabal" (a word with distinct anti-Semitic overtones) of Bush administration figures hoping to subject the American people to rule by a ruthless elite.” In “A Cabal We Deserve: Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and Public Intellectual Culture,” Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft explores the meanings of conspiracy theories surrounding Leo Strauss and the Straussians. What values of transparency in democratic governance, what attitudes towards lying in politics, animate them? What ideas about conservative as opposed to progressive intellectuals? And what expectations for public intellectual life in a democratic society are bound up with all this talk of conspiracy? 

Leo Strauss and Public Intellectual Culture

The establishment of the Second Republic on 14 April 1931 caused convulsions across the Right in Spain. In little over a year, the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera had fallen and soon after the Borbón royal family, rulers of Spain for over two hundred years, followed suit. If the replacement of a monarchical military regime with a democratic republic was not a brutal transition enough, the form the Second Republic took was of great distress to the forces of reaction. With its establishment of universal suffrage, commitment to land reform and intent to curb the political influence of the Catholic Church and the Army, the Republic represented, for many on the Right in Spain, an abomination, a betrayal of national values. The proposed research project will focus upon a particular assertion within certain strands of the Spanish Right-Wing media that the Republic was, in fact, not of Spanish origin at all, but instead subject to the diktats of a cabal of ‘Masons, Communists and Jews’.[1] The belief being that its origins and subsequent progressive, leftist agenda, so foreign to the reactionary understanding of ‘Spanish’ values, must have been the work of foreign agents.

This lecture will examine the concept of the ‘Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik’ Conspiracy during the Spanish Second Republic, to understand its influence in fostering anti-Republican feeling prior to the outbreak of war and to ultimately assess its contribution to Francoist repression during the dictatorship (1939-1975), all within a broader European context. In the fraught atmosphere of the Civil War proper, the apparently outlandish assertion that the Republic was being run by the ‘International Jewry’ from Moscow via Europe’s Masonic lodges became a key theme in Francoist propaganda, one that would continue long into the posguerra. The lecture will examine the roots of this discourse, detailing the confluence of more traditionally ‘Spanish’ anti-Semitic attitudes and the broader European conception of an international ‘Judeo-Marxist’ Conspiracy. 

Judaeo-Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy in Spain 1931-36

In recent years conspiracy theories have come to be seen as a threat to democracy. They have been variously linked to a crisis of trust in government, to the undermining of democratic deliberation, and a weakening the state's capacity to govern. Particular concern has focused on conspiratorial suspicion of science, in cases ranging from climate change to HIV-AIDS to vaccines and public health surveillance more generally.

Where science, politics and power intersect we find rich ground for suspicion and mistrust of experts, and accusations of conspiracy. This raises a number of important questions. Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? How do people think about conspiracies? How are we to make sense of the relationship between mistrust of expertise and accusations of conspiracy? How have boundaries been drawn between authorized and unauthorized knowledge? How are anxieties about conspiracies related to more general problems of explanation and causal attribution in complex environments?

In this conference we aim to situate these questions about 'suspect science' in broader conceptual, geographical and historical contexts. We will address them by drawing together scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, public health, history, politics, sociology, psychology, and philosophy, and we will consider a wide range of empirical cases. Through this interdisciplinary approach we hope to stimulate critical reflection on the shifting problems of doubt, denial and dissent in the politics of knowledge.


Epidemics Of Conspiracy

How do conspiracies happen, how can historians use them to understand more about the past, and where do they begin and cease to be relevant to the study of history? Such questions were the starting point for this panel debate, in which Professor Christopher Andrew and Dr Stephen Dorril examine cases from Stalinist Russia, Harold Wilson’s government in the 1960s, and Northern Ireland in the 1970s, to name but a few.

Conspiracy and Democracy

University of Cambridge