Conspiracy mindset and anti-Americanism: the Turkish case

Recent research has increasingly focused on the role of conspiracy beliefs across an array of behavioral domains, one of which is public attitudes and evaluations toward other countries. This study contributes to this growing body of work by examining the influence of a conspiracy mindset on anti-Americanism in Turkey. As Turkish-American relations matter for political, economic, social, and security reasons, the two countries have experienced various episodes of ups and downs in recent years. Today, anti-Americanism in Turkey is widespread, entailing several conflicting interests. In this paper, we propose a novel model of the predictors of anti-Americanism in which a conspiracy mindset plays the principal role. Based on a nationally representative observational survey of the Turkish public, we examine (a) the effect of a conspiracy mindset on anti-Americanism; (b) the role of nationalism in fueling the negativity in foreign policy attitudes; and (c) the extent to which trust in representative institutions (as opposed to non-representative) reduces anti-Americanism in a polarized political environment. By capturing the role of the conspiracy mindset, we test the predictors and mitigating factors of anti-Americanism, contributing to the study of the conspiracy mindset in comparative contexts.