Conspiracism, Politics, and the State in the Twenty-First Century

No longer consigned to the margins of society, conspiracy theories have been normalized as integral to public discourse and governance in many countries. But as developments in Turkey illustrate, this is not simply a matter of the masses being subjected to top-down manipulation by misinformation. Conspiratorial narratives are circulated among ordinary citizens, generating bottom-up pressures, including vigilante violence, that compel government responses and policy adaptations. For those who traffic in conspiracy theories, they become a means of fashioning political subjectivity and a path to group membership.