Scott Radnitz - Revealing Schemes The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and The Post-Soviet Region

Revealing Schemes
Revealing Schemes
The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and the
Post-Soviet Region
SCOT T RADNITZ
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Radnitz, Scott, 1978– author.
Title: Revealing Schemes : the politics of conspiracy in Russia and the post-Soviet region / Scott Radnitz.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020056491 (print) | LCCN 2020056492 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197573532 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197573549 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780197573563 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Conspiracy theories—Russia (Federation) |
Conspiracy theories—Former Soviet republics.
Classification: LCC HV6275.R33 2021 (print) | LCC HV6275 (ebook) |
DDC 001.9/80947—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056491
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020056492
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197573532.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada
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Contents
List of Figures vii

List of Tables ix
Preface and Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Conspiracy Claims after Communism 1
1. Of Power and Peril: Conspiracy Claims as Fighting Words 12
2. Traumas and Tyranny? The Long-Term and Proximate Roots of
Conspiracism 28
3. The Lay of the Land: What 20 Years of Post-Soviet
Conspiracy Claims Tell Us 44
4. Connecting the Dots: Patterns of Conspiracism
in Post-Soviet Politics 67
5. The Emergence and Ascendancy of Conspiracism in Russia 84
6. Shadowy Deeds in Russia’s Shadow: Conspiracy Claims in Four
Countries 110
7. The Consequences of Conspiracism: What People Believe
and Why 131
8. Citizen Cynics: How People Talk and Think about Conspiracy 153
9. Disaffection, Disinformation, and Democracy 173
Appendix 189
Notes 201
Index 237
Figures
3.1. Where conspiracies occur 47

3.2. Where conspiracy claims originate 48
3.3. Where is the perpetrator? 49
3.4. Who is the accuser? 50
3.5. Who is the perpetrator? 51
4.1. Conspiracy claims by event over time 69
4.2. Conspiracy claims on random dates 70
4.3. Who accuses whom? 74
4.4. Diffusion of anti-West conspiracy claims 76
4.5. Diffusion across borders 77
4.6. Conspiracy and democracy 78
4.7. Conspiracy and democracy for official claims only 79
4.8. Proportions of anti-government conspiracy claims by country 80
4.9. Weighted claims on random dates 82
4.10. Weighted claims corresponding to events 83
5.1. Conspiracy claims by source, Yeltsin to Putin 90
5.2. Perpetrators named by Russians, five-year periods 91
5.3. Democratic backsliding and conspiracy 92
5.4. Official and ideological claims by target country 94
5.5. Official and ideological claims about the West/United States by year 95
5.6. Official and ideological claims about Ukraine and Georgia by year 96
6.1. Accused perpetrators by country 113
6.2. Accuser-perpetrator combinations in Euromaidan 124
6.3. Conspiracy claims in the pro-Russian states 127
7.1. Mean scores for generic conspiracy theories 137
7.2. Mean scores for specific conspiracy theories 139
7.3. The impact of viewing Russian television in Georgia 141
7.4. The impact of being Russian and viewing Russian television in Kazakhstan 141
viii Figures
7.5. Plane crash vignette: Likelihood plane wаs deliberately shot down 145
7.6. Protest vignette: Support of official for higher office 148
7.7. Protest vignette: Support for official to address protesters’ demands 148
7.8. Levels of conspiracism and behavioral outcomes 151
A.1. Conspiracy claims by sampling method 192
Tables
2.1. Keywords in Putin’s Addresses to the Federal Assembly 35

2.2. Regime Scores for Post-Soviet States, 1995–2014 37
3.1. Conspiratorial Actions 53
4.1. Conspiracy Claims in Relation to Events 71
4.2. Relatedness Index 72
4.3. Top Presidential Conspiracists 81
5.1. Selected Critical Events 86
5.2. Conspiracy Claims by Source, Yeltsin to Putin 89
6.1. Comparison of Cases 112
6.2. Claims of Unnamed Perpetrators on February 21, 2014 125
7.1. Belief in a Secret Global Cabal 136
7.2. Social and Political Participation 150
A.1. Critical Events 193
A.2. Sources: Titles, Dates of Coverage in Integrum, and Ideological Slant 195
A.3. Keywords 196
A.4. Descriptive Statistics 197
Preface and Acknowledgments
As with many of the most important insights in life, this one came from talking
to a taxi driver. When I was in Kyrgyzstan in the early 2000s, the driver casu-
ally mentioned to me that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had actually been
working for the CIA. How else to account for the country’s unexpected collapse?
This was only one of many conspiracy theories I came across while researching
for my first book, and I took notice of how they pervaded everyday life and often
anchored people’s understanding of politics. I thought it would be interesting to
one day study conspiracy theories, but the topic seemed too overwhelming to
wrangle into a manageable research project. Later, as the study of conspiracy the-
ories become a growth area in political science, I realized that there were critical
unexplored questions on the role these theories play in non-Western countries
and how they are used as political rhetoric.
In hindsight, the seed for this book was probably planted much earlier. My
development of political awareness in the 1990s coincided with a resurgence of
conspiracy theories in the United States, from the imminent incursion of the
UN’s black helicopters to the renewed interest in the Kennedy assassination after
the release of Oliver Stone’s film JFK. Yet conspiracy theories were still relegated
to the fringes of American politics and remained, at most, an entertaining diver-
sion. So, when I seriously set to work on this project, anchored in the post-Soviet
world, I anticipated having to convince Western audiences that public officials
who spread conspiracy theories were worthy of serious inquiry. I was also con-
cerned that my book risked reinforcing negative stereotypes about the region
and inadvertently pandering to readers who might be tempted to feel smug
about how dysfunctional and seemingly irrational politics was over there—in
shambolic, autocratic countries that the Enlightenment had apparently reached
too late. My concerns turned out to be misguided. After I began collecting data
for this book in 2014, I observed uncanny and disturbing parallels between the
conspiracy claims I was reading and the current events I was witnessing—in the
United States. As I wrote this book, the Provocateur-in-Chief barked and blus-
tered in the background, personifying the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories
in American political discourse. In some sense, he was my co-conspirator in this
project, as he simplified the task of making the case for the broader significance
of my research.
In 2015, I attended what was probably the first-ever conference on conspiracy
theories—a gathering about which the jokes write themselves—organized by
xii Preface and Acknowledgments
Joseph Uscinski at the University of Miami. As this event occurred while my

ideas were still in formation, it was especially valuable to see the different ways in
which scholars approached the topic. The fact that only a handful of presenters
were examining cases outside the United States or Western Europe also
reaffirmed my sense that the field would benefit from knowledge of conspiracy
theories in other countries. A follow-up conference in 2020 was unfortunately
canceled only days before it was supposed to start, due to Covid-19—timing that
was perhaps too coincidental?
I have presented various parts of this manuscript at conferences and workshops
over the years. I am grateful to the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences
and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge for flying me out to
give a talk through their Conspiracy and Democracy program, and to the Russia
Institute at King’s College London for hosting me. I also received useful feedback
presenting my work in progress at the Caucasus Research Resource Center in
Tbilisi, Indiana University, and several conferences and workshops convened by
PONARS Eurasia.
I have benefited enormously from the insights of colleagues at various
stages, whether informally or as conference discussants, including Gulnaz
Sharafutdinova, Sam Greene, Valerie Bunce, Hugo Drochon, Sergiy Kudelia,
Mark Beissinger, Georgi Derluguian, Gerard Toal, Valerie Sperling, Tim
Blauvelt, John Heathershaw, Ora John Reuter, Marc Berenson, Serghei Golunov,
Marianne Kamp, Andrew Neal, Joe Uscinski, Marlene Laruelle, Josh Tucker,
John Payne, and Harris Mylonas. I received especially valuable and intensive
feedback on large parts of the manuscript from Julie George, Larry Markowitz,
and Carol Williams.
At the University of Washington, I am fortunate to have many colleagues
who provided insights and assistance, especially Dan Chirot, Saadia Pekkanen,
Daniel Bessner, Vanessa Freije, Rick Lorenz, Steve Pfaff, Katy Pearce, Glennys
Young, Sunila Kale, David Bachman, Yuan Hsiao, Elena Campbell, and Guntis
Smidchens. Reşat Kasaba was consistently supportive of my work in his capacity
as director of the Jackson School of International Studies.
I received vital funding for this book from various parts of UW. Being a fellow
at the Simpson Center for the Humanities enabled me to share my work with in-
terdisciplinary scholars early on in the project. The College of Arts and Sciences
provided resources through the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and
Central Asian Studies, whose funds I was able to draw on while serving as di-
rector for eight years. The Royalty Research Fund provided me with the resources
to conduct surveys and focus groups in Georgia and Kazakhstan. I also benefited
from organizing a workshop on the politics of fifth columns, also sponsored by
the Simpson Center.
Preface and Acknowledgments xiii
Data collection was a collective endeavor. It took a dozen research assistants

over several years to amass hundreds of conspiracy theories. These students
were brave enough to plunge into the abyss of twisted allegations and insid-
ious schemes, and may never look at the world the same way again: Oleksandra
Makushenko, Konstantin Manko, Alyssa Machado, Malkhaz Saldadze, Fedor
Pogulsky, Anatoliy Klots, Lina Wang, Indra Ekmanis, Anara Satkeeva, Jessica
Doscher, Jessica Meyerzon, and Hannah Standley. ACT was my partner on the
ground in Georgia and Kazakhstan, where I benefited from the expertise of
Tamuna Babukhadia, Tatiana Voronina, and Nino Kokosadze.
I owe thanks to Oxford University Press for its speedy reviews and smooth
production process. David McBride was extremely responsive and supportive of
my vision for this book. Anonymous reviewers provided productive and encour-
aging feedback.
Closer to home, my thinking about post-Soviet conspiracy theories was
shaped by many discussions with my father-in-law (sometimes over vodka),
whose views about the nefarious hidden hand of Russia in all disagreeable
matters in the region offered insights into the ways people make sense of global
events. Rahima was a patient and inspiring collaborator in the conspiracy of this
book, especially during long summer days when I undertook clandestine work
in various Seattle cafes. Milena and Oscar both came along during this project’s
development and provided an impetus to get this book finished. Opportunities
for them to get involved in many great conspiracies await. The book is dedicated
to them.
Introduction
Conspiracy Claims after Communism
On February 21, 2014, months of protests in the streets of Ukraine’s capital,

Kyiv, reached a violent crescendo when government security forces opened fire
on peaceful demonstrators. Embattled President Yanukovych, in a hastily con-
vened meeting involving representatives from the political opposition and the
European Union—but over Russian opposition—agreed to a new election that
could lead to his removal. However, even as he signed the document, his security
forces were melting away.1 Yanukovych was forced to flee the capital, and within
hours his government was replaced by members of the opposition, which imme-
diately began to undo Yanukovych’s legacy.
This sudden and surprising turn of events did not sit well with the Russian
Federation, whose Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release in re-
sponse. First, it exaggerated the new government’s actions, criticizing its “ban
on the Russian language, lustration [removal of officials from public life], the
liquidation of parties and organizations, the closure of objectionable media, and
the removal of restrictions on the propaganda of neo-Nazi ideology.” Then, it
darkly alluded to a Western-led conspiracy: “one does not see concern for the
fate of Ukraine, but a one-sided geopolitical calculation. . . . It is a lasting im-
pression that the Agreement of February 21, with the tacit consent of its external
sponsors, is used only as a cover for promoting the scenario of a forced change of
power in Ukraine.”2
The idea of a conspiracy hatched in the West against Ukraine—and by ex-
tension, Russia—while perhaps jarring to the uninitiated, was a familiar trope
to the Kremlin’s audiences, both within and outside Russia. Two years earlier,
then prime minister Vladimir Putin responded to massive protests in Moscow
by claiming that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had given the “signal to some
figures in Russia, and they began active work” of publicly expressing their dis-
approval of his return to the presidency.3 The theme of Western support for
democratic movements as a means to gain geopolitical influence was part of an
ongoing storyline promoted by the Putin regime. So it was hardly surprising
when Russian television personalities, analysts, reporters, and officials promoted
the narrative that fascists had taken over Ukraine, that Western intelligence had
2 Introduction
backed a coup d’état, and that both entities sought to persecute ethnic Russians
in Ukraine—all in service of a plan by the West to overthrow Putin and weaken
Russia. Analysts labeled this Kremlin-led propaganda campaign a “war on infor-
mation”4 and compared Putin to Joseph Stalin5 and Nazi propagandist Joseph
Goebbels.6
Troubling as this may be, it is not only Russians, and not only presidents
(or their foreign ministries) who use conspiratorial rhetoric. Politicians in
other countries have been known to level claims of conspiracy as well. During
Ukraine’s mass protests, the chairman of the local parliament in Ukraine’s
Crimea echoed the Kremlin line by warning that “there can be no election until
the people armed with western countries’ money leave the country.”7 On the op-
posing side, a leader of the anti-Russian far-right opposition in Ukraine alleged,
with no evidence, that “the Ukrainian Rada [legislature] is bribed and controlled
by the Kremlin.”8
If we look further afield, we can find government officials who voice con-
spiracy claims in a wide range of situations. In another instance of alleged foreign
interference, the former president of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze, claimed
that the so-called Rose Revolution, which led to his ouster, was funded by
American philanthropist George Soros.9 Not all conspiracies are international;
some take place entirely on domestic soil, as when Kyrgyz General Felix Kulov
conveniently blamed ethnic rioting on the relatives of the recently deposed presi-
dent. He claimed—again, with no evidence—that “the family that lost power was
intent not only on the clash of Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, but also provoking a conflict
between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.”10
Beyond the post-Soviet region, conspiracy theories have recently moved from
the margins of society to the center of politics. At a time when people have lost
confidence in their political systems, leaders such as Hungary’s Victor Orban and
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have amassed power in part by using rhetoric
that pits supporters against outsiders. By invoking and inflating threats, “illiberal
democrats” have cast themselves as uniquely qualified to protect the nation from
insidious enemies.11
Conspiratorial rhetoric has also become a major force in US politics.
Candidate Donald Trump’s claim that President Obama was not born in the
United States catapulted him to the Republican presidential nomination. In
office, he continued to allege conspiracies against himself, involving, among
others, the Democratic Party, the FBI, the CIA, Hillary Clinton, George Soros,
members of Congress, immigrants, the government of Ukraine, and the Emmy
Awards. In many instances his claims, though outlandish to many, were echoed
by prominent elected officials and accepted without question by his political
base.12
Introduction 3
They Are All Around Us
Conspiracy theories are enjoying a moment in the spotlight. They seem to be

surfacing everywhere—on cable television, around dinner tables, in taxis and
Ubers, on social media—and appear to be propagating themselves at amazing
speeds. Studies have shown that large numbers of people across the globe be-
lieve conspiracy theories. For example, more than half of Americans and 60%
of Britons believe at least one.13 A majority of people in a 17-nation survey dis-
agreed that al-Qaeda was responsible for the terrorist attacks in the United States
on September 11, 2001.14 In the spring of 2020, nearly one-third of Americans
believed the Covid-19 virus was “created and spread on purpose.”15 The apparent
spike in conspiracy theories in recent years has been matched by rising interest
from journalists, scholars, policymakers, and ordinary citizens, who are vari-
ously fascinated or alarmed by the implications for democracy and the quality
of public debate.
Belief in conspiracy theories may be troubling, but should it be cause for
alarm? People have always believed in myths, superstitions, rumors, and sundry
falsehoods, and some portion of the public will naturally suspect the powerful
of committing terrible misdeeds. But agitated conspiracists scribbling their
thoughts on paper or chatting with like-minded hobbyists over the Internet usu-
ally do not directly impact public policy or threaten anyone’s well-being. In and
of itself, popular conspiracism is not a threat to democracy or the public’s well-
being.16 In fact, it can even have salutary effects, insofar as it helps reveal actual
government conspiracies.17
The stakes are higher when government officials promote conspiracy theories.
States possess extraordinary amounts of information and have the wherewithal
to withhold, misrepresent, or manipulate what they communicate to the public.
Because governments carry the loudest megaphones, conspiracy claims pro-
moted by elected or appointed officials are guaranteed to reach a broad audience.
When governments weaponize conspiracy claims by aiming them at specific
groups or individuals, it can result in tangible and significant harms: exclusion,
harassment, and even violence.
We do not need to look far back in history to find examples of officially sanc-
tioned conspiracy theories used toward injurious ends. The Nazis used the con-
trived notion of an international Jewish conspiracy to justify the persecution and
ultimately extermination of Europe’s Jewish populations.18 In 1994, a government-
controlled radio station in Rwanda incited ethnic Hutus to commit genocide by
describing “alleged, and unsubstantiated, Tutsi atrocities against the Hutus.”19 The
US government used conspiracy theories about Soviet infiltration to persecute
political enemies during the Cold War.20 President Trump’s conspiracy narrative
4 Introduction
that the 2020 election had been stolen from him led directly to the attack on the
US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and resulted in at least five deaths. Across much
of the world today, the scapegoating of immigrants, the demonization of human
rights advocates, and allegations of disloyalty by “globalists” and “fifth columns”
echo rhetoric that was used to such devastating effect in the previous century.21
It is tempting to ascribe the deliberate promotion of conspiracy theories by
those in power to personal defects. German Chancellor Angela Merkel captured
this sentiment when she suggested that Putin was “not was in touch with reality”
and was “in another world” in the weeks after Euromaidan.22 This view dovetails
with the dominant way in which cultural critics and psychologists have regarded
belief in conspiracy theories more generally—as the product of a “paranoid
style”23 or “our brain’s quirks and foibles.”24
Another view sees official conspiratorial rhetoric not as misguided thinking,
but as part of a strategy of deception intended to firm up dictatorship. Historian
Timothy Snyder argues that Putin adopted the principles of an early twentieth-
century fascist philosopher as he sought to “create a bond of willing ignorance
with Russians, who were meant to understand that Putin was lying but to believe
him anyway.”25 A related perspective sees Russia’s anti-Ukraine propaganda as
an effort not to persuade audiences that it was true, but rather to leave people
“confused, paranoid, and passive” and locked into a “Kremlin-controlled virtual
reality.”26 In these explanations, it is not Putin’s delusion but his cunning and lust
for power that account for conspiracism in Russia’s upper echelons.
Politics, Not Personality
In contrast to approaches that focus on the characteristics of people who be-

lieve them or the personalities of those who utter them, this book examines con-
spiracy claims in their political context. It explores the reasons that regimes—the
ruling collective of a country—make conspiracy claims, how they sustain them
over time, and what effects those claims have on politics and society. I argue
that in places where there are few trusted, neutral institutions to adjudicate the
truth—a reality in much of the world—conspiracy claims function as a weapon
of rhetorical combat. They are deployed to mark out positions, shape the dis-
cursive battlefield, and create an impression of dominance without (necessarily)
inflicting physical force. In short, conspiracy theories are used with the aim of
gaining political advantage.
The following chapters will show that conspiracy claims are not usually the pre-
ferred tactic of scheming dictators seeking to keep their citizens distracted and
divided. Instead, they tend to emerge from political uncertainty. One impetus for
conspiracism is the occurrence of unexpected and politically threatening events.
Introduction 5
For those occupying positions of power, who are cognizant of public opinion and
wary of being perceived as incompetent or vulnerable, identifying a conspiracy is
a demonstration of knowledge and an assertion of control. It is intended to send
a signal to potentially rival politicians and attentive citizens that the regime is re-
silient at a moment that is fraught with peril.
Allegations of conspiracy are also prone to appear where politics is more
open and incumbent leaders must appeal to voters to stay in power. Because the
media in politically competitive settings are usually somewhat independent of
the state, news about the regime’s “dirty laundry”—intrigue, corruption, and
backstabbing—often reaches the public. People in power, seeking to seize con-
trol of the narrative, can use conspiracy claims to discredit their rivals, create a
pretext for harassment, and anticipate embarrassing defections from the ruling
circle. There is even more kindling for conspiracism in societies that are polar-
ized along ideological or regional lines or that are (believed to be) vulnerable
to foreign penetration. Polarization and foreign influence heighten political
animosities and make conspiracy theories appear more plausible. In short, the
wielders of conspiracism, far from being master manipulators, are most likely to
enter the fray in moments of uncertainty and threat.
Yet conspiracy theories can also be habit-forming. Rulers who anticipate fu-
ture challenges to their façade of control may decide to propagate conspiracy
claims even if they do not face immediate threats. An ongoing narrative of con-
spiracy acts like an insurance policy for those in power, demonstrating that they
have anticipated new threats that may emerge and have identified the likely
perpetrators in advance. But this scheme carries hazards: If conspiracy becomes
the default account for certain types of events, the public may become inured to
a heightened level of anxiety. This can lock rulers into a cycle of ever-increasing
alarmism and can lead citizens to wonder what the government has done to ac-
quire so many detractors.
To summarize, I argue that conspiracy theories may arise in varying
circumstances because they have some attractive qualities, even though they also
carry risks. They are an outgrowth of urgent threats to political authority, yet
they can persist as part of an official narrative even where threats have subsided.
In order to explore the causes, consequences, and contradictions of conspiracism
in politics, this book focuses on a part of the world that has been associated with
conspiracy theories as well as actual conspiracies.
Russia and Its Neighbors: Fertile Conspiratorial Soil?
From the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—an anti-Semitic pamphlet first circu-
lated by the tsarist secret police in the early twentieth century—to claims that
6 Introduction
NATO is intent on looting Russia’s resources, Russia has produced more than
its share of prominent conspiracy theories. Whether due to the country’s lack
of natural defenses, its halting attempts to modernize, or its ambivalence about
its place in the world, Russian intellectuals and political leaders have sometimes
promoted a version of history as a series of Russophobic plots.27 During the Cold
War, and more recently under Putin, the Kremlin has exported some of its con-
spiracy theories to the West.28
Russia has received a good deal of attention of late due to its size, geopolit-
ical importance, and efforts to undermine democracy abroad. But Russia is not
the only country in the region where the notion of conspiracy might resonate.
The other post-Soviet states, in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia,
were exposed to the same ideas and practices as Russia by virtue of being part of
a single cultural and media space for decades. They all were subjected to Soviet
propaganda, endured Stalinism, experienced a political opening under pere-
stroika, and gained independence at the same time, in 1991. Today, ordinary cit-
izens in the region consume Russian media and maintain personal ties across
national borders. Leaders in Russia’s so-called near abroad learn and borrow
from their counterparts in neighboring states, and many prevailing governance
practices originate in the Kremlin. In other words, what happens in Russia does
not necessarily stay in Russia. To look at any country in isolation is to neglect
common historical experiences and the contemporary flow of ideas—including
conspiratorial ones—across borders.
At the same time, the post-Soviet states have diverged since 1991 in impor-
tant ways. One critical factor is the level of political openness, which includes
considerations like the fairness of elections and the extent of media freedom.
Aside from the Baltic states, which are considered fully democratic, the region
consists of “hybrid” regimes like Moldova and Georgia; unbridled autocracies
like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan; and others, such as Russia, in between those
extremes.
Another important dynamic is the geopolitical alignments of countries in
the region. Belarus, Armenia, and Kazakhstan are (mostly) pro-Russian and
Georgia is (mostly) pro-Western, while others, including Ukraine and Moldova,
move between the two sides. Countries that partner, or seek to become aligned,
with Russia or the United States can signal their shared interests or identity by
adopting the larger country’s political rhetoric.29 Having common enemies is a
good way to solidify friendships. Both these factors—political openness and for-
eign orientation—will come into play as we explore when and how conspiracy
theories are used in politics.
Analyzing conspiracy theories in the post-Soviet region represents an overdue
corrective in a field dominated by research in WEIRD (Western, educated, indus-
trialized, rich, and democratic)30 countries.31 Due to this narrow geographical
Introduction 7
and cultural focus, belief in conspiracy theories has typically been understood
as an aberration from the norm—a form of misguided thinking at odds with ra-
tional democratic discourse.32 Yet what should be considered “normal” is now a
matter of debate in light of the rising prominence of conspiracism in democratic
countries, most notably in the United States. Studying the post-Soviet world,
where citizens have long regarded their abusive governments with contempt, can
shed new light on questions that have been asked predominantly where citizens
have historically trusted the state.33 For example, where there is less democracy,
are citizens more likely to believe conspiracy theories? Does the surface plau-
sibility of conspiracy theories make them more attractive as political rhetoric?
And, where people are suspicious of power, are politicians who tout conspiracy
theories viewed more or less favorably than those who do not?
How to Study the Politics of Conspiracy
This book makes headway on these questions in several ways. To explain

where, when, and how politicians use conspiracy claims, I created a database
of over 1,500 conspiracy claims from 12 post-Soviet states (the 15 republics
minus the Baltics) from 1995 to 2014.34 I first examine multiple countries over
time to make broad inferences about the factors that drive conspiracy claims,
and then scrutinize individual countries to understand how they operate in
context. In Russia, I show how the promotion of conspiracy claims by the gov-
ernment evolved over time and intensified in response to a series of critical
challenges. I then look in detail at four other cases—Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia,
and Kyrgyzstan—to show how conspiracy claims were shaped by their levels
of political competition and geopolitical orientations. These chapters describe
the invocation of conspiracy by government actors and their rivals within spe-
cific political contexts. They temporarily leave aside the question of whether
conspiracy claims have meaningful impacts on society and politics—in other
words, whether they matter.
Later in the book, I address this question directly by examining how the in-
tended audiences of conspiracy claims—ordinary citizens of post-Soviet states—
respond to them. For that analysis, I conducted 12 focus groups and surveys of
2,000 respondents in Georgia and Kazakhstan. These countries offer contrasts in
two important areas: regime and geopolitical alignment. Georgia is more dem-
ocratic and pro-West, whereas Kazakhstan is more authoritarian and is closely
tied to Russia. These national-level differences come into play when studying
individuals. The surveys reveal what types of conspiracy claims people are in-
clined to believe, how they regard conspiracy-touting politicians, and how
conspiracy beliefs relate to a range of social and political behaviors. I use focus
8 Introduction
groups to draw out people’s thought processes when it comes to making sense of
power and the possibility of conspiracy.
In this book, a conspiracy theory (or claim) is defined as a statement alleging
that (1) a small number of actors (2) were or are acting covertly (3) to achieve
some malevolent end. It must also (4) conflict with the most plausible explana-
tion and (5) lack sufficient credible evidence.35 Conspiracy claims are not neces-
sarily false. In recent history, some claims that were once considered conspiracy
theories ultimately turned out to be true.36 The key is that credible evidence to
support the claim must not have been available to the public or verified by reli-
able sources at the time.37
To see how this definition applies in practice, consider the example from
Ukraine that opened this chapter. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry,
(1) “external sponsors”—presumably the United States—brokered an agreement
to end the standoff between the Yanukovych regime and the opposition (2) as a
cover for its true aims: (3) overthrowing the government for geopolitical gain.
This explanation differs from the official, and well-documented account, (4) that
President Yanukovych fled after his security forces dissolved. Meanwhile, (5) no
credible evidence was adduced (or has since surfaced) that the United States
engineered his sudden ouster or masterminded the protests as a pretext to pull
Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit.
Determining what should or should not count as a conspiracy claim requires
special attention to context, especially when dealing with nondemocratic polit-
ical systems. Some activities that would be considered conspiratorial in long-
standing democracies may be widespread and well-documented in post-Soviet
states, and so would not qualify. For example, an allegation that an incumbent
president engages in election fraud would typically not be considered a con-
spiracy claim in these countries. Even the allegation that people associated with
the Kremlin poisoned ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko with polonium in London
is not a conspiracy theory. While unusual and sensational, there was substantial
evidence implicating the Russian government and no similarly plausible account
that exonerates it. On the other hand, the counterclaim that British intelligence
poisoned Litvinenko to discredit Russia is a conspiracy theory because there is
no evidence to support it.
A conspiracy theory must be politically significant in order to be included.
Ordinary political “dirty tricks” like using deception or innuendo to out-
maneuver an opponent usually will not qualify. The antics of private citizens,
including businesspeople and journalists, do not count unless they have polit-
ical implications. Criminal charges within the quotidian processes of the legal
system are not conspiracy claims. Active conflict situations are excluded be-
cause they operate outside the bounds of conventional politics and are difficult to
Introduction 9
adjudicate. Name-calling, hyperbole, mockery, character assassination, and lies

may be unpleasant and intended to secure political advantage, but they are not
conspiracy claims in and of themselves.
This book outlines a theory about the rhetoric of representatives of incum-
bent regimes, which I sometimes refer to as the “ruler” or “leader” as a shorthand
term. Because a variety of actors may speak for the regime, including journalists
and nominally independent experts, for the database I collected all conspiracy
claims that appeared in selected sources on particular days, regardless of the
accuser. Having access to the full range of claims is valuable for understanding
the broader context, including identification of the allegations that officials
are responding to and the ideas that are in circulation. This collection strategy
privileges pro-regime communication because it is more likely than counter-
hegemonic discourse to be reported in available sources, especially where the
media is state-controlled. Because of this bias, I present some analyses that en-
compass the various voices involved in political contestation, but I can confi-
dently draw conclusions only about claims made by government officials and
their proxies.
Because the database comprises conspiracy theories that appeared in
newspapers or on television at selected times, it represents only a snapshot. It
does not capture the broader political culture or popular sentiments about con-
spiracy, which may be transmitted orally or in venues apart from major media
outlets. Insofar as officials endorse conspiracy theories, it is not always possible
to trace their lineage—whether they are appropriated from oppositional actors,
adapted from cultural tropes, or created out of whole cloth. So although I can
investigate how claims are deployed within the surrounding political milieu, my
data do not enable me to trace the origins of conspiracy theories or to document
how they travel.
What Conspiracy Theories Mean
Politicians everywhere are known to shade the truth, put “spin” on inconvenient
facts, and selectively highlight or ignore information intended for public con-
sumption. Although conspiracy theories diverge from the ideal form of rhetoric
as envisioned in democratic theory, they sit comfortably alongside other forms
of distasteful political rhetoric. When used in small doses, and without targeting
vulnerable groups, conspiracy theories may be fully compatible with democratic
(or autocratic) politics as practiced in the real world. After all, nationalism is
based on a conspiratorial logic pitting “us” against “them” yet is accepted as an
inevitable—or even positive—feature of modern societies.38
10 Introduction
However, the normalization of conspiracy theories in public discourse

should also be seen as the canary in the democratic coal mine—a leading indi-
cator of troubles ahead. A functioning democracy relies on shared recognition
of facts, which enables parties and factions to debate issues of public concern,
and empowers voters to hold their representatives accountable. When public
officials habitually invoke conspiracies, then democracy may persist in form, but
its quality will suffer.
In much of the democratic world, the long-term decline of trust in govern-
ment and rising polarization provide new opportunities for entrepreneurs in
politics, business, and the media to peddle their conspiratorial wares for com-
mercial or political gain. It has also made these societies vulnerable to the spread
of disinformation from state actors, such as Russia, that seek to deepen political
divides. Judging by the rise of illiberal populism and concerted attacks on the
notion of shared truth in democracies in the late 2010s, old distinctions between
an “enlightened” West and a “backward” East may be wearing thin.39 The lessons
from this book, which explain how conspiracy theories are used in a part of the
world where democracy came late—or never arrived—can be instructive for
concerned citizens everywhere.
What Lies Ahead
Revealing Schemes moves from general to specific themes, with the heart of the
book consisting of paired chapters. Chapter 1 lays out an explanatory frame-
work for making sense of the politics of conspiracy, while Chapter 2 seeks out the
origins of conspiracism in the former Soviet Union. It outlines the region’s trou-
bled historical development and examines challenges the region’s leaders have
faced in more recent times.
The next four chapters draw from the database. Chapter 3 provides a descrip-
tive overview of post-Soviet conspiracy theories and analyzes their narrative
structure. Chapter 4 tests plausible hypotheses about the production and prop-
agation of conspiracy claims. Chapters 5 and 6 examine the use of conspiracy
claims in depth, beginning with the region’s main engine of conspiracy, Russia,
followed by an analysis of four countries that represent diverse political systems
and geopolitical alignments.
Chapters 7 and 8 investigate the effects of conspiracy theories. First, surveys
reveal what people in Georgia and Kazakhstan believe, and how conspiracism
shapes attitudes toward political authority. Then, I examine how individuals
in focus groups weigh conspiracy claims and how they regard power more
generally.
Introduction 11
Chapter 9 concludes by discussing what this book contributes to scholarly re-

search on regimes and propaganda and then looks beyond the post-Soviet re-
gion. It applies insights from earlier chapters to make sense of the increasingly
conspiracist political discourse in Turkey and the United States, examines the
global spread of conspiracy theories, and closes by discussing the implications of
the preceding analysis for democracy and governance.
1
Of Power and Peril
Conspiracy Claims as Fighting Words
From popular culture we have an image of the conspiracy theorist in power as

a master manipulator, an orator who ferociously lashes into his enemies. With
spittle flying, he (rarely she) makes dire pronouncements about the damage
inflicted on the nation by venomous hidden forces, appealing to people’s darkest
emotions. The audience, distracted from their daily gripes, sits glued to their tel-
evision screens—or Twitter feeds—or agitates to take up pitchforks and hunt
down enemies in their midst. This image of the conspiratorial demagogue is in-
formed by twentieth-century history and shapes how the public thinks about
conspiracy theories as an instrument of power.
In this depiction, conspiracy theories are viewed as effective political rhetoric
for several reasons. First, they provide a simple and overarching explanation for
events, satisfying a deep-seated need for closure and control in confusing times.1
Second, they draw a clear boundary between ingroups and outgroups. They
focus attention on putative threats, causing people to instinctively rally around
a leader who claims to represent their group.2 Cynical politicians strategically
exploit people’s insecurities to strengthen their power and impose policies they
would otherwise be unable to enact.
If conspiracy theories were in fact so effective, politicians would voice them
often and enthusiastically. Yet although some leaders are renowned for their con-
spiratorial tendencies—among recent and contemporary heads of state, Hugo
Chavez, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump may come to mind3—many, and
perhaps most leaders, do not embrace conspiracy theories as a rule. There has
traditionally been a stigma against their mainstream use in democracies, and
not all authoritarian leaders—including those more repressive than in today’s
Russia—rely in the first instance on conspiratorial rhetoric. For example, Leonid
Brezhnev, who led the Soviet Union for 18 years, was known for his long speeches
full of dull platitudes and tedious economic figures, not conspiratorial oratory,
even though his country lacked free media, parties, or civil society.4
While promoting conspiracy claims may have its cynical virtues, even ill-
intentioned leaders might hesitate to embrace it as a strategy. Incessantly cap-
tivating audiences with narratives about conspiracy requires time and effort, an
aptitude for always staying one step ahead of the public, and perhaps the type
Of Power and Peril 13
of personality conducive to demagoguery. We should therefore entertain the

possibility that being conspiratorial is not for everyone in politics, and may be a
product of circumstance as much as is a calculated decision.
This chapter explores this dilemma in a discussion of how conspiracy theo-
ries operate in politics. It provides an explanatory framework based on the in-
sight that because conspiracy theories are theories about power, it makes sense
to foreground politics—the opportunities and constraints facing politicians as
they consider what stories to tell about the world. I aim to answer the following
questions: When do regimes make conspiracy claims? Why do some countries
see more claims than others? And why do the promoters of conspiracy theories
target certain perpetrators? The framework laid out in this chapter will be ap-
plied in the post-Soviet states, but it has the potential to be of broader relevance,
especially as conspiracy theories appear to be becoming ever more prevalent in
global politics.
Conspiracy Claims as Propaganda
Politicians engage in a wide variety of speech practices, not all of them truthful
or benign: lies, fearmongering, exaggerating, “dog-whistle” politics, hypocrisy,
slander, vilification, questioning of patriotism, character assassination, and, of
course, propaganda: “the deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions,
manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers
the desired intent of the propagandist.”5 What, if anything, makes conspiracy
theories special? It is not the mental state or the malicious character of the
speaker; other types of rhetoric may be just as attractive to unscrupulous leaders.
Conspiracy theories are not simply political lies (though they may be false), nor
mere attacks on political enemies (though they often include those). Two impor-
tant characteristics of conspiracy theories are what they say about power, and
their cavalier relationship with evidence.
Whereas propaganda can have positive content—extoling the greatness of a
leader, for example—conspiracy theories are a specific form of propaganda that
describes deliberate, self-serving action intended to achieve a malevolent goal.
In one of Lenin’s formulations, he introduced the question of kto kogo, literally
translated as “who [verb] whom?” It was used in the context of the Bolshevik
struggle against capitalists, to describe how one side would dominate over the
other. Conspiracy theories place a similar question on the agenda: Who seeks
advantage over whom? To fill in those blanks convincingly, by diagnosing what is
at the root of people’s troubles and identifying the parties responsible, conspiracy
theories tell a story about the enemy’s intentions and help clarify the political
stakes.6
14 Revealing Schemes
Another characteristic of conspiracy claims is that they connect two elem-

ents: the part that people can observe (or have enough circumstantial evidence to
believe that it occurred), and the part that lies over the horizon. A fundamental
problem citizens face when trying to make sense of a complex world is their lim-
ited access to information and expertise. Such a conundrum is apparent when
people grapple with an issue like climate change. For all but climate scientists,
to accept that fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which
then warms the planet and causes changes in weather patterns, requires trust.
One can choose to accept the science, as documented in scholarly publications
and communicated through various channels to the public. Or one can believe
deniers, who offer a very different premise but also work to disseminate their
ideas of what lies over the horizon—perhaps a conspiracy of climate scientists or
a Chinese hoax?7 Conspiracy theories take advantage of the gap between what
people can observe and what they must rely on others to make sense of. Political
officials, who have discretion over what information to release to the public and
how to communicate it, may be drawn to the combination of implied malevo-
lence and incomplete information that characterize conspiracy theories, begging
the question of when people in power choose to articulate them, and why.
Agitated States
One explanation for the official promotion of conspiracy theories is that they
serve as the handmaiden of dictatorship. In the twentieth century, certain no-
toriously conspiratorial regimes were also brutal and repressive ones. Dictators
sought to keep the populations they ruled in a state of fear by contriving sub-
versive plots and hunting for enemies in their midst. Joseph Stalin implicated
capitalist “wreckers” to account for failures stemming from the Soviet system
itself and accused various groups, from ethnic minorities to high-ranking
Communist Party officials, of working to subvert the regime.8 These claims were
used to justify the purge of millions of innocent citizens and enforce the system
of social and political control. Adolf Hitler laid the blame for Germany’s loss in
World War I on a purported international Jewish conspiracy. Narratives from
Nazi propaganda, including the portrayal of Germans as victims and the notion
of the Big Lie—accusing Jews of concocting their own conspiracy theory—were
used to enable genocide.9
Even “lesser” dictators have weaponized conspiracy to justify repressing
their enemies. Saddam Hussein of Iraq, whose party came to power in a coup,
was prone to inventing coup plots against himself, which facilitated his aims
of “eliminating actual and potential opposition, sending pointed signals to ex-
ternal enemies (such as Iran and Syria) and terrorizing the population into
total subservience.”10 Analysts also draw a link between destructive governance

and conspiracism when employed by less violent authoritarians such as Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela or Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt.11 These examples appear to
indicate a pattern: cruel and repressive rulers need enemies to survive, and con-
spiracy theories provide the rationale to identify and implicate their preferred
scapegoats.12
Alternatively, some scholars suggest that it may not be the cruelest leaders,
but rather savvier ones, who strategically promote propaganda to avoid using
violence. Clever autocrats can manage the flow of information to improve public
perceptions of the regime, or put out distractions to prevent citizens from re-
ceiving bad news and potentially rebelling.13 They can also disseminate prop-
aganda to compel citizens to embrace absurd claims, thereby reinforcing the
regime’s dominance over society.14 Although some research along these lines
explains why regimes might project blame for internal problems onto suppos-
edly malevolent outsiders, it does not address the use of conspiratorial propa-
ganda per se.15
A broader view suggests that the association of dictators with conspiracy the-
ories is not the whole story. Because no one has set out to check how often other
types of leaders, such as moderate authoritarians or even democrats, engage in
conspiracism, it is unclear whether dictators and conspiracy necessarily go to-
gether. The lack of such comparisons also makes it difficult to decouple leaders
from the conditions that produce them. It may be that certain types of political
cultures, or difficult social or economic circumstances, select for leaders who are
both conspiratorial and autocratic. This would push the task back to identifying
the conditions that account for both occurrences.
Some scholars have explained how conspiracy theories might flourish even
in democratic settings. One theory sees conspiracy theories in the United States
through the lens of group identity. Believing in malevolent plots enables po-
litical losers to “revamp and recoup from losses, close ranks, staunch losses,
overcome collective action problems, and sensitize minds to vulnerabilities.”16
This approach takes power seriously, yet the function of conspiracy claims
for those in power may differ from the mechanisms driving belief among “or-
dinary” people. Another argument regarding conspiracy theories in the
United States foregrounds the rhetoric of public officials, pointing to a “new
conspiracism”: ungrounded assertions by opportunists seeking to delegitimate
democratic institutions and disorient the public.17 It is unclear, however, what
background conditions give rise to this phenomenon, or in what other settings
one might encounter it.
A different approach seeks to explain conspiratorial tendencies by examining
a country’s historical and cultural roots. It has been argued, for example, that
the Arab world is especially conspiratorial because of poor governance, stunted
economic development, or a culture of victimization.18 In Turkey, the “Sevres

Syndrome,” based on the Great Powers’ carving up of Turkey after World War
I, engendered deep-seated distrust of outside powers.19 In the United States,
historians attribute conspiracism to an American self-image of exceptionalism
and a distrust of government that has existed since its founding.20
Finally, previous works have examined conspiracy theories in Russia. Scholars
have argued that the tendency of ordinary Russians to endorse conspiracy the-
ories arose out of the trauma of Russia’s disorienting transition and feelings of
powerlessness amid social and political upheaval.21 In similar fashion, con-
spiracy theory in popular culture in the first decade of the 2000s can be viewed
as an expression of Russia’s struggles with identity and territorial loss.22 Most
similar to the focus of the current study is the argument that conspiracism ema-
nating from the Kremlin is a form of populism and a means to create ruling
coalitions. Intellectuals in particular have been critical in fostering and spreading
conspiracy theories that support the Putin regime.23
From studies of individual countries such as these, it is evident that some
have experienced challenging historical circumstances that, when viewed from
the present, appear to make them especially prone to conspiracism. Yet every
country has experienced national trauma of one form or another, and only in
some cases do leаders habitually embrace conspiracism. Without comparing that
experience against others, we cannot determine which, if any, country-specific
factors are most pertinent.
Maintaining the Facade of Control
It is important to take into account the preceding insights relating to history,

strategy, and culture, but a theory of conspiracy theories should also pay close
attention to politics: the struggle for power and the “management and appropri-
ation of meanings.”24 One way to think about the politics of conspiracy is to rec-
ognize that rhetoric can be deployed to serve as a sword or as a shield—symbols
that, incidentally, comprised the emblem of the KGB. Those items represented
the organization’s historical function as both a defender of the Soviet Union
against internal and external enemies, and, when need be, an aggressor that
can “smite its foes.”25 Conspiracy theories can likewise serve several purposes.
Regimes may weaponize conspiracy against their perceived enemies, using it as
a sword. 26 Yet conspiracy claims can also act as a shield and can be wielded in
response to, or in anticipation of, loss of control. In either case, they present risks,
of damaging the speaker’s credibility or reinforcing perceptions of weaknesses.
To understand the risks and rewards of promoting conspiratorial propaganda,
it is useful to explore how regimes seek to influence political realities by shaping

public perceptions.
The Virtues of Signaling
The decision to deploy a conspiracy theory may be intended not to convince

people that the substance of the claim is true—in other words, to persuade—but
rather to send a signal. Signaling is a way of behaving that indirectly reveals in-
formation about the actor. For example, a politician whose rhetoric goes against
prevailing norms may not intend for his words to be taken literally. Instead he
may be sending a signal that he is authentic and is willing to disregard conven-
tional expectations.27 Conspiracy claims might likewise be intended to send
messages apart from their content.
First, claiming a conspiracy might be seen as a way to signal strength and
competence. In circumstances that call into question a ruler’s authority, a con-
spiratorial accounting of events conveys that the regime possesses the know-
ledge about what happened and who was responsible. Since conspiracies are by
definition carried out in secret, ordinary observers will lack the wherewithal
to independently verify a claim. As such, the assertion of knowing about a
politically significant episode is a demonstration of power, signaling to both
supporters and detractors that the regime is in control. And by demonstrating
the capacity to uncover the plot and name the plotters, the claimant signals that
the regime has the ability to respond. The claim itself may or may not be espe-
cially convincing. From the regime’s perspective, the most important feature of
the signal is the confidence with which it is asserted. The more adamant regime
spokespeople are about an alleged conspiracy, and the better coordinated they
are, the greater their chances of getting the content and thrust of their message
across.28
Second, claiming conspiracy can grant a regime leverage in future challenges.
If rulers are unable to prevent the recurrence of an unpleasant episode, such as
an economic crisis, terror attack, or salvo by a political rival, the next best op-
tion is to be able to anticipate it. A conspiratorial account can be preemptive,
supplying an explanation, and a warning, about challenges that are likely to be
repeated. This not only has the effect of preparing the audience in advance, thus
minimizing the effect of a future shock, but also lends the regime authority by
appearing to be vindicated by the anticipated turn of events. In this instance, pre-
science signals power. How and when these mechanisms operate to drive the use
of conspiracy claims depends on two factors: destabilizing events and political
competition.
Destabilizing Events
First, conspiracy claims are likely to arise in response to events that raise un-
comfortable questions about the political leadership, challenge official
narratives, and otherwise disturb the status quo. What should be considered
a threat is partly in the eye of the beholder and is influenced by factors such as
historical context and elite interpretations.29 Yet some types of events are es-
pecially likely to imperil the regime’s façade of control. They are distinguished
by being plausibly manmade, unanticipated, attention-grabbing, and often vi-
olent: terrorist attacks, protests, riots, cross-border attacks, assassinations, and
“accidents” involving prominent people. There need be no obvious culprit for
such salient events to be deemed worthy of attention. Sometimes the situation is
so puzzling, unexpected, and fraught with political implications that it cries out
for an explanation.
Events that are ostensibly caused by nonstate actors or that involve
violations of a state’s sovereignty are especially jarring to the public’s sense
of normalcy. Random violence against civilians calls into question one of
the basic assurances that states provide: the protection of society.30 Acts that
can be interpreted as threatening to a country’s identity, such as the desecra-
tion of national symbols or attacks on government buildings, may inflame
popular indignation, and can be interpreted as a direct challenge to state
authority.31
Whether other types of events produce the impression of dislocation
depends on historical and cultural factors. For example, in most democra-
cies, anti-government protests are perceived as a justifiable tactic by which
ordinary people make legitimate claims on the authorities. However, protests
can also be confusing and muddled, making it difficult to ascertain basic facts
about who is involved and for what purpose. This leaves protest movements
vulnerable to charges of inauthenticity, especially in nondemocratic
regimes. For example, after the 1989 student protests in Tiananmen Square,
the mayor of Beijing asserted that they were “planned, organized, and pre-
meditated by a few people” who had “made up their minds to unite with all
hostile forces overseas and in foreign countries to launch a battle against us
to the last.”32
Inherently destabilizing events—and others that can be plausibly interpreted
as suspicious—may be sufficient to garner the regime’s attention but do not
compel any particular response. Political claims and their reception take place
in a world of expectations. The same event occurring in different countries, or at
different moments in time, can yield varying interpretations.33 How the powers-
that-be respond to a threat—whether they ignore it, explain it away, or offer a
conspiratorial interpretation—depends in part on the political context. 34
The Political Context of Conspiratorial Politics
The character of political regimes is a second factor affecting conspiracy claims,

as it delimits the actors who can take part in public debates and shapes how
events are interpreted. The frequency and dynamics of claiming conspiracies
vary depending on whether there is greater or less political competition.
Conspiracism under Authoritarianism

Leaders in authoritarian systems do not face opposition through normal institu-
tional channels and tend to retain power for longer than leaders in democracies.
Authoritarian leaders rule through a combination of exploiting and redistrib-
uting state resources, broadcasting propaganda, co- opting rivals, dividing
oppositions, and wielding the ever-present threat of violence if things go awry.
But they also suffer from a vulnerability: the threat to their power that comes
from rare and visible disruptions like the ones described earlier. Unlike in dem-
ocracies, where political contenders must ultimately appeal to voters, authori-
tarian rulers rely on informal power-sharing agreements with other elites.35 The
conditional nature of political coalitions makes them vulnerable to a loss of con-
fidence.36 Political scientist Andreas Schedler writes that authoritarian rulers
must handle two challenges:
(a) to keep horizontal threats at bay, authoritarian rulers need to convey an

image of elite cohesion; (b) to keep vertical threats at bay, they need to convey
an image of popular support. The management of threats involves the manage-
ment of threat perceptions.37
In other words, they are dependent on the impression of control, which they go to
great lengths to maintain.
The degree to which authoritarian regimes emphasize order and conformity
is evident in their exaltation of entities such as the military and the production
of public spectacles.38 Witness, for example, Russia’s parade of nuclear missiles
on Red Square on Victory Day—a Soviet tradition Vladimir Putin revived in
2008—or the mass pageantry of China’s National Day celebrations.39 Top-down
control in authoritarian regimes is also evident in policies that prioritize stability
over other goals, including censorship that aims to prevent mass protests.40
However, despite their best efforts, authoritarians sometimes fail to main-
tain the semblance of public order, sometimes spectacularly. Visible, public
challenges in the form of protest, violence, or other types of mass noncompli-
ance threaten to expose regime weakness. Anti-government demonstrations
indicate vocal dissatisfaction that the regime would rather remain dormant,
while bouts of civil violence indicate that the regime cannot protect its citizens.
Authoritarians are also vulnerable to public displays of intrigue or backstabbing,

untimely political deaths and the rumors they produce, and open criticism by
rivals or opposition figures (sometimes safely from abroad), which can damage
their façade of control. Conspiracy claims enter the picture as a means for anx-
ious autocrats to restore the impression of control. Signaling their awareness of a
plot sends the message that they have the capacity to address the challenge, even
if they were initially caught off guard. Besides signaling control, they can rely on
other levers of power such as surveillance and censorship to deter defections and
return to business as usual.41
Conspiracism with Competition

In contrast to dictatorships, political systems with elements of both democ-
racy and authoritarianism are more likely to experience chronic, low-level in-
stability.42 In so-called hybrid regimes, political competition and pluralistic
media ensure that rulers’ preferred narratives can be contested. If the advan-
tage of being an authoritarian incumbent is to remain above the fray in order
to maintain the appearances represented in regime propaganda, leaders in hy-
brid regimes are right in the fray. Their reputations risk being sullied by their in-
volvement in the daily scrum of politics and its portrayal in the media. They also
struggle to keep the “dirty laundry” of their inner circle—intrigue, corruption,
and backstabbing—from public view.43
The conspiracism that emerges from competitive politics can reflect a combi-
nation of defensive and preemptive motivations. Politicians in power can level
conspiracy accusations at their rivals to bring them down a peg, or as a concocted
pretext to use the power of the state against them. Where political coalitions are
unstable, conspiracy claims can also function as preemptive propaganda if defec-
tion appears likely to occur.
A key affordance of hybrid regimes is that challengers can broadcast conspir-
atorial claims against those in power, negating the charges against themselves or
muddying the waters sufficiently so that the accusations fail to make an impact.
Both sides have an incentive to shape the narrative about their opponents, for the
benefit of the voting public and to “work the referees” who are in a position to ad-
judicate violations of the law or disputes among candidates.44
Some episodes that occur in competitive regimes are potentially destabilizing
even though they do not arise suddenly and unexpectedly. If terrorist attacks
create an impression of dislocation because they are fear-inducing bolts from the
blue, then hotly contested elections are their foreseeable twin: pre-programmed
rituals of democratic procedure that nonetheless have the potential to produce
heightened levels of uncertainty, attention, and anxiety. Where there is little
expectation that elections will be fairly conducted, challengers may have good
reason to suspect shenanigans by the incumbent. Politicians in power use the
prerogatives of their office to dominate the media, mobilize state employees to

vote, spend vast amounts of money on bribery and advertising, influence elec-
tion officials, and if necessary, manipulate the numbers after votes are cast.45
Despite these disadvantages, electoral challengers even in unfair conditions
can benefit simply by virtue of competing. Campaigning around the country,
holding rallies, and communicating with the international media provide a plat-
form that is usually lacking at other times. The attention momentarily focused on
challengers affords them opportunities to attack the incumbent, and forces the
incumbent to share the spotlight.
As a result of uncertainty and attention, competitive elections are marked by
anxiety. Both sides, but especially the incumbent, may play dirty tricks such as
spreading rumors or blackmail. There is always the possibility of disorder or even
violence around election day, especially if the challenger poses a serious electoral
threat. Finally, the audience for this spectacle—the voting public—observes the
campaign through the mass media or learns about it through word of mouth, and
is presumed to be susceptible to persuasion or manipulation. For these reasons,
competitive elections are primed for conspiracy claims.
In societies that are polarized or plausibly subject to foreign meddling, there is
even more material to work with.46 Both heighten the stakes of competitive poli-
tics and expand the array of plots that can be imagined. In particular, accusations
that a politician seeks support from hostile external actors can be intuitively
plausible and may prove irresistible to leaders in the rival camp.
In practice, the political stakes in hybrid regimes are not always high and need
not result in incessant conspiracy mongering. Rather, conspiracy should persist
as an available resource in normal times but rise episodically around destabil-
izing events or salient political rituals like elections.
Sustaining Conspiracy Claims
To summarize the argument to this point, anti-regime threats and political com-
petition can spur conspiracy claims by incumbents, which tend to be manifested
in sporadic bursts. Once the claimant’s immediate concerns are addressed,
whether rhetorically or otherwise, we should expect the volume of conspiracy
claims to recede to its previous level. But if the underlying causes of the challenge
are not addressed, regimes can construct broad conspiracy narratives and stra-
tegically disseminate them over time, turning defensive into offensive rhetoric.47
Whereas a conspiratorial response to an unexpected challenge is intended
to restore the status quo, a more proactive propaganda campaign not only
demonstrates a regime’s resolve by signaling knowledge of a far-reaching plot
but also raises the stakes. By enfolding the immediate perpetrator into a larger
narrative of conspiracy, the implication is that the threat is persistent, not inter-
mittent, and encompassing rather than narrow. The intended effect is to “up the
ante,” drawing supporters more closely by raising the costs of associating with
newly declared enemies, and intimidating potential oppositions and neutral ac-
tors whose loyalty might now be called into question. Endorsing conspiratorial
propaganda becomes the new price of proximity to power. 48
This option is available to any leader who is sufficiently motivated, but is more
likely to be effective where regimes exercise near complete dominance over the
media. Communist regimes before 1989 put out self-serving propaganda for
decades without the possibility for others to publicly challenge their claims.49
This degree of control is less easily achieved today because people have access
to alternative sources of information, whether from contacts who travel abroad
or from social media. Even authoritarian regimes have to labor to ensure that
their preferred messages prevail over others.50 As such, successfully propagating
a pervasive conspiracy narrative to counter, explain away, and preempt future
threats requires a major investment of human and financial resources and the
deftness to adjust to criticisms and counterclaims.
When Conspiracism Falters
There are several potential hazards to regimes that rely excessively on

conspiracism, especially if it becomes a dominant mode of discourse. First, it
may unintentionally send a signal about a regime’s fragility. States with con-
trol over the media can effectively shape opinion by flooding the airwaves
with positive information such as economic successes and triumphant foreign
engagements.51 By being predictable and uplifting, conventional propaganda has
the additional advantage of implying an absence of politics or conflict, in ways
that reaffirm the status quo.52 Overarching conspiracy narratives risk under-
mining the message of stability by gratuitously planting the suggestion that some
people do not appreciate the regime as much as its own propaganda says they
should. Astute observers might perceive such claims as a defensive measure to
compensate for regime insecurities. Citizens might reasonably start to ask un-
comfortable questions about what they have overlooked. If so, a claim intended
to signal strength might instead betray a lack of foresight and point to underlying
weaknesses.
Second, at some point, conspiracy claims may yield diminishing returns.
If they are promoted habitually and without obvious provocations, their
advantage—reminding people about the strength of those who can uncover and
identify plots—can turn into a liability. At best, sustained conspiracy narratives
will become mere background noise and lose their capacity to captivate and
intimidate. At worst, the regime, and not its enemies, may be seen as a destabil-
izing force. Unprompted rhetorical onslaughts about dubious or imaginary ene-
mies do not lend confidence in the regime’s ability to manage the country.
Third, if conspiratorial plots that are touted do not come to pass, audiences
may become skeptical of future claims. Politicians understand that trust is crit-
ical to earning public support.53 Even nondemocratic leaders work hard to earn
and maintain credibility because the alternative—ruling through force alone—is
far more costly. The (over)use of conspiracy theories, because they are often at
odds with people’s lived experience, threaten to erode that trust.
How can rhetoric intended to send a signal of strength end up having the op-
posite effect? The fact is, leaders have incomplete information about what their
citizens and fellow elites believe and how they will behave.54 They may be insu-
lated from public opinion, especially in political systems in which independent
media are deliberately constrained. They may surround themselves with advisors
who shield them from bad news, or who themselves lack knowledge of the pop-
ular mood.55 The disconnect between perceptions and reality has been vividly
demonstrated in the post-Soviet region, where regimes have overestimated the
public’s willingness to acquiesce to fraudulent elections on numerous occasions,
resulting in mass protests and, in some cases, regime change.56 To engage in a
campaign of conspiracism is therefore a gambit, as it allows a regime to project
authority but risks inadvertently revealing vulnerability or lack of credibility.
Conspiracism in Regional and Global Context
The dynamics described in the preceding section take place in a regional and
global context. The content of Russian state television broadcasts or Trump-era
canards about “globalists” highlight the fact that conspiracies—as described by
their narrators—are not confined to national borders. Neither are conspiracy
theories themselves. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which concocted the
idea of a global Jewish cabal, originated in tsarist Russia, where it was used to
justify pogroms against Jews. It was later republished and circulated in Nazi
Germany. Even after being widely discredited, it had another revival in the Arab
world, where it provided a textual basis for anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.57
Conspiracy theories about financier George Soros were proclaimed in Russia in
the early 1990s, appeared in Malaysia during the 1997 financial crisis, were taken
up by populist authoritarian regimes in Central Europe, and were finally wielded
by Republicans in the United States to delegitimize Democrats in the 2010s.58
Conspiracy claims can travel readily across post-Soviet space thanks to the
continued use of the Russian language, the widespread availability of Russian
television, and professional, familial, and friendship ties across borders. By its
sheer heft, Russia is first among equals when it comes to setting the political
agenda in the region. Even for states that prefer to leave Russia’s orbit, its gravi-
tational pull is such that the Kremlin’s official line cannot be ignored.59 Russia’s
favored conspiracy narratives may be adopted or adapted by politicians in
other states—or, in rarer cases, innovative claims can travel in the opposite
direction.
Cross-border comparisons also help determine whose events are worth
commenting on. Dictators often fear that their citizens will draw inspiration
from developments in neighboring states for innovations such as free elections
or successful protests.60 Putin reportedly obsessed over Muammar Qaddafi’s vi-
olent death after a popular uprising in Libya, seeing a facsimile of himself in the
disgraced tyrant. 61 If rulers believe their citizens might cause problems on do-
mestic soil, destabilizing events abroad can become fair game for official conspir-
atorial commentary.
Finally, geographical alignments can influence whose conspiracy narratives
resonate and where. In the case of the former Soviet space, states orient their
foreign policies predominantly toward Russia or the West as a result of histor-
ical levels of development, years under Russian and Soviet rule, and dependence
on Russia after 1991.62 On one side are territories aligned with Russia, such as
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, eastern Ukraine, and Georgia’s breakaway re-
gions. On the other are those that look toward the West, such as the Baltic states,
western Ukraine, and Georgia. Others vacillate between the two poles or hedge
their bets. For countries that partner with, or seek assistance from, Russia or the
United States, adopting the more powerful state’s rhetoric and invoking common
enemies can send friendly signals about their own identity, interests, or eager-
ness to get along.63
Circumstances and Choices
These surrounding conditions—perceived threats from below, competition from

other elites, and influences from abroad—produce pressures to construct con-
spiracy claims. Leaders have choices, however, about whether to vocalize them,
how to delegate claims-making to others, and how to pitch their allegations.
Their decisions may depend on their leadership style—whether they govern
more as technocrats or charismatic leaders.64 They may benefit from learning,
whereby a prior experience invoking conspiracy leads them to believe it will be
effective in the future. Regimes in smaller, weaker countries seeking attention or
assistance from powerful external actors may promote conspiracy claims more
enthusiastically, all else equal. Finally, claimants may actually believe what they
say, although we can never know for certain.
When it comes to advancing a narrative, a variety of actors may speak for

the regime. Leaders who want to remain above the fray and unsullied by po-
litical combat can delegate conspiracy mongering to proxies such as official
subordinates, allied politicians or commentators, or media personalities. Regime
loyalists, whether in a position of authority or not, may perceive cues from above
as instructions to amplify official rhetoric without being explicitly directed to do
so. When multiple actors coordinate to promote a single narrative, this manifes-
tation of unity can demonstrate the regime’s strength.
In practice, although it is not the main focus of this analysis, there are many
actors independent of the regime who may have incentives to invoke con-
spiracy. Whereas those in power seek to ensure their political survival, political
entrepreneurs outside regime circles and aspiring public figures may take advan-
tage of an open media environment to raise their profiles. Independent actors
can level conspiracy claims about unpopular groups or launch rhetorical salvos
at the powerful, which may resonate with sympathetic audiences. If one of the
requisites to compete in politics is attention, conspiracy mongering might be
viewed as a promising way to obtain it.65
Finally, it goes without saying that conspiracy is not the only factor enabling a
regime to retain power or threatening to erode its credibility. Regimes have a va-
riety of resources at their disposal and select from a menu of options when facing
a political challenge. Regimes have financial assets that they can use to placate
citizens, in ways that supersede the need to impress, distract, or otherwise in-
doctrinate them.66 They can draw on symbols that make national belonging or
ideological solidarity salient, in order to recast how people view their leaders.67
And in extreme cases, when regimes are prepared to use brute force, rhetoric in-
tended to shape hearts and minds declines in importance.
Putting the Pieces Together
Having examined the forces behind conspiracy claims in politics, we can now
consider how they operate, in isolation or in combination, to shape the broader
contours of conspiracism, both over time and comparatively across countries.
Dictators, who are normally free of pesky reporters and wily oppositionists,
can go about their business setting the agenda and disseminating self-serving
propaganda unperturbed. In contrast, where political competition is the norm,
incumbents must endure the stress of criticism and potential exposure of high-
level intrigue. We can think of this as a chronic condition that produces a steady
output of conspiracy claims as a symptom.
The other factor, destabilizing events, can upend the status quo in ways that
affect competitive regimes and more complacent dictators alike. They are akin
to an acute attack and can provoke a severe conspiratorial reaction. When such
episodes intrude on an already contentious political dynamic in which an op-
position is primed to seek advantage, their conspiracy-promoting potential is
enhanced. Yet in closed regimes, destabilizing events produce a greater shock to
the incumbent because they are out of the ordinary.
When regimes and destabilizing events are considered together, they combine
into several modes of conspiracism:
Sporadic official conspiracism, in which conspiracy theories are mostly ab-

•
sent from the arsenal of political tactics. Leaders may abstain because they
have different stylistic preferences or prefer other ways of engaging the
public, or for the reasons described earlier—a desire to preserve credibility
and avoid inadvertently signaling weakness. Conspiracy claims are uttered
for primarily defensive reasons, in the face of unexpected events such as
terrorist attacks, mass electoral protests, and elite defections. Once these
claims have served their purposes, when the threat subsides, the regime
can return to business as usual, whatever its rhetorical modus operandi may
be. Sporadic official conspiracism obtains in Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan,
Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Most but
not all of these states are fully authoritarian.
Competitive conspiracism, in which conspiracy claims emerge from rhe-
•
torical combat. They are used by incumbent leaders as both sword and
shield, sometimes at the same time. Regime opponents try to tarnish the
reputations of incumbents, who may respond by leveling conspiracy
allegations, or decide to preemptively smear their opponents by striking
first. The competitive dynamic produces a steady state of conspiratorial
rhetoric by regimes, but it is prone to spike during prominent and politically
fraught episodes. Competitive conspiracism characterizes hybrid regimes
such as Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. It also describes the political cli-
mate in Russia in the 1990s.
Sustained official conspiracism, which occurs when officials seek to impose
•
an overarching conspiracy narrative over an extended period of time. The
narrative describes whom the regime is defending against and, implicitly,
why it deserves to stay in power. Politics becomes oriented around the idea
that the nation, ruling party, or president is constantly under siege. This sce-
nario describes Russia in most of the Putin era. Although Putin did not per-
sonally voice all the conspiracy claims intended for the Russian public, he
presided over a system in which official spokespeople and Kremlin proxies
disseminated and amplified conspiracy claims that advanced the regime’s
preferred narrative.
Conclusion
The theoretical framework laid out in this chapter offers insights that build on
but also differ from previous efforts to understand conspiracy theories in politics.
While it is tempting to see conspiracism as a product of personality differences,
psychological processes, or cultural tendencies, this book views it through the
lens of power and its limitations. The notion that conspiracy claims emerge out
of circumstance and operate as a normal part of the thrust and parry of political
contention is at odds with the conventional wisdom, yet it can help explain why
some countries seem to be overtaken by conspiracy claims, whereas in others
they play a trivial role, and why that sometimes changes over time.
In the following chapters I show how the politics of conspiracy operates in
practice by examining 12 countries over 20 years. Analyzing these data for broad
patterns and detailing the mechanisms around conspiracy claims reveals im-
portant insights about where and when the ground for conspiracy theories is
most fertile. While a theory developed in the post-Soviet region will not apply
everywhere, especially to settings with notable historical, cultural, and political
differences, it may shine light on the dynamics of conspiracism in other times
and places.
For various reasons, Russia’s leaders today are associated with the prolifer-
ation of conspiracy theories, both for domestic consumption and for export.68
This phenomenon has raised concerns in the West and has provoked questions
about whether there are certain factors that predispose Russia—and Russians—
to embrace conspiracy theories. But is it even possible to identify the root causes
of conspiracy belief? And to what extent are such causes, if they can be found,
unique to Russia? To answer these questions, we begin the inquiry by taking in
the entire post-Soviet region and examining its past. This is the task of the next
chapter.
2
Traumas and Tyranny?
The Long-Term and Proximate Roots of Conspiracism
In 1946, as tensions heated up between the United States and Soviet Union in
what would soon become the Cold War, George Kennan, an American embassy
official in Moscow, took it upon himself to diagnose what ailed the Soviet Union.
Kennan’s explanation for the Kremlin’s tendency to resist US postwar initiatives
was deeply psychological. He said that the “Soviet party line is not based on any
objective analysis of situation beyond Russia’s borders” but instead “arises mainly
from basic inner-Russian necessities.” He went on to write that “at bottom of
[the] Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is [a] traditional and instinctive
Russian sense of insecurity.” This worldview, he argued, stemmed from exposed
geography that left it vulnerable to invasion, and “contact with [the] econom-
ically advanced West” that exposed the fragility of the Russian system of rule.
These legacies left a mark:
For this reason, they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct
contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if
Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth
about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient
but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and
compromises with it.1
It is striking how much this analysis of the Soviet Union resembles common
explanations for why individuals believe conspiracy theories. Psychological re-
search has shown that people prone to conspiracy thinking tend to suffer from
low self-esteem, alienation, social isolation, distrust, and paranoia.2 Conspiracy
theories have been shown to “ameliorate feelings of powerlessness and fill a need
for certainty and control.”3 The underlying pathology of insecurity leads to the
same diagnosis for both individuals and states.
Although Kennan’s analysis was influential in shaping how US policymakers
thought about the Soviet Union, it provided an overly simplistic view of a com-
plex adversary. Countries do not have psychological profiles, and the reasons
people believe conspiracy theories are not necessarily the reasons politicians
Traumas and Tyranny? 29
decide to spread them. There might be other, more proximate, factors at work,
and those should be taken seriously.
In this chapter I briefly review the case Kennan sketched out, and that others
have built on with greater sophistication, namely that conspiracism in Russia
(and other nearby states) is best explained by the region’s troubled and traumatic
historical development. I complicate this explanation by arguing that history
does matter, not by preordaining a country’s fate, but by providing a set of refer-
ence points and tropes that can be invoked under the right circumstances. I then
examine challenges the region’s leaders faced in more recent times that might
trigger a conspiratorial interpretation. I conclude with a stylized narrative of the
critical events used to analyze conspiracy claims in later chapters.
Like Country, Like People?
Some countries, like certain people, have earned the dubious reputation of
being obsessed with conspiracy theories. To account for this state of affairs,
experts have pointed to factors such as colonialism,4 foreign intervention and
meddling,5 territorial dismemberment,6 and autocracy.7 If there is a common
thread among these explanations, it is a history of victimization at the hands of
outsiders. People learn through experience that others cannot be trusted and
come to see themselves as vulnerable to forces they are powerless to stop. Rather
than accept that their misfortunes are caused by complex inscrutable forces, they
can gain a sense of control by imagining that they can connect the dots and iden-
tify their malefactor.8 Linking conspiracism to past traumas may make sense for
individuals, but when applied to territorial entities and the people who speak for
them, this approach has its drawbacks.
First, national traumas in history are the norm rather than the exception.
Many countries and groups have suffered various catastrophes—wars, conquest,
plagues, and natural disasters, to name a few. Most groups have endured the
abusive rule of a foreign power at some point, and most individuals throughout
most of history have lived under a tyrannical system of government.9 The weight
of successive bouts of oppression make conspiracism—or at least extreme dis-
trust of authority—seem like a foregone conclusion. But despite the ubiq-
uity of traumas, in most places neither leaders nor citizens are notorious for
constructing their own conspiratorial realities. Some countries appear to over-
come their curse of suffering—just like some people do—while others do not.
Take Spain, for example, which endured a brutal civil war and then a genera-
tion of authoritarian rule, yet transitioned to democracy, entered the European
Union, and is not known especially for conspiracism.
Second, we do not know what aspects of conspiracy belief are normal or ex-
ceptional. The regions that tend to be associated with conspiracism—the Middle
East or Russia, for example—may or may not be unusual. We may exaggerate the
eccentric qualities of mass belief in countries that are easy to caricature, or that
are unfamiliar, while sparing ourselves the same scrutiny. It may be that high
levels of conspiracy belief are the global norm, while a small group of countries,
perhaps in northern Europe, or maybe in southern Africa—who knows?—are
the exception that deserves an explanation. Without a way of comparing system-
atically across countries, there is no way to know for certain.
A third problem with the national trauma theory of history is that it lets
leaders off the hook. To return to the first point, it is clear that not all countries
are doomed to an existence of paranoia and insecurity. Societies change, as a re-
sult of growth, modernization, and the mixing of people and ideas. Why would
we regard certain places as impervious to change and cursed by misfortunes
from long ago? To accept this fate for some countries—usually non-Western
societies long stereotyped as irrational or “backward”—is to reject the possibility
that people have any power to shape their own destiny. Only if we acknowledge
that some outcomes are not historically determined can we give people, and the
leaders who speak for them, the credit or blame they deserve.
Russia: A Troubled Patient?
If there is a poster child for a country cursed by history, it is post-Soviet Russia,

which briefly flirted with democracy and cooperative relations with the West, but
then apparently “reverted” to old habits of autocracy, intolerance, and foreign ag-
gression. If we were to assemble the evidence to convince a jury that post-Soviet
Russia’s leaders and citizens were historically destined to exhibit a conspiratorial
worldview, what would it look like?
The case would begin with Russia’s vast territory and weak natural defenses.
As the tsarist empire expanded into Asia and Europe in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the Russian frontier was exposed. Napoleon’s invasion and
Russia’s struggles with the British, Habsburg, and Ottoman Empires fed a sense
of constant insecurity over its new holdings.
The argument would continue by recognizing Russia’s fraught position in
the international system. One interpretation sees Russia as perpetually seeking
membership in the club of Western powers but being continually rebuffed.10 Late
to develop and perceived as backward and Asiatic, in contrast to the more tech-
nologically advanced nation-states of Europe, Russia strove to be part of the West
yet resented its exclusion.11 Attempts to catch up by borrowing European ideas
usually failed to bridge the gap, leading to cycles of frustration and clampdowns
at home. The chasm of development became evident as Russia flirted with con-
stitutional monarchy after 1905 but still lagged far behind its European peers.
War with Germany exposed the weakness of the army and the fragility of the
Romanov Dynasty, which finally collapsed in 1917.
The case deepens when we consider the violent and intrigue- filled
circumstances that led to the creation of the Soviet Union. As a subversive group
trying to act in secret against a repressive regime, the Bolsheviks internalized in-
security and worked to ferret out and punish disloyalty. Outmaneuvering tsarist
intelligence and overthrowing a tottering provisional government only provoked
further hostility, as the White Army sought to destroy the fledgling movement.
Fighting as an underdog in the civil war further entrenched the idea among
the Bolsheviks that they were surrounded by implacable enemies. As Kennan
observed, the Bolsheviks believed that they were battling foreign and internal
enemies from the earliest days after their greatest triumph.
They were not wrong. The Bolshevik victory produced shock in Western cap-
itals, as leaders feared it would inspire socialist parties to bring about revolu-
tion at home. Seeking to thwart the new government in its infancy, the combined
British, French, and American armies invaded to assist the White Army in the
civil war, to little avail. A policy to isolate and strangle the fledgling Bolshevik
government followed.
The Soviet state that emerged from the Bolshevik movement retained its sense
of persecution. Defending against and punishing internal enemies were integral
to its claim to legitimacy. The Cheka (later renamed the KGB) grew out of a de-
tachment of special troops responsible for gathering intelligence and catching
spies. It developed in a milieu of bloodletting, in which violence was seen as a
necessary response to a powerful state security apparatus. As the core organi-
zation supporting the new regime, the Cheka embodied the government’s em-
battled worldview by pursuing and neutralizing threats.12 Resistors to the
Soviet project, including peasants who hid their grain from requisition by the
authorities, were denounced as enemies of the people. Under Stalin, the catego-
ries of enemies expanded to encompass workers who failed to meet production
targets (wreckers), citizens who moved to cities without official permission, and
Bolsheviks who were insufficiently devoted to the cause. The purges, which led to
the deaths of tens of thousands of party members, were premised on the idea of
a conspiracy that threatened the survival of the regime.13 Fear of enemies within
took on an ethnic cast during World War II, as Stalin ordered the forcible transfer
of entire groups from their homelands into internal exile.
A final, decisive point would consider how the Cold War added a geopolit-
ical overlay to fears of conspiracy.14 Long-standing insecurities based on histor-
ical experience were now given concrete form in a military alliance of capitalist
democracies, an arms race, and a global effort to destroy communist movements
wherever they emerged.15 The regime carried out bouts of internal repression
against accused fifth columns of disloyal citizens acting on behalf of the West.
For example, starting in 1952, Stalin claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy of
(mostly Jewish) doctors to kill members of the Soviet establishment.16
As the regime matured, and even as it eschewed outright violence, ordinary
Soviet citizens could be forgiven for believing that their leaders acted as a se-
cretive group to benefit themselves at the expense of the common good. This
is because that was largely true. As early as the 1960s, well-connected political
officials—the nomenklatura—had separated themselves from the rest of society.
Members of this clique managed the country’s economic assets and secured
privileges thanks to their proximity to power and connections with other
members of the elite. Ordinary citizens were aware of this hierarchy but were
powerless to challenge it. Politics was opaque, leaving people to rely on rumors
and speculation to make sense of how their country was ruled. As Churchill is
said to have quipped, “Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog
fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the
bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won.”17
Alternatives to the Rhetoric of Conspiracy
What does this litany of insecurity, victimization, trauma, and secrecy portend
for political rhetoric? One might be left with the impression that leaders steeped
in the rudiments of conspiracy would channel a conspiratorial interpretation of
the world, both in the Soviet era and after. Yet leaders do not merely echo what
they assume people believe, or even articulate what they themselves believe. And
they might prefer not to base their claim to rule entirely on defending against real
or contrived threats. Despite Machiavelli’s famous quip, even dictators want to
be loved.18
Modern autocracies, it has been argued, eschew both repression and compre-
hensive ideology in favor of “surgical interventions” that aim to convince citi-
zens of their competence at governing.19 They strategically control the media,20
use targeted and moderate amounts of coercion, perform the rudiments of de-
mocracy, and publicly emphasize their economic success.21 Most critically, even
autocracies subject themselves to ordinary performance criteria by working to
deliver—and convincing people that they are providing—what most citizens
want: stability, prosperity, and national pride.
If we continue the metaphor of countries as people, and if we consider
conspiracism to be like an illness (flawed as the metaphor is), a person may have
a genetic predisposition but never manifest the disease. Whether the patient
exhibits symptoms will depend on a variety of environmental factors, partly

under and partly outside a person’s control. If the history of a country involves
traumatic memories, politicians can draw on them when it is convenient. They
may use that material to construct conspiracy claims. Or they may prefer other,
more conventional ways to endear themselves to the public. Their rhetorical
choices will reflect the weight of history, to some extent, and a great amount of
volition.
The Soviet Union showed that conspiratorial and non-conspiratorial rhetor-
ical modes could coexist. Even Stalin sought to establish legitimacy based on sci-
entific progress and the superiority of communism over capitalism as a way to
achieve a better way of life. Hollow as this rhetoric might have sounded, it was
nonetheless intended to cultivate loyalty to the system. It appealed to its listeners’
mundane desires for material betterment.22 Rivalry with the West and material
progress competed with but also complemented defensiveness against implac-
able enemies as the Soviet regime’s primary justifications for ruling.
The general secretaries who followed Stalin were known for their focus
on domestic normalcy rather than fiery rhetoric. Khrushchev emphasized
improvements in people’s material lives. He expressed histrionic hostility toward
the West—“we will bury you” and shoe-banging at the United Nations General
Assembly—but also demonstrated a willingness to work with its leaders to re-
duce tensions.23 Domestically, the KGB was reined in as the state targeted open
dissenters but did not seek to conjure enemies into existence.24
Brezhnev’s tenure, even more than Khrushchev’s, was marked by ideological
moderation and efforts to avoid international confrontation.25 Brezhnev’s rhet-
oric was long on output targets and ideological platitudes, with an emphasis
on stability and continuity as the marker of success. Domestic propaganda
touted the merits of the Soviet system by drawing contrasts with the West: so-
cial harmony at home versus racial tensions in the United States; equality and
opportunity in the Soviet Union versus inequality and exploitation in capitalist
countries.26
In light of preceding factors, it would be natural for Russians living through
the social, political, and economic turmoil of the 1990s to favor leaders who
embraced conspiracy as an all-encompassing explanation for their miseries.
As later chapters will show, Communists and nationalists in Russia advanced
just such a theory, seeing the Soviet collapse as an illegitimate coup perpetrated
by the enemies of Russia.27 A sizable minority of Russians accepted this inter-
pretation and voted for parties that promoted it.28 But national leaders such as
President Boris Yeltsin, seeking to appeal to the entire public, preferred non-
conspiratorial appeals. In a head-to-head contest between Yeltsin and rampant
conspiracist Gennady Zyuganov in 1996, Yeltsin prevailed.
If there is any political figure that appears to embody conspiracism, it is Russia’s

president (as of 2021) Vladimir Putin. After serving in the KGB in East Germany
and then rapidly rising from obscurity to national prominence, his background
and trajectory exude intrigue. His KGB training may have also imparted a para-
noid worldview that would persist even into the presidency—once a spy, always a
spy. This persona is reflected in the titles of books about him: The Man without a
Face; The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep; and Operative in the Kremlin.29 Yet,
against this interpretation, Putin’s major claim to rule was rebuilding the Russian
state and reviving the economy. He fashioned himself as competent, serious, and
virile, in contrast to the ailing, overweight, and often drunk Yeltsin. This por-
trayal was visibly embodied in the notorious images of Putin shirtless on a horse,
hang-gliding, and tranquilizing tigers—an assertion of “politicized masculinity,”
but not neurotic or paranoid.30 The greatest predictor of regime support for most
of the Putin era was the strength of the economy, which was linked to the price
of oil.31
If Putin sought to represent himself first and foremost as a conspiracist, it
would probably be evident in his annual addresses to the Federal Assembly, a re-
port of his accomplishments over the previous year and his vision for the future,
similar to the State of the Union address in the United States. Which persona
comes out in his speeches: the paranoid spy or the competent state-builder?
To check, I collected Putin’s addresses from 2000 to 2017 (not counting 2008
to 2011, when Dmitry Medvedev was president) and performed а simple word
count comparing terms associated with governance (government, stability,
economy, growth) and those associated with conspiracy (enemy, threat, under-
mine, destabilize, provocation, revolution, plot, fifth column).32
As Table 2.1 makes clear, Putin referred far more often to mundane matters
of governance than to intimations of conspiracy. Whereas there were nearly 600
references to the economy and over 100 to stability, there were fewer than 10
mentions of enemies, plots, undermining, or destabilizing. Provocation and rev-
olution receive somewhat more mentions, but still less than 20. There were 85
references to threats, but most involve abstractions like debt and demographic
decline, or specific but non-conspiratorial mentions of terrorism.
From this analysis, it is clear that Putin does not use one of his major occasions
to address the entire nation to advance conspiracy theories. This does not mean
he scrupulously avoided them, or never twisted the facts. Later we will see that
the Kremlin tasked its many messengers to propagate a large volume of pro-
Kremlin conspiracy narratives. But Putin’s ambivalence about personally deliv-
ering such messages indicates that he did not view the public as clamoring for a
conspiratorial champion—even if he himself may have been a believer—and was
cognizant of the demand for ordinary effective governance.
Table 2.1 Keywords in Putin’s Addresses to the Federal

Assembly
Governance-related Words Number of Mentions
Stability 107
Economy 599
Grow(th) 231
Govern(ment) 294
Conspiracy-related Wordsa
Enemy 7
Threat 85
Plot 9
Provoke/provocation 11
Undermine 8
Destabilize 3
Revolution 17
Fifth columns 0
a I count all forms of the word.
Transitions Interrupted
Instead of looking only at the past to explain present-day conspiracism, we

should also consider the more immediate circumstances that structured the
choices made by the region’s political leaders. After all, even if Eurasian ge-
ography and Soviet Communism did not implant a conspiratorial gene, the
new sources of insecurity facing the successor states after the Soviet breakup
could have provoked similar responses. Upon gaining independence, new
leaders had to construct political authority and legitimacy under difficult
conditions. In particular, two sets of challenges with potentially conspira-
torial overtones preoccupied the region’s new leaders: political control
and sovereignty.33 The former involved internal struggles for power; the
latter, consolidation of order and defense against cross- border threats.
Understanding how these challenges were addressed and interpreted is rele-
vant for future chapters.
Political Control
Power struggles at the top mattered for two reasons. First, they motivated
contenders to use incendiary rhetoric in an effort to diminish their rivals’ public
support. Second, they contributed to perceptions by the public that politicians
were corrupt, self-serving, and capable of committing nefarious deeds in pursuit
of more power.
While some amount of political intrigue was present in every post-Soviet state,
it was more visible and frequent in some places than others. In hybrid regimes,
there is typically a true opposition, some independent media, and elections in
which incumbents are forced to compete. Institutionalized competition means
political jousting often becomes public spectacle, whether the jousters like it or
not. Political contenders level charges at their opponents, and scandals—in es-
sence, visible intrigue—are covered in the media for all to see. By contrast, au-
thoritarian systems lack competitive elections and independent media. Politics
may be just as cutthroat behind the scenes and corruption may be pervasive, but
compromising news rarely spills out to the public.
Aside from the Baltic states, which followed a steady trajectory toward de-
mocracy and joined the European Union, the Soviet successor states fall into a
range of hybrid to fully authoritarian regimes. When it comes to explaining con-
spiracy claims in politics, the quality of elections and the independence of the
media are important indicators of competitiveness. Table 2.2 shows the average
levels of both assessments, along with the aggregate score for democracy from
1995 to 2014, according to the Varieties of Democracy Project. Higher numbers
correspond to greater pluralism and democracy, with 100 as the highest possible
score.34
Countries sort into four groups: those with consistently unfree elections and
media (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan),
those with higher middling scores (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia), those with
lower middling scores (Armenia and Kyrgyzstan), and Russia, which under-
went a major deterioration on all counts in the second decade, moving from the
middle of the pack to near the bottom.
One result of the sudden demise of the Soviet Communist Party and the ide-
ological system it maintained was that powerful individuals, and not parties,
became the focal point of politics. The struggle for political supremacy in most
states was personified in the form of a few dominant figures, whose outsize prom-
inence made them easy targets for people to project their fears and suspicions. As
presidents strengthened their hold on power over time, some found ways to re-
main beyond constitutionally prescribed limits, often with popular support. By
the year 2000, citizens of most post-Soviet states had known only one president.
In some places, the president’s portrait hung on the walls of every government
Table 2.2 Regime Scores for Post-Soviet States, 1995–2014
Elections Media Democracy
Russia, 1995–2004 45 68 26
Russia, 2005–2014 33 44 15
Ukraine 51 74 33
Belarus 29 30 13
Moldova 58 72 43
Georgia 50 76 34
Armenia 39 63 22
Azerbaijan 23 23 8
Kazakhstan 27 41 14
Kyrgyzstan 33 54 19
Uzbekistan 17 6 4
Tajikistan 23 30 8
Turkmenistan 14 3 3
office. The president and his coterie of officials, including relatives, were, for all
intents and purposes, seen by post-Soviet citizens as synonymous with the state.
Turkmenistan’s president Niyazov took Louis XIV’s proclamation, “I am the
state,” to its logical conclusion by naming himself Turkmenbashi, or father of the
Turkmen.
Russian politics in the 1990s saw the emergence of a strong personality in
President Boris Yeltsin, but he did not centralize power as some of the region’s
autocrats did. As a result, he was surrounded by a number of actors competing
for influence in the Kremlin, and sometimes on the streets: wealthy businessmen
(“oligarchs”), ideological factions, rogue intelligence agents, organized criminals,
and local political machines. Democracy was supposed to tame competing polit-
ical forces and lead to stability. If anything, however, the visible intrigue of transi-
tion, in contrast to the opacity of the Soviet regime, fostered cynicism toward the
entire political class.35
Under Putin, the space for competition closed. Putin brought down the
hammer on disloyal oligarchs and established state control over the media. He
created a new party, marginalized the opposition, and centralized power in
Moscow. These moves enabled Putin to consolidate political control under for-
mally democratic conditions even as political freedoms were eroded. He was
aided in these efforts by political technologists, who “see themselves as puppet

masters, scene-setters, political programmers.”36 They promoted an image of
Putin as a national leader who would single-handedly rebuild the Russian state.
Just beneath the surface of the powerful head of state, competition for power
in most post-Soviet states revolved around personal and factional networks.
The president’s clique could work as a shorthand, such as the Yeltsin “family,”
the Aliev “clan” of Azerbaijan, or the Dnipropetrovsk “mafia” in Ukraine. These
labels were not meant to be taken literally, but were useful to describe powerful
political networks whose members would assist one another in pursuit of ever
greater power and riches, with no concern for the victims left in their wake.37 The
purported actions of networks were the basis of political speculation and pro-
vided fodder for politicians to construct conspiracy theories about their rivals.
Sovereignty
Threats to sovereignty were the other main preoccupation of regimes. In Russia,

movements for greater autonomy in Chechnya and other ethnic republics threat-
ened to break up Russia in a manner similar to the demise of the Soviet Union.
Moscow was able to offer sufficient concessions to keep most territories within
the Russian fold, but spillover from the Chechen wars led to violence against
Russian civilians. The fact that the threat came from within the country, and
from actors using unconventional tactics like kidnapping and suicide bombings,
caused tremendous public anxiety and challenged the government to respond
decisively.
Some states— Moldova, Tajikistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia—
fought civil or international wars in their early years of independence, delaying
their consolidation of statehood. Even when these conflicts ostensibly ended,
they remained “frozen,” with territories that sought to break away neither
reunited with the parent state nor independent. Russia politically and militarily
supported factions in the wars in Georgia, Tajikistan, and Moldova to ensure that
its interests were secured.
Even where there was domestic order, the interconnected nature of Soviet
institutions made a clean break from Moscow impossible. For example, oil
pipelines and rail networks extending across republics made economies inter-
dependent and costly to separate. Branches of the army and the KGB in newly
independent states were led by cadres with strong ties to Russia, including many
ethnic Russian personnel. Informal relationships across new borders persisted
among security officials, businessmen, and politicians who had worked together
or had attended the same schools, and Russian continued to be the region’s lingua
franca. The combination of weak institutions, informality, and personalism that
pervaded the new countries’ political systems made them vulnerable to influence
from Russia or other external actors—at least, it could easily be imagined as such.
Another threat to sovereignty—real or imagined—involved the exercise
of political influence through local proxies. Yeltsin and his team of advisors
bought into prevailing ideas about how to transition to a market economy
and worked closely with Western economists to implement reforms.38 Yeltsin
spoke positively of the West and enjoyed a public friendship with US presi-
dent Bill Clinton. Russian nationalist critics saw Western influence over their
leaders as an immediate threat to Russian sovereignty, but believed that foreign
initiatives to change society from below through nongovernmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) could have an even more pernicious impact. The United States
provided $11 billion from 1992 to 2005 on programs to promote democracy
in the region.39 Local NGOs were instrumental in challenging election fraud,
organizing protests, and ultimately overthrowing (Russia-friendly) autocrats.
The intentions of the donor countries and the extent of their involvement in
these events were open to interpretation. Many Russians expressed suspicion
over the (real or imagined) influence of Washington and Brussels, just as states
on Russia’s periphery had to contend with the (real or imagined) machinations
being hatched in Moscow.
Critical Events
There are specific moments when the preoccupations of political control and
sovereignty, which are usually the source of low-level anxiety and speculation,
are thrust dramatically to the fore. The impetus may be an event that is so rare
or unexpected that it calls into question people’s understanding of the status quo
and invites speculation about its causes.40 Or it may be a crystallizing moment,
like an election, in which people are prompted to think anew about their polit-
ical leadership. In the United States, seminal moments such as the assassination
of President Kennedy, the 9/11 attacks, and the elections of Barack Obama and
Donald Trump have been the objects of popular conspiracy theories for similar
reasons.
I selected 42 events to guide the collection of post-Soviet conspiracy claims.
They were chosen because they are prominent, unexpected, and/or shocking,
and are associated with processes of political control or sovereignty. It should be
noted that the mere occurrence of a particular event does not guarantee a con-
spiratorial interpretation, and I did not know in advance how many conspiracy
claims I would find. To lay the groundwork for later chapters, I briefly sketch
the political context surrounding what I term “critical” events, noted in italics.
While this narrative involves simplifications, by showing how the events relate
to ongoing preoccupations, I hope to establish why they may lend themselves to

conspiratorial interpretations.
Russia
The abrupt dissolution of the Soviet Union and the resulting economic collapse
led to the impoverishment of many Russians and a general sense of instability.
The first Chechen war and Yeltsin’s poor health reinforced the sense that Russia’s
attempt at democracy was a failure. The Communist Party experienced a surge
in popularity and its candidate was headed for a victory in the 1996 presidential
election but was beaten back by Yeltsin’s aggressive propaganda campaign, large
amounts of money, and American assistance.
In Yeltsin’s second term, the price of oil fell and tax collection was not suffi-
cient to balance the budget. The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis spread to Russia and
revealed the underlying weakness of its economy. Yeltsin, under pressure from
opponents of reform, fired his entire cabinet in March 1998. But that did not halt
the pressure on the ruble, and Russia defaulted on its debts in August 1998, wiping
out the life savings of many people in the process. Yeltsin flailed politically and
cycled through several prime ministers, until he was forced to appoint Yevgeny
Primakov, a figure from the old guard, signaling a halt to economic reforms.41 As
Yeltsin declined physically and lost political support, he increasingly came to rely
on his bodyguard, his daughter, her family, and other trusted associates. After
extended backroom maneuvering, Yeltsin decided to promote the director of the
security services (the FSB), Vladimir Putin, as prime minister.
One effect of Russia’s tumultuous transition was a decline in its international
stature. When Gorbachev withdrew Soviet troops from Eastern Europe, he
believed there would be no effort to expand NATO, a military alliance created
to contain Soviet power.42 Yet over Russian objections, NATO was enlarged to
encompass former Warsaw Pact members at summits in Madrid in 1997 and
Washington in 1999, and then the Baltic states in Prague in 2002.
A major flashpoint between the West and Russia was the war in Yugoslavia.
Russia was shut out of the Dayton Accords of 1995, even as its ally Serbia was
forced to give up territory it had seized following an assault against Muslims
and Croats in Bosnia. Divergent geopolitical interests became more palpable
during the Kosovo Crisis, which began in 1998 when Serbian president Slobodan
Milosevic launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovar Albanians.
In response, and over Russian objections, NATO launched a bombing cam-
paign from April to June 1999. At its conclusion, Russian troops tried to cap-
ture the Pristina Airport, but were dissuaded at the last moment by a phone call
from Clinton to Yeltsin.43 Serbia’s bulldozer revolution of 2000, which overthrew
Milosevic, was a harbinger of later mass protests in the post-Soviet region, and
was perceived as a setback for Russian interests.
The Chechen rebellion was a near-constant hindrance to Russia’s state-
building efforts from the time of the Soviet collapse. The first war (1994–1996)
represented a devastating blow to the Russian army, which was overmatched
by Chechen fighters using urban guerrilla warfare tactics. One of Russia’s few
successes was the assassination of Chechen leader Zhokar Dudayev in April
1996, but the peace agreement that followed was a face-saving way to withdraw
Russian troops from an unpopular conflict and did not resolve the underlying
problems. In 1999, kidnappings, hostage takings, and a series of bombings of
apartment buildings took place, focusing attention on the unresolved violence in
Chechnya. Unexpectedly, on September 22, 1999, several men caught planting a
bag of explosives in front of a building in Ryazan were revealed to be FSB agents.
Detained by the local police, they claimed they were taking part in a training
exercise, an explanation widely met with derision. The incident carried many
hallmarks of conspiracy: a traumatic event, a surprising discovery, and a ques-
tionable official explanation. A cottage industry to sift through the evidence and
identify the culprits later developed.44
Putin gained support from his role in launching the second Chechen war and
became president after Yeltsin’s unexpected resignation on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Putin parlayed military success into a landslide victory in the 2000 presidential
election. Yet he immediately faced numerous challenges stemming from a decade
of decay and stagnation, including the sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine in
August.
Even as Russia under Putin achieved gains in the second Chechen war,
partly through extreme levels of brutality, the conflict could not easily be
contained. When Chechen militants took hundreds of theater goers hostage in
Moscow in October 2002 and special forces troops released poison gas that
resulted in at least 170 deaths, events that had previously seemed remote were
now a threat in Russia’s capital. The 2004 attack on a primary school in the
North Caucasus town of Beslan led to the deaths of 334 children аt a time when
the second Chechen war appeared to have been won. Subsequently, Putin
used the events to make the most dramatic power grab of his presidency.
Meanwhile, a struggle for power continued in Chechnya, as the Moscow-
appointed president Ahmed Kadyrov was assassinated in May 2004, to be
replaced by his son Ramzan.
One of Putin’s major early political initiatives was to bring the oligarchs under
control. To this end, he wrested ownership of two private television stations from
prominent oligarchs and placed them under state control. More dramatic was
the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the CEO of the largest private oil company
in Russia, who had refused to subordinate his political interests to the Kremlin.
Putin benefited from a rise in the price of oil and reforms undertaken after
Russia’s 1998 default. He undertook further reforms including, in January 2005,
a proposed replacement of Soviet-era transportation and energy subsidies with
cash payments. This initiative produced a vehement backlash in which tens of
thousands of people joined protests in over a dozen cities.
As the end of his second and constitutionally mandated final term approached
in 2008, Putin and his prime minister Medvedev engineered an arrangement
to exchange jobs, sometimes referred to as the tandem agreement. By sidestep-
ping legal requirements, Putin was able to run for president again at the end of
Medvedev’s term. However, the Bolotnaya protests that broke out after possibly
fraudulent parliamentary elections in December 2011 showed that society could
still fight back. In the end, Putin was re-elected in March 2012.
Near Abroad
It was not only Russia that had to simultaneously cope with border changes, na-
tional identity struggles, political reconfiguration, and economic calamity: as
the other republics were thrust into independence, new leaders also struggled to
bring about order. They typically engaged in massive levels of corruption, which
prevented improvements in state capacity, quality of life, and public confidence
in governing institutions.
It was a backlash against venal politicians and rotting institutions that led to
Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003, the first of the “color revolutions” in the re-
gion. It was followed in 2004 by Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, which was impelled
by both frustration at corruption and regional divisions. A third episode of re-
gime change was the 2005 Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan. In an atmosphere of
euphoria that seemed to favor protesting groups against authoritarian leaders,
copycat revolutions were attempted—but failed—following fraudulent elections
in Azerbaijan (2005), Belarus (2006), and Moldova (2009). One anti-regime pro-
test did succeed in 2010 in Kyrgyzstan—again.
Political violence occurred in Central Asia but, with the exception of the Tajik
Civil War (1992–1997), it was relatively small-scale and sporadic. Uzbekistan
dealt intermittently with violent Islamist opposition, and Uzbekistan’s president
was nearly assassinated in a car bomb in 1999. Other episodes of violence were
related to anti-regime protests. In Uzbekistan in May 2005, one month after
Kyrgyzstan’s revolution, the government faced peaceful mass protests in the city
of Andijan. The army responded by shooting at the crowds, killing up to 1,000
people. In Kyrgyzstan there was a breakdown of order after the 2010 overthrow of
the president. Tensions between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz escalated into ethnic clashes
in which hundreds were killed.
Geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the United States, after

simmering for a long time, broke out into the open in 2008. Kosovo’s declaration
of independence and a statement at the 2008 NATO summit that Georgia and
Ukraine would one day join the alliance raised tensions. Over the summer, hos-
tilities escalated in the Russian-backed region of South Ossetia, culminating in
the five-day Russia-Georgia War.
Geopolitical tensions came to a head in Ukraine in 2014 when Ukrainian pres-
ident Yanukovych rejected an economic agreement with the European Union
under pressure from Russia. Following months of protests and the use of live fire
against demonstrators, President Yanukovych fled the country and Russian troops
captured the pro-Russian region of Crimea. The unexpected Russian response
represented a culmination of the accumulating animosity toward the West and a
decision to embrace aggressive nationalism.
Conclusion
Russia and other post-Soviet states have suffered more than their share of his-
torical traumas. Yet this chapter has argued that while historical developments
in the region might make people susceptible to conspiracy theories, psycho-
logical explanations are inadequate to explain the rhetoric or behavior of elites.
Such a perspective tends to over-predict the prevalence of conspiracy in poli-
tics, and neglects the menu of options that leaders have to shape public and elite
opinion.
In the post-Soviet region, leaders sought to legitimate themselves, at least in
part, through criteria typical of democracies and modern autocracies alike: pro-
ducing results. However, earnest efforts at good governance, such as there were,
were complicated by internal power struggles and challenges to sovereignty. In
more open regimes, damaging or embarrassing news spilled out to the public at
higher rates than in more authoritarian ones, making it difficult for leaders to
broadcast a unified message painting the leadership in a positive light. In weak
states, the threat of outside penetration was a frequent preoccupation of leaders
who were also involved in domestic power struggles. To succeed, leaders worked
to shape public perceptions of these immediate challenges in favorable ways.
I recounted the circumstances of 42 events that embodied the preoccupations
of political control and sovereignty. Because they were unusual, suspicious, or
politically salient, they are the types of events that have been associated with
conspiracy beliefs in other contexts. By examining how regimes reacted to these
events, we can ascertain the circumstances that might have motivated them to
promote conspiracy claims. Identifying these factors and showing how they
work is the agenda for the next four chapters.
3
The Lay of the Land
What 20 Years of Post-Soviet Conspiracy Claims Tell Us
In one of the most significant events in Russia over the last 30 years, in 1999,
militants from the North Caucasus planted bombs next to apartment buildings
in several cities in Russia. Or maybe the Russian security services (FSB) planted
the explosives to create a pretext for staging a new invasion of Chechnya and to
boost the approval ratings of the erstwhile little-known Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin. Or perhaps the militants bombed some of buildings and then the FSB took
over for the last attempted explosion, in the city of Ryazan.
These questions remain unanswered, but that tumultuous and contentious pe-
riod shaped the course of Russian history. It also marked the end of an era of con-
spiracy claims. Under Yeltsin, conspiracy-touting politicians and pundits who
lamented his role in the Soviet collapse focused their attacks “up” at the reformist
and pro-West government. When Putin became president, it became more fash-
ionable to aim conspiracy accusations “down” at government opponents of var-
ious stripes. The claim that the security services stood behind the attacks receded
in prominence, and voters overwhelmingly signaled that they, at least, did not
hold Putin responsible.1
The dueling claims around the Ryazan incident also illustrate how conspiracy
claims both capture reality and move one step beyond it. Both the official and
conspiratorial versions identify a perpetrator but lack concrete and credible ev-
idence. The ultimate goal of carrying out mass violence was the same in both
accounts—to attain power—but the details of the two stories differ in critical
ways. In the official version, the attack was described as revenge for Russian
incursions in the North Caucasus.2 In the conspiracy theory, the bombing was
intended to frighten the public so that it would back the FSB’s preferred presi-
dential candidate as he presided over a war to pacify the territory that produced
the militants. In confusing and often contradictory instances like this, where re-
liable evidence is unattainable, conspiracy claims compete on a level playing field
with official stories by taking what is known and substituting a new protagonist
with a corresponding self-serving motive.
Whereas the last chapter described the struggles that leaders faced in building
political systems, sometimes virtually from scratch, this chapter uses the data-
base of conspiracy claims to provide a glimpse into how those challenges were
The Lay of the Land 45
interpreted. These claims tell a story—actually, several—about politics, but re-

volve around two related questions: Who is doing what to whom and what do the
perpetrators hope to accomplish? Like narratives about the Ryazan event, they
connect an immediate action to a larger purpose. Far from reflecting “unreality”3
or “magical thinking,”4 they emerge from quotidian political realities, but in a
milieu pervaded by intrigue, insecurity, and uncertainty.
This chapter explores the database of conspiracy claims in order to lay the
groundwork for the analysis in future chapters. I begin by describing how the da-
tabase was created and presenting an overview of its contents. To give a sense of
the stories the claims tell, I home in on three narrative elements of conspiracy—
goals, actions, and logics—and provide examples. Finally, I break down the da-
tabase according to combinations of accusers and perpetrators, returning to the
persistent question of kto kogo.
Collecting Claims
To create a database of conspiracy claims, I relied on a selection of post-Soviet

media sources, which vary in regional focus, duration of coverage, ownership,
and political and ideological bias. Most of the sources are newspapers, and most
of those are from Russia, so the proportion of Russian conspiracy claims in the
database is likely higher than in reality.5 To ensure more representative cov-
erage, I included two newspapers from Ukraine and one each from the Caucasus
(Azerbaijan) and Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan). To supplement this sample, I also
conducted searches in BBC Monitoring, which collects and translates news
items from local-language newspapers, television, and websites from across the
entire region.
Conspiracy claims were collected one week before and one week after the 42
critical events outlined in Chapter 2 on any theme, not only those relating to the
event in question. Sampling in 15-day windows served two purposes: to ascer-
tain what types of events are associated with conspiracy claims, and to capture
what else is going on during those 42 two-week periods. Claims that refer to the
critical event in that window are coded as “event-related,” and ones that deal with
other themes as “incidental.” To hedge against the possibility that these periods
might be unusually eventful and therefore unrepresentative, I also collected con-
spiracy theories on 100 randomly selected days that fall outside the 42 periods,
which I refer to as “random.” On the 730 days sampled, 1,538 conspiracy theories
were identified.6
This database offers several advantages. First, it covers not only Russia,
but all post-Soviet states except the Baltics. Although Russia is important,
the conclusions one can draw from a single country are limited. By including
neighboring countries with similar historical experiences and contemporary

challenges, we can discern what is typical or unusual, and investigate how ideas
travel throughout the region.
Second, the database includes every conspiracy claim within the scope of the
search that involves the region in some way. If the goal were to identify the claims
most likely to be believed, it might make sense to include only the most prom-
inent and sensational ones. But a better way to gain insight into the motivation
of regimes is to cast the net widely to take in the whole array of claims being
asserted, which provides snapshots of the public discourse at various points
in time.7
The Conspiratorial Landscape
Where would someone seeking to become involved in a conspiracy place their

bets? Figure 3.1 shows that purported conspiracies are most likely to occur in
Russia, slightly edging out Ukraine. After a wide gap, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, the
disputed territories, and the North Caucasus follow.8 A much smaller number
take place in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the Middle East, Poland, and other parts
of Europe. Ukraine’s close-second position may be surprising given Russia’s cen-
trality in the region. But we should distinguish where alleged conspiracies take
place from where conspiracy claims originate.
Figure 3.2 indicates why this distinction matters. It shows the location of
the accusers—actors who make conspiracy claims—and notes whether the
claims are event-related or incidental. It turns out that the numbers are more
lopsided: Russian accusers make about 45% of the all claims in the database,
followed by Ukrainians with only 13%. The reason for the discrepancy between
Figures 3.1 and 3.2 is that conspiracy claims cross national borders: In most
instances when Russians make allegations, they are not about Russia, and about
half of the conspiracies that purportedly take place in Ukraine are not claimed by
Ukrainians. Similarly, about 43% of claims about happenings in Georgia are not
made by Georgians, and 56% of conspiracy claims about the disputed territories
are lobbed from other places. In every instance, the majority of claims made by a
foreign country originate in Russia.
To adjust for the fact that sampling on critical events will lead to a preponder-
ance of claims about those events, we can separately examine claims collected
incidentally during the same periods. The results do not change much. Of those
claims, Russians are still the most frequent accusers by a wide margin.
Who did it? Figure 3.3 shows the national origins of perpetrators—those pur-
portedly behind a conspiracy—who appear in the database at least 10 times.
Russia, the origin of a plurality of conspiracy claims, is also the most common
300
Conspiracy claims
200
100
0
Rus
Ukr
Geo
Kyr
Disputed
N.cau
Bel
Az
Mol
Uz
Arm
Yug
Kaz
US
CenAsia
Europe
FSU
Mideast
Taj
Other
Turkmen
Balt
Pol
Global
Location
Figure 3.1 Where conspiracies occur.
home of perpetrators. However, if the United States and the “West” are com-
bined, as they are often are, together they narrowly exceed Russia. Ukrainians
are the next most frequent perpetrators. Interestingly, the sixth highest count
of perpetrators is unnamed. These are cases in which “someone” or “powerful
forces” are cited but not assigned a country of origin, or the plot is described in
the passive voice with no reference to an actor. Perpetrators are rarely found in
the Caucasus (besides Georgia) or Central Asia (besides Kyrgyzstan). There is a
“long tail” of niche perpetrators who appear in some countries’ claims because
600
400
Conspiracy claims
200
0
Rus
Ukr
Geo
Kyr
Bel
Az
Disputed
N.cauc
Arm
Uz
Kaz
Mol
Taj
Turkmen
Location
Event-related Incidental
Figure 3.2 Where conspiracy claims originate.

400
300
Conspiracy claims
200
100
0
Rus
US
West
Ukr
Geo
Unnamed
Kyr
Az
N.Cau
Bel
Europe
Arm
Mol
Disputed
Nonstate
UK
Kaz
Mideast
Uz
Taj
Romania
Location
Figure 3.3 Where is the perpetrator?
they relate to local preoccupations, such as Romania for Moldova. (Countries in

the Middle East and various nonstate actors also earned more than 10 mentions,
but those categories combine multiple countries.)
Another way to look at accusers and perpetrators is not by nationality but
by type. Who claims the authority to posit a conspiracy? Because the database
comes from official media sources rather than “man on the street” interviews,
the accusers tend to be on the side of incumbent regimes. Presidents and other
prominent figures always have a platform, but whether opposition leaders and
investigative reporters, for example, get quoted in the media depends on the
300
200
Conspiracy claims
100
0
Expert
Pres
Activist
Editorial
Exec
Other pol
Mil/spy
Legis
Unnamed
Ordinary
Other
Militant
Cul/rel
Oligarch
Gongo
Ex-pres
NA
Accuser
Figure 3.4 Who is the accuser?
source and the level of media freedom. Figure 3.4 shows that the largest category
of accusers is journalists—specifically, opinion columnists or unnamed editors—
most of whom write for ideological and agenda-driven Russian newspapers.
Government officials and independent or unaffiliated politicians are represented
in roughly equal measure. Intelligence or military officials, intellectuals or
scholars, and legislators9 comprise the next tier. Presidents are in only seventh
place, perhaps surprising in a region full of autocrats who claim to speak for the
nation—and whom state-run media quote as authoritative.
600
400
Conspiracy claims
200
0
Pres
Foreign gov
Other gov
Subversive5th
Unnamed
Mil/spy
Militant
Collusive5th
Other foreign
Ethnic5th
Media
INGOs
Ex-pres
Company
Oligarch
Polit/party
Perpetrator
Figure 3.5 Who is the perpetrator?
Finally, Figure 3.5 plots the perpetrators by type. About one-third are for-
eign governments. As shown earlier, many but not all of these foreigners are in
the West. Official actors, including the security services and the president, gain
relatively few mentions—again, looming surprisingly small given their promi-
nence as potential conspiracists—whereas other members of the government (or
simply, “the government”) are the second most frequent perpetrators. Another
set of villains includes nongovernment (including opposition) politicians or
parties, unnamed actors, and militants. Claims about fifth columns—disloyal
domestic actors supported by hostile external powers—appear with some regu-
larity.10 The most common type are what I term “subversive” fifth columns: oppo-
sition members receiving external support. Second most frequent are “collusive”
fifth columns: regime actors with reputed foreign backing. The least common
is “ethnic” fifth columns, in which representatives of an ethnic group are said
to receive sponsorship from an outside (usually neighboring) state against the
interests of the state in which the group resides. The so-called oligarchs are a
mere 3% of perpetrators, an insignificant figure given their infamy in Russian
narratives about the tumultuous 1990s. Companies and international financiers
comprise negligible proportions of the plotters, a figure at odds with long-
standing popular suspicion of capitalists and bankers.
Anatomy of a Conspiracy
When people make conspiracy claims, they are narrating the political world.
Narratives are stories with a moral element, involving the transgression of norms
and possible restitution.11 Just as stories have plots, conspiracy narratives allege
plots: schemes to gain advantage in devious or manipulative ways. They depict cer-
tain actors—individuals, groups, or nations—as victims, but the main focus is on the
villains, who are often the claimant’s main antagonists in real life. Conspiracy theo-
ries can therefore be seen narrowly as stories about the villain’s means and ends: what
they seek (goals), how they try to achieve it (actions), and why they are acting in the
first place (logics).12 By analyzing these elements, we can gain broader insight into
how claimants counterpose what is “ordinary and right” from “the unusual and the
exceptional,”13 and thereby infer what they seek to communicate to their audiences.
Goals
The most notorious conspiracy theories envision global and transhistorical plots.
Groups such as the Illuminati and the Freemasons are often implicated and are
somehow believed to persist in their efforts to destabilize societies and dominate
the world across historical eras.14 At the same time, the explanations people en-
counter to make sense of their daily lives are often locally rooted.15 Conspirators,
such as they are, may have more modest goals than world domination.
The database reveals only a handful of goals, some of which are highly am-
bitious and others less so. Consistent with the preoccupation with sovereignty
discussed in Chapter 2, one category of conspiracy claims involves efforts by
states or nonstate actors to capture territory or exercise unseen influence over the
political leadership. Goals relating to geopolitics involve maneuvering by hostile
states to increase their leverage or weaken their political rivals. Goals relating
to instability entail a desire to harm a society or impair a government’s ability
to manage it. A related goal involves efforts by the conspirator to increase his or
her power. Of course, every claim is ultimately about power, but some conspir-
atorial machinations involve actors seeking power as an end in itself: achieving
dominance over a specific adversary, maintaining one’s position after a threat or
setback, or simple self-aggrandizement.
Actions
When actors supposedly conspire, what are they doing? What is their transgres-
sion, and why should the listener be moved to condemn it?16 Reading through
purported conspiracies reveals a limited set of actions, but they are widely varied.
Two dimensions best capture this variation: whether the action is observable
or simply asserted, and whether it is coercive or merely devious. Table 3.1 lays
out conspiratorial actions by their visibility and form, with typical examples of
victims, accusers, and narratives.
One type of observable and coercive action is unattributed violence, in which
the perpetrator deliberately injures people or damages property. It can include
attacks against individuals: terrorism, kidnapping, assassination, or other
physical violence. Or it can involve coercion wielded against the nation as a
whole, such as the initiation of armed conflict or smaller-scale attacks against
institutions of the state: a public building, an army base, police officers on patrol.
The result is observable, prompting the question of who is responsible. The con-
spiracy claim provides the answer.
One popular conspiratorial trope along these lines is a false flag attack—the
claim that the perpetrator carried out violence as a pretext to implicate someone
else. A prominent example is the theory described at the beginning of this
Table 3.1 Conspiratorial Actions
Coercive/ Yes No
Observable?
Yes Violence* Setup

Powerful individuals/innocent Authorities
civilians/mass public
MP or minister who has been
Security services blame an armed accused of corruption claims he
attack on regime opponents; was framed.
polemicist accuses government of
Metaphorical violence
false flag attack.
Public/nation/state
The West wants to destroy
Russia.
No Spectacle Abuse of power
Authorities Institutions/individuals
President facing electoral protests Oligarchs accuse government
claims they are instigated by a of subverting legal processes to
wealthy rival. investigate their activities.
Information operations Collusion
Public Public
Opposition accuses government Russian Communists claim
officials of hiding malfeasance by Yeltsin is a puppet of the IMF.
spreading disinformation.
*The first line below each action indicates the purported victim. The following line, set in italics,
describes a typical accuser and claim.
chapter, that the Russian security services set off bombs to boost then prime
minister Putin’s political fortunes.
A second type of observable, but non-coercive, action is public spectacles
involving mass street activities, such as protests, riots, or other “political theater”
intended to gain public attention. In this instance, the fact of mass participation
is not in dispute; the conspiracy lies in the implication that the event is a con-
trivance intended to mislead the public by masquerading as the genuine article.
In other words, someone with the means and the motive is said to have ordered,
manipulated, or paid the participants. Those who accuse Western intelligence
agencies of sponsoring protests to overthrow post-Soviet presidents are alleging
this type of plot.
Whereas the “victim” of a public spectacle in a conspiracy claim is usually
an incumbent leader, other visible and non-coercive actions are purportedly
carried out by powerful actors. For example, politicians with something (alleg-
edly) to hide can engage in information operations such as concealing evidence,
spreading disinformation, brainwashing, diversion, distraction, or rumor-
mongering to throw the public off their trail.
A different form of action associated with conspiracy is not observable but
merely alleged. To believe such a claim is to accept not only allegations about
the perpetrators and their motives, but also that the action occurred in the first
place. Unobservable actions can be coercive, in that the victim suffers physical
or reputational damage; or merely self-serving, such that the perpetrator reaps
some benefit but there are no obvious victims.17
One unobservable conspiratorial action is a setup, which is usually claimed
by those in positions of power. Within the logic of the claim, the victim suffers
reputational harm or potential legal action as a result of the allegation. A setup
can involve framing, in which the perpetrator is claimed to fabricate or plant
evidence to implicate the victim in a crime. It can also involve the use of com-
promising material, or kompromat, whereby the perpetrator wields (real or man-
ufactured) evidence of the victim’s involvement in a scandal or crime in order
to weaken him politically. Oligarch Boris Berezovsky claimed that a New York
Times report about Russian money laundering was a carefully planned and ex-
ecuted provocation against Russia. Why? Because the main target of the prov-
ocation was Al Gore, who was viewed as the pro-Russian candidate in the US
elections.18
Whereas a setup is claimed by the powerful, conspiracy claims involving abuse
of power are typically leveled by the weak. Specific actions can include manip-
ulation (of rules or people), stealing, profiteering, and cheating, including rig-
ging elections. The goal may be to get rich, gain prestige, or increase one’s power
within the system, but there is rarely an identifiable victim. Instead, the implica-
tion is that political institutions are subverted and society as a whole suffers. Such
a claim was made by the Ukrainian opposition before the 2004 presidential elec-
tion. It alleged that disarray at polling places was a case of the “authorities . . . pre-
paring another scenario for declaring the election invalid.”19
In collusion, the perpetrators in a conspiracy claim are politicians working
from within the system who collaborate with powerful outsiders: activities may
involve “pulling puppet strings,” bribery, influence peddling, and other behind-
the-scenes connivances. Because the emphasis is on the nefarious activity of the
powerful, the victim often goes unmentioned. Yet, as with information opera-
tions and abuse of power, it is the public as a whole that reputedly suffers the
consequences. For example, a Russian professor alleged in 1997 that the United
States helped Yeltsin win the election and “keeps destroying Russia through a
‘fifth column.’ ”20
One type of unobserved action that does not fit neatly into other catego-
ries because the claims are often vague and grandiose is metaphorical vio-
lence: machinations, usually by countries, to destroy, dismember, weaken, or
loot another country. Unlike actual violence, metaphorical violence is either a
prediction of what will happen in the future, or a colorful way to describe a past
calamity. This can be considered a conspiracy claim because even though the
specific action is left ambiguous, the claim involves a perpetrator deviously exer-
cising power at the expense of the victim. For example, “With the advent of the
‘democrats,’ a well-planned experiment began with the goal of destroying the
country” by corrupting Russia’s morality.21
A final variant of conspiratorial action defies easy categorization but is so per-
vasive that it deserves special attention: provocation.22 As historian Lynn Ellen
Patyk explains, the term originated in tsarist times and was used in relation to po-
lice infiltration of anti-tsarist groups.23 Today the term is used to describe a dis-
ruptive action supposedly intended bring about—to provoke—an overreaction
that could backfire against the actor who was provoked. The plot, as articulated
by its accuser, is underhanded rather than overt, attesting to the base character of
the provocateur. By not responding to the provocation, the claimant/protagonist
demonstrates his magnanimous character through his admirable restraint. But
if the alleged provocation is sufficiently egregious, the claimant has provided a
justification to respond as necessary to punish the provocateur who was, after all,
inviting a response. Either way, the protagonist is vindicated. The provocation
may involve actions such as framing, lying, contriving protests, or targeted acts
of violence, provided they are intended to elicit an overreaction. An illustration
is the Russian deputy foreign minister’s claim that “Georgia used methods of in-
formational diversion by spreading rumors about a new upcoming war in South
Ossetia, which increases the risk of provocations.”24
In practice, conspiracy claims can involve more than one action. Actions
can be simultaneous, as when a claimant accuses a perpetrator of bribing or
threatening one official and attempting to assassinate another. They can also
be sequential, if, for example, the perpetrator committed an illicit action, then
framed someone else for the crime or lied about it publicly.
Logics
Why did the perpetrator do it? In a courtroom, we would typically search for a
motive, such as revenge, jealousy, greed, or temporary insanity. The explanation,
to be satisfying, should be accompanied by evidence that implicates the perpe-
trator: Did the killer keep a diary? Did he make threatening phone calls? Did he
witness a betrayal? Was there a history of violent acts?
Conspiracy claims sometimes present evidence—physical artifacts related to
a crime—but more often rely on various forms of fallacious reasoning. Claimants
in the political arena appeal to public audiences and presumably hope that their
allegations will resonate, either as a statement of fact or as a demonstration of
power. In order to make their claims coherent, if not necessarily persuasive, they
usually present a rationale connecting the actor to the action. The logic of con-
spiracy is a form of causal emplotment, but always with a sinister twist.25
The first question (which is logical to ask, as many conspiracists do) is: Who
benefits? If we were to reverse engineer a conspiracy claim, especially one based
on a visible outcome (an untimely death, an unexpected accident, an anti-
government protest), we can imagine that the suspicious claimant deduced who
benefited from that event, and then worked backward to determine how the ben-
eficiary might have carried out the plot. Yet this would be misleading. Perhaps
curious and truly open-minded conspiracists might undertake such thought
experiments, but in the political arena an implication of cui bono is more often a
pretext to link a disliked foe to a negative outcome—or no outcome at all—than
a genuine, if flawed, search for culpability. Nonetheless, the identification of the
supposed beneficiary may resonate because the malefactor is depicted as unin-
hibited by moral scruples, institutional constraints, or fear of getting caught.
Another logic, when the action is observable, is the suspicious or coincidental
character of an event, such as its timing, place, or signature. For example, if a mis-
fortune befalls a politician shortly before a pivotal election, or if an ambassador
is present during similar anti-government protests in more than one country, the
dots are clearly on the page should an interested person decide to connect them.
A related logical device is to refer to precedent, in which the claimant links a
new, unexplained development to a past event whose attribution is presumably
established, seeing the similarity as indicative of a pattern. For example, if it is
believed that a previous fire was set deliberately by a known actor (say, a political
foe), a subsequent accident with similar characteristics can be logically pinned
on the same culprit. There need be no compelling evidence that the villain stands
to benefit, and the event may not be inherently suspicious. Surface resemblance
to past actions stands on its own as grounds to claim a conspiracy.
Another logic may be less compelling on its face, but in the proper context
may be deemed sufficiently plausible. This is the idea that, based on the way the
world works, some things do not happen by accident. This may be because of who
the victim is (us), the magnitude of the event to be explained (big), or the nature
of the “accident” (unexpected, rare, unlikely).26 When a prominent Georgian
politician who was instrumental in leading the Rose Revolution died of (ap-
parent) carbon monoxide poisoning, it was self-evident to some that there must
have been foul play.27
Other “logics” are less logical, in that they do not involve reasoning per se.
A common conspiratorial rationale is to refer to the spiteful or malign character of
the perpetrator. If the speaker believes his audience is predisposed to dislike the
actor, he can link that target to a visible incident, or simply claim that the actor
was involved in nefarious activity. A motive may be supplied, but if sufficient
groundwork has been laid, the reason for the conspiracy will be self-evident: bad
people do bad things. The United States acted as such a foil for Russia. After a
drumbeat of official propaganda, it did not require much effort to link prominent
Americans, such as Ambassador Michael McFaul, to misfortunes befalling the
Kremlin, however tenuous the actual connection.28
In practice, conspiracy claims can combine several logics. When a suspicious
event occurs, it may be an opportune time to implicate somebody—an enemy
of convenience. If a known malefactor is sufficiently malevolent, he, she, or it
may be an obvious target. And if this actor is believed to have carried out similar
acts in the past (e.g., the CIA in Russia), then the act can be portrayed as another
point in an established pattern.
The preceding examples need not rely on bald assertion. Sometimes claims
involve evidence, such as a paper trail, video, witness, or the apprehension of
someone caught in the act. Usually “evidence” does not stand on its own, but
buttresses arguments premised on the logics spelled out earlier. In any case, evi-
dence is only as credible as the audience’s willingness to accept it, which is liable
to change over time or through sufficient persuasion.
Kto Kogo: Who Accuses Whom?
What messages do conspiracy theories convey? The database reads as the seedy
underside of political developments that can be found in a standard history of
the region. Many of the actors named as perpetrators and victims, and the polit-
ical machinations they are involved in, will be familiar even to casual observers
of the region. The difference from a mainstream account, though, is critical: con-
spiracy is a selective and distorted history whose emphases, fixations, and rhe-
torical flourishes betray certain preoccupations: foreign subversion, unbridled
struggles for power, political violence, and boundless cynicism.
Based on the breakdown of accusers and perpetrators seen in Figures 3.4
and 3.5, the main actors in conspiracy narratives are state actors, elites who are
not in power but seek it, foreign governments, and ordinary people. The arenas
in which people make claims can be broadly sorted into the “palace” and the
“street,” corresponding to actions that allegedly occur behind closed doors or
that are visible to the mass public. Based on who accuses whom, most conspiracy
claims correspond to one of five categories:
• Externally driven plots (government officials and their proxies accuse inter-
national actors);
• Allegations among elites jockeying for advantage (government officials and
contending elites accuse each other);
• Leaders punching down (government officials and their proxies accuse
non-elite rivals);
• Powerless actors punching up (non-elites accuse government officials and
their associates);
• Gray zones (muddled boundaries of state/non-state, domestic/interna-
tional; accusations in any direction).29
External Plots
The most frequent type of claim in the database accuses international actors
of a conspiracy to advance geopolitical goals. The accuser is usually a govern-
ment official, analyst, or journalist working for an ideological publication. The
conspirators supposedly instigate metaphorical violence, collusion, or public
spectacle. When officials from Russia make the accusation, the perpetrator is
usually the United States or the “West,” but is sometimes an international or-
ganization or powerful global figure. When states surrounding Russia make
conspiracy claims, Russia frequently emerges as the perpetrator, sometimes by
working with fifth columns. In all, external plots comprise 41% of the data, and
55% if fifth columns are included. Approximately half of all claims involving ex-
ternal plots emanate from Russia.
A number of claims in Russia in the mid-1990s reflect the Communist-
nationalist belief that the United States deliberately caused the collapse of the
Soviet Union.30 For example, the nationalist tabloid Sovetskaya Rossiya (SR)
alleged that “America and Europe ‘swamped’ Russia and launched an open
genocide of the Russian people.”31 Accusers invoked collusive fifth columns

involving politicians allied with external actors, as seen in the pithy claim that
“a fifth column on the initiative of foreigners depleted fertile Russian land.”32
The idea that the United States was after Russia’s resources was also extended
to the Yugoslav wars: “The USA started the war in Yugoslavia to take over the
natural resources of Kosovo. This area is rich in chrome, which is essential for
military manufacturing in Russia.”33 NATO was often mentioned, sometimes in-
terchangeably with the United States, as the vehicle for the subjugation of Russia,
as in, “NATO puppeteers initiated a counterrevolution and destroyed the USSR,
[and] now they plot against Russia.”34
Other anti-Western claims had no clear connection to current events but in-
stead relitigated history. An SR columnist referenced the so-called Dulles Plan by
way of encouraging votes for Communists: “the CIA/Dulles-plan promoted the
Western lifestyle and seduced the Soviet people, leading to collapse of its moral
values and social institutions.”35 Another columnist proposed an alternative in-
terpretation of the 1968 Prague Spring: “The U.S. manipulated and misled the
USSR, causing its intervention into Czechoslovakia.”36 Yet another claimed that
“Aleksander Solzhenitsyn was supported by the KGB and possibly personally by
its chief Yuri Andropov, who was a mastermind of intrigues against plans of the
Western intelligence services to support and use a ‘fifth column’ in the Soviet
Union.”37
The plot could also be global, masterminded by powerful financial interests
rather than the United States alone. An unnamed journalist claimed “that the
destruction and degradation in the country are carried out by those who are al-
lied with the mafia and act on the direct orders of the International Monetary
Fund and Western intelligence agencies.”38 When Russia defaulted on its debt
in 1998, the president of the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce and “many
financiers” claimed that George Soros had planned an operation to fluctuate the
ruble.39 International Jewish conspiracy theories have a long and sordid pedigree
in Russia. There were not many in the database, yet one academic claimed in
2004 that “there is a Jewish conspiracy to stupefy Russia.”40
Where Russia was not portrayed as the victim of a conspiracy, it was, in the
near abroad, often perceived as the perpetrator. Many claims implicating Russia
originated in Georgia. For example, in 1999, when the two countries maintained
cordial relations despite being on opposing sides of the wars over secession in the
early 1990s, Georgia’s deputy minister of state security said, “Russia is preparing
destabilizing actions to change the Georgian political system.”41 After Georgia’s
Rose Revolution, the new president Mikheil Saakashvili saw a Russian hand be-
hind his domestic opposition, saying, “most of the money, millions of dollars,
comes from Russian oligarchs.”42 Russia was likewise implicated in an attempt
to assassinate the president of Turkmenistan in 2002. According to a presidential
spokesman, “a very high official in the Russian government”43 lay behind it. And
in a man-on-the-street interview in a major Ukrainian newspaper: “Russian
special services staged the aircraft crash near Smolensk killing Polish president
Kaczynski and others on board.”44
A noteworthy aspect of claims of external plots is that they could appear with
no obvious cause. Because the masterminds were located far away, there was no
expectation that the claimant needed to marshal evidence as such. Instead, logics
rested on an assumption that the perpetrator stood to benefit, often in combi-
nation with testimony about its malign character, rendering the motive self-
evident. Also striking is the similarity of the goals, actions, and logics invoked
at different geopolitical scales, whether, for example, Russia accused the West or
Georgia accused Russia. They all read from the same script.
Political Jockeying
The second most common genre of conspiracy claims occurs in or around the
“palace,” when politicians accuse their rivals of seeking advantage by engaging in
setups, abuse of power, or collusion. The accused perpetrators may be in power
or aspire to it, and the claimants may be contenders themselves or partisans
who support a competing faction. Political jockeying represents about 43% of
the data.
In Russia, palace intrigue was prevalent during the Yeltsin years and accel-
erated during his second term. In 1997, an anonymous government official
was quoted saying that liberal reformer Anatoly Chubais hired British com-
panies for his presidential bid and was receiving support from CIA specialists
who had raised a billion dollars from Arab sponsors to support his campaign.45
The so-called oligarchs found themselves the targets of conspiracy allegations.
Berezovsky, a mega-oligarch and Kremlin-linked consigliere, was enmeshed in
the murky politics of Yeltsin’s 1996 re-election campaign and figured in palace
intrigue as Yeltsin’s reign neared its end. This made him a target of conspiracy
claims. In one of the articles cited earlier, a columnist accused Berezovsky of
trying to divert attention from a money-laundering scandal in the United States
in order to protect the “family” and the Kremlin.46
Putin entered the database around the time he became prime minister,
in August 1999. His rapid political ascent raised some people’s suspicions.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov alleged early on that the Kremlin
carried out the 1999 apartment bombings in order to boost Putin’s ratings,47 and
other figures continued to make that claim periodically. While Putin himself
rarely made conspiracy claims involving palace politics, his proxies continued
to do so while domestic politics remained somewhat competitive. For example, a
piece appearing in Argumenty i Fakty (perhaps at the behest of the Kremlin) pro-
posed a convoluted plot involving the coordinated efforts of the Berezovsky, oli-
garch Roman Abramovich, and “foreign intelligence services” to spread rumors
causing “irrevocable damage” to Putin’s image in order to give the United States
leverage in missile defense talks.48
In more competitive political systems, conspiracy theories often surfaced in
the period before a national election. Ukraine’s 2004 election, which culminated
in the Orange Revolution, is a case in point, as the two Viktors, Yushchenko and
Yanukovych, vied to replace the outgoing President Kuchma. Yanukovych’s camp
called Yushchenko a “henchman of the West”49 and claimed that “Yushchenko’s
inner circle bet heavily on the destabilization and disruption of the elections,
being fully aware that it was impossible to secure a victory in an honest
struggle.”50 Yushchenko’s proxies fought back by lobbing conspiracy claims at
Yanukovych, accusing his campaign of various—and unsubstantiated—dirty
tricks: “the authorities want to destabilize the situation in Ukraine by using tens
of thousands of people with criminal backgrounds who will stage acts of provo-
cation, as a result of which a state of emergency may be declared and the presi-
dential election may be cancelled.”51 In other countries, similar jockeying took
place as political rivals sought to outfox each other. In Kyrgyzstan, President
Akaev’s ally-turned-competitor Felix Kulov was accused of murdering a former
national security official and plotting a coup against the government.52
Claims about political jockeying are notable for their grounded, concrete
quality, as they are addressed to domestic audiences and are focused on shaping
public and elite opinion about political rivals. Because political jockeying
requires a modicum of competition, it was common in more democratic sys-
tems, but was by no means exclusive to them. Dictators also traded on the logics
of malign character and who stands to benefit on the rare occasions when they
faced adversaries who needed to be smeared.
Leaders Punching Down
A third type of claim involves government officials and their proxies implicating
their relatively powerless adversaries in conspiracies. As opposed to political
jockeying, the targets of top-down claims have little leverage and few resources
with which to contest for power. Insofar as they might challenge authority—or
are alleged to do so—their main recourse lies in the “street”: protests directed
against the incumbent, usually in cahoots with external actors, in addition to
riots, violent attacks, and other actions that produce an impression of disorder
and appear designed to embarrass or discredit the incumbent. In other, fewer
instances, the perpetrators are charged with unobservable transgressions like
espionage, planned acts of subversion, or the all-encompassing “provocation.”

This category comprises approximately 14% of the database.
The trope of contrived protests, whether notionally initiated by domestic op-
position or instigated from abroad, was popular among leaders facing dissatis-
fied citizens in competitive and authoritarian regimes alike. The most generic
and least imaginative claims are exemplified by a warning from Ukraine’s se-
curity officials during the lead-up to the 2004 election that the opposition was
preparing “various dangerous provocative actions to destabilize the situation.”53
A decade later, little had changed. The head of the presidential administration
warned during the denouement of the Euromaidan: “There are provocateurs in
Ukraine for whom peace in the country is disadvantageous. . . . As soon as eve-
rything starts to subside, provocations appear and the confrontation resumes.”54
Embattled incumbents in many countries took pains to link ostensibly local
oppositions to plots from abroad. In Kyrgyzstan, President Akaev said that the
“Kyrgyz opposition is funded by foreign capital and . . . intends to seize power
in the republic at any cost.”55 In Georgia under President Saakashvili, who did
not face a revolutionary opposition, several pro-government members of par-
liament nevertheless contended that the “opposition performs the tasks of the
[Russian] Federal Security Service. The conspiracy is led by billionaire Badri
Patarkatsishvili and Putin acts as its ‘puppeteer.’ ”56 Even leaders in disputed ter-
ritories entered the fray when facing protests. In the autonomous Ajara region
in Georgia, a pro-government member of parliament said in 2004 that the “op-
position uses money from the American billionaire Soros, bestowed to achieve a
coup in Ajara.”57
The media is often a thorn in the side of leaders who would prefer less scrutiny
of their actions, and the post-Soviet region is no exception. In 1996, Zyuganov
darkly warned about the recently unshackled press: “There are some in the West
who are using the Russian mass media to express their hatred of Russia, causing
some media sources to take a stance against their own country.”58 In the week
before the 2006 presidential election in Belarus, the Ministry of Defense labeled
as a provocation “reports in some media that commanders of military units were
allegedly given an order to ensure the early turnout of military personnel to the
polls.”59 In Russia following the controversial 2011 election, Kremlin-linked
commentator Sergey Markov targeted the election monitoring group Golos,
saying it “works under direct political orders” of the United States and warned
“that the organization might be part of an opposition plot to let election day end
in violence similar to the riots after the presidential election in Belarus one year
ago.”60
Another category of targets is accused militants, who are coded as “rela-
tively powerless” because they are either not actual militants or are motivated
by perceived government repression. In Russia, the Chechen conflict was fodder
for much speculation about the motives and backing for the rebellion. An ex-
intelligence officer claimed that two prominent Chechen militants were “con-
trolled by international Islamic centers” that are in turn controlled by “specific
American groupings within transnational, and especially oil, companies and in-
side the intelligence services,” combining three Russian foes in a single accusa-
tion.61 In Uzbekistan, following the massacre of civilians in Andijan, President
Karimov implicated a group already in his sights while providing no evi-
dence: “The people who seized the regional administration building belonged to
a branch of the banned Hezb-e Tahrir organization, were trained in Kyrgyzstan
and Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley and wanted to repeat the Kyrgyz scenario in
Uzbekistan.”62
Marginalized actors pose a challenge to powerful would-be conspiracists: how
to depict as a threat foes who are clearly in a disadvantageous position. One so-
lution involves highlighting the incongruity of the actions the enemy supposedly
incites. In view of the history of the region, a ruler facing large protests might first
wonder whether ordinary people are capable of rising up spontaneously, and then
conclude that their more powerful enemies must be responsible. Incumbents can
opt to portray their opposition as morally repugnant, but proclaiming that they
are instead battling a fifth column backed by a hostile foreign adversary is more
compelling, and commensurate to the challenge they face.
Powerless People Punching Up
A fourth type of claim involves non-elites alleging a conspiracy by government

officials or other powerful actors.63 The actions purportedly undertaken by
the powerful are alleged to cause generic harm to the public and can be coer-
cive or noncoercive: violence, setups, collusion, and information operations. As
with the previous category, the accusers may perceive a hidden foreign hand.
There are relatively few conspiracy claims by ordinary people implicating do-
mestic governments in the database for two reasons. First, critical voices ap-
pear far less frequently than official sources in the media of authoritarian states.
Second, oppositions that aim to discredit the authorities do not need to engage
in conspiracism; they can land rhetorical blows by simply describing reality: cor-
ruption, malfeasance, and thuggish behavior. In all, disadvantaged actors com-
prise less than 10% of the sample.
The anti-government claims that appear do not necessarily reflect a pro-
democratic perspective. In Russia, when the media was the freest and politics the
most competitive, the government was run by Boris Yeltsin, a (flawed) democrat.
Conspiracy theories about his government flourished among Communists and
nationalist critics who lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union and considered
Yeltsin a stooge of the West. For example, a Communist Party official wrote, in a
typical screed around the time of the ruble crisis, that “Yeltsin is a protege of the
most reactionary circles in the United States (IMF). You can imagine this will
change only by imagining a change in these circles, a change from hatred towards
Russia to respect for it.”64
Once Putin arrived on the scene, nationalists initially imputed to him all of
Yeltsin’s perceived flaws. Several letters to SR before the March 2000 presidential
election saw devious machinations at work. One stated that Yeltsin’s “ ‘resigna-
tion’ was too suspicious, too reminiscent of the first step in the implementation
of an insidious plan written for Russia by ‘dark forces.’ ”65 After the election, arti-
cles in Communist Party publications continued to depict Putin as part of a con-
spiracy: “Putin demagogically declared that he intended to destroy the oligarchs
‘as a class.’ But in reality, he is a protege of the oligarchs and serves their selfish
interests.”66 Later that year, another polemicist said, “They are killing us know-
ingly, purposefully, in accordance with the American plan PL-86-90, which is
consonant with Hitler’s ‘Ost plan’ and is successfully being carried out by traitors
in power under the general guidance of Washington. Our rulers are not insane,
but traitors—internal enemies.”67
Terrorist attacks supposedly committed by Chechens invited suspicions of
false flag attacks. According to a commentator quoted in Kommersant after a
bombing in the Pushkin metro in Moscow, “I believe bandits could have carried
out the explosion. At the same time, it is beneficial to the authorities: fright-
ened, people will begin to unite around the federal center in search of protec-
tion against terrorism.”68 After another attack in two Moscow metro stations,
Chechen militant spokesman Doku Umarov alleged that Russian special services
provided “assistance to the criminals that were guilty of the incident.”69
Citizens were on record in other states—especially where there was a relatively
free civil society or press—accusing venal, secretive, and self-serving officials
of conspiratorial activities. Yet many claims that appear conspiratorial at first
glance, such as regimes engaging in electoral machinations like hiring plain-
clothes thugs to start fights or creating “clone” political parties, turned out to
be substantiated from evidence available at the time. Oppositions, despite their
deficit of resources and media access, could gain rhetorical advantage by simply
telling the truth. Authorities were then forced to work harder to impose their
own version of reality—one at odds with what people can plainly see.
Gray Zones
The last category of conspiracy claims involves actions that lie in the hazy
boundary between ordinary intrigue-filled politics and civil or interstate war.
These claims often involve attacks by, or state support for, militant groups. They
emerge out of state-building efforts, political autonomy movements, and po-
rous state borders, and often involve violence, collusion, and provocation. These
claims do not fit neatly into any of the preceding categories, despite accounting
for 14% of the database.
The Chechen Wars, like many civil conflicts, involved multiple actors and
interests, including support from abroad—but from where? A columnist for
SR claimed that “Western security services fuel nationalism among elites of
Caucasus and Central Asia in order to gain access to the region’s oil and nat-
ural resources thus damaging Russia.”70 But the murky nature of the Chechen
conflicts meant there was also the possibility of insider involvement connected
to struggles within the Kremlin. Berezovsky, for example, was alleged to have
double-crossed the Kremlin by engineering the release of two British aid workers
who were held hostage in Chechnya.71 A Chechen legislator claimed in 1999 that
“special trainloads of Wahhabis had been sent to Chechnya and Dagestan from
Moscow. The Wahhabis were gathered by the Russian special services all over the
world in order to use their presence there as the reason for starting a war.”72
It could get more complicated still as other states became involved. Because
the Georgian border lies near the conflict zone in Chechnya, fighters could es-
cape to Georgia, handing Russia a pretext to firm up its military presence there.73
One incident involving the Russian government, the Georgian government, and
Chechnya reveals the way that ambiguity and multiple plausible versions of re-
ality can produce conspiratorial material that the conflicting parties can leverage.
In September 1999, the Russian government claimed that Georgia supplied arms
to Chechnya in exchange for six Georgian hostages.74 The Georgian govern-
ment responded by calling a Russian allegation that Georgians were smuggling
weapons to Chechnya a provocative statement “by certain forces in Russia in
order to slander Georgia and portray it as a country conniving with terrorists.”75
From the perspective of the Chechen separatists, the major plot was the collab-
oration of ostensibly opposing states uniting against them: “Moscow and some
Georgian politicians are plotting to use Chechen rebels as a pretext to bring
Russian troops to Georgia and destabilize the situation/Georgian-Chechen
relations.”76
In Georgia, the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were the
objects of ongoing skirmishes with Russia. After the Rose Revolution, President
Saakashvili sought to reintegrate the wayward territories but faced resistance
from local satraps and Russian interference. In 2004, as Saakashvili tried to
drive through Ajara with his convoy but was denied access, he asserted that “the
script of the confrontation for Ajara is written outside of Georgia and is targeted
to pull the country into a conflict.”77 In 2007, after several Georgian television
reporters were beaten by Russian peacekeepers, the Russia chief of the general
staff responded, “The so-called beating of Georgian journalists is nothing more

than a provocation against Russian peacekeepers.”78
In a proxy war, external support is always a possibility, but it is difficult to
prove. Amid the unsettled conflicts of the region, multiple players faced opaque
adversaries that might be allied with partners across (disputed) borders. These
complexities provided incentives for deception, as well as the opportunity to as-
sert control by naming the conspiracy.
Conclusion
These examples show the range and diversity of conspiracy theories in the post-
Soviet region. Far from the rantings of crazed dictators, they reflect the anxieties
that emanate from unsettled institutions and political intrigue. The murkiness
that often surrounded salient events was a product of the ambiguity that per-
vaded political life—and, according to the accusers, a consequence of deliberate
actions by powerful people who sought to shape history in nefarious ways but
concealed their involvement.
Because of this chapter’s emphasis, one may get the sense that conspiracy is
the norm, not the exception. This presumption would be incorrect. Less than
10% of articles collected through the keyword searches were conspiracy claims,
and keywords were found in a small fraction of the articles that were queried.
Most of the time, ordinary, non-conspiratorial interpretations prevail. This begs
the question of where, when, and why conspiracies are invoked, the answers to
which are explored in Chapter 4.
4
Connecting the Dots
Patterns of Conspiracism in Post-Soviet Politics
The previous chapter provided a descriptive overview of conspiracy claims

and a flavor of their content. But what purposes do conspiracy theories serve
for the people who promote them? Although we cannot get inside the heads of
conspiracists, we can learn much about how conspiracy claims operate in poli-
tics by examining when, where, and how often they appear. This chapter uses the
database of post-Soviet conspiracy claims to address these questions and reach
some preliminary conclusions.
The following analysis examines the data from different angles, proceeding
from the general to the particular. First, I check whether the frequency of con-
spiracy claims rose over two decades, and if so, what events were most respon-
sible for the rise. Second, I home in on critical events to determine how they
affect the manifestation and timing of conspiracy claims. Third, I look at external
influences, in particular the role of geopolitical alignments and rivalries. Fourth,
I explore the domestic realm and show how regime type affects conspiracy
claims. Finally, I examine how heads of state and other authority figures con-
tribute to the overall patterns of conspiracism in the region.
The results reveal how conspiracism can be an outgrowth of ambiguity, pal-
pable threats, and political competition, consistent with the propositions from
Chapter 1. And even though politicians operate according to the rules of the game
within their national borders, they are sometimes sensitive to developments
abroad.
The analysis in this chapter acts as a bridge between the previous chapter
and the case studies in the next two chapters by providing a partial portrait of
how conspiracy claims operate. It reflects decisions about sampling and coding,
whose assumptions must be taken into account when considering the findings.
I attempt to minimize bias through consistent collection and coding procedures,
which aim to ensure valid comparisons within the sample, but samples repre-
sent only an approximation of reality.1 As such, this chapter should be seen as
a piece of a larger puzzle, which will yield a fuller picture only when combined
with other pieces.
Does the Use of Conspiracy Claims Change over Time?
Given the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West, and sometimes
between Russia and its neighbors, it would not be surprising if increasing con-
tempt bred greater conspiracism, or vice versa. Furthermore, the region-wide
move away from democracy during this period may have boosted the trend.2
On the other hand, if post-Soviet leaders were conditioned by history or culture
to be conspiratorial, then perhaps the numbers of conspiracy claims would re-
main stable. One study of conspiracy theories in the United States covering more
than a century found that although they fluctuated year to year and their main
proponents changed with the balance of power, the overall volume remained rel-
atively constant.3 Has the post-Soviet region become more conspiratorial over
the period of transition?
The data show that the answer is yes, for the most part. An increase is evi-
dent whether we look at the claims relating to the 42 critical events, incidental
claims during the same periods, or random dates. Figure 4.1 shows the number
of conspiracy claims that appeared within the 15-day event windows, with
event-related and incidental claims represented in different shades. The ouster
of Ukrainian president Yanukovych on February 22, 2014, produced the most
claims by far (147). Interestingly, given the amount of global skepticism toward
the official version, September 11, 2001, did not even make the top 10.
Looking at the 508 event-related conspiracy claims reveals a notable increase
over time.4 But this does not necessarily capture the actual trend of conspiracy
claims, since the events were selected deliberately for their political impact.
Perhaps later events are simply more conducive to conspiracy than the earlier
ones. To find out, I check whether the frequency of incidental claims captured
in those periods increases over time. That relationship also shows an increase.5
The number of conspiracy claims also rises if we group the events into segments.
Looking again only at incidental claims, from 1995 to 1999, there were an av-
erage of 9.7; from 2000 to 2003 there were 17.3; from 2004 to 2008 there were
21.6; and from 2009 to 2014 there were 23.2.
To check whether this relationship holds more broadly, I also examine
patterns associated with the 100 randomly selected dates. As Figure 4.2 shows,
there are several dates with no conspiracy claims among the earliest 20, and gen-
erally higher frequencies thereafter, though there are still uneventful days even
in the last quarter. The passage of time is associated with an increase on random
dates, but it accounts for less of the change in conspiracy claims than for those
collected systematically.6 The relationship is shown in the diagonal line.
It is important to consider possible bias in the availability of sources, whose
coverage increased over time. Some sources, including Russian nationalist and
Communist Party newspapers, cover the entire period but present a skewed
Conspiracy claims
0
50
100
150
1996
Dayton accords
Rus par election 1995
Dudayev assassination
Rus pres election 1996
NATO-97
Financial crisis
Kosovo war start
Yeltsin cabinet
Default
Primakov
Tashkent bombing
NATO-99
Kosovo war end
Second chechen war
Ryazan bombing
Yeltsin resignation
2000

Kursk sinking
Serbia revolution
US pres election 2000
9–11
Figure 4.1 Conspiracy claims by event over time. Nord ost attack
NATO-02
Khodorkovsky arrest
Rose revolution
Kadyrov assassination
Beslan attack
Us pres election 2004
Orange revolution
Pension protests
2006
Event
Kyrgyz revolution
Andijon
Incidental
Azerbaijan protests
Event-related
Belarus protests
Tandem
Georgia war
Moldova protests
2010
Kyrgyz pres overthrow

Osh violence
Bolotnaya protests
Euromaidan
Conspiracy claims 15 2004
10
0
Random date
Figure 4.2 Conspiracy claims on random dates.
version of commentary from the region. Other sources became available only
in 2001, 2003, or 2004. I therefore check whether the results hold from 2004 to
2014, when all the sources are available. During this period, from the 39th to
100th random day, there is a similarly positive slope, but the points are more
widely dispersed around the line, indicating that time explains a lesser amount
of the variation in conspiracy claims.7 Although this relationship is not tight, to-
gether the analyses indicate that there is a higher frequency in the second decade
than in the first. However, there are important exceptions—active dates early on
and slow moments later—that I will investigate below and in later chapters.
What Events Instigate Conspiracy Claims?
Figure 4.1 showed how many claims were associated with specific events, but
do speakers primarily invoke conspiracy preemptively or reactively? In other
words, do they seek to shape how impending events will be perceived, or do
they use conspiracy to manipulate interpretations of events only after they have
happened? Because conspiracy claims were sampled one week before and one
week after critical events, the dates on which conspiracy claims were made can
shed light on the issue.
The data shows that 57% of claims occurred in the second week of the search
periods.8 Why was this the case? Is it because people made claims about the event
in particular, or did it somehow produce more conspiracy claims overall? Table
4.1 shows the number of conspiracy claims occurring before and after events, and
the number of event-related and incidental claims. The fact that 69% (349/508)
of conspiracy theories related to the event occurred after that event indicates that
claimants were reacting to events more than they were anticipating them. Why
not 100%? Because in most cases, the event was not entirely unexpected.9 For ex-
ample, politicians may begin jockeying for position months before a scheduled
Connecting the Dots 71
Table 4.1 Conspiracy Claims in Relation to Events
Before Event After Event Total
Related to event 159 349 508

Unrelated to event 345 319 664
Total 504 668 1,172
election, and their rhetoric might intensify in the week(s) before it. Rumors
and “provocations” may proliferate before protests or riots actually break out—
or might even play a role in causing them. In cases of “revolutionary” regime
change, such as in Serbia and Ukraine, conspiracies were alleged about ongoing
protests before they deposed the president. Yet the occurrence of the event it-
self makes an impact. It is the culminating moment that resolves the uncertainty
generated during the period of anticipation, and it can produce new anxieties
and fears.
The previous chapter introduced the distinction of conspiracies that are pos-
ited to occur in the palace or on the street, that is, those that are associated with
political intrigue or with visible and contentious events. This distinction matters
because it suggests what spurs regimes to invoke conspiracy. I argued earlier that
conspiracy claims may be used to assert power in response to disruptive events
that threaten to erode political support. But what kinds of disruptions are most
likely to generate this response?
To check whether certain types of events are more likely to result in con-
spiracy claims, I have created a “relatedness index”: the number of conspiracy
claims related to an event as a proportion of all claims collected during that
period (event- related plus incidental). This measure allows us to control
for factors that vary across events and dates, such as political developments
occurring at the same time, the number of sources available, and increasing
conspiracism in later years. Higher scores indicate that the occurrence of the
event, rather than confounding factors, was the catalyst for conspiracy theories.
I distinguish destabilizing events, which are visible, unexpected, and exogenous
(protests, riots, terrorism), from either purely political events such as elections
or summits, or ones over which the government has some control, such as wars
and assassinations.
Table 4.2 shows the 10 highest and 10 lowest relatedness scores. It is clear that
conspiracy claims are far more likely to be deployed around destabilizing events
than events that are either institutionalized or under the government’s con-
trol. Of the highest scores, all are “street” events with the exception of the (con-
tentious) 1996 Russian presidential election and the Georgia War, over whose
Table 4.2 Relatedness Index
Event* Highest 10 Scores Proportion of Claims

Made in Russia
Euromaidan .84 .52

1996 Russian presidential .79 .95
election
Georgia war .75 .76
Osh violence .67 .09
Moldova protests .62 .25
Tulip Revolution .59 .59
Belarus protests .59 .26
Orange Revolution .56 .26
Rose Revolution .48 .30
Serbia Revolution .40 .90
Event Lowest 10 scores
2000 US presidential election .010

2004 US presidential election .010
Khodorkovsky .09
Kursk explosiona .06
Kadyrov assassination .05
2004 Russian presidential .05
election
Dudayev assassination 0
Asian financial crisis 0
Kosovo war start 0
Yeltsin fires cabinet 0
*“Street” events are in bold.

aThe explosion of the Kursk submarine was unexpected and outside the government’s control, but it
was an accident and not an act of political violence.
initiation both countries had some control. Of the lowest scores, none is unex-
pected or destabilizing.
Who is making these claims? If it is imperiled leaders who seek to narrate an
event as a conspiracy to shore up control, then governments and their proxies
should be the claimants. However, these events take place within a common
geopolitical space and may be of concern to politicians besides those directly
affected. Knowing where claims originate is important in order to understand
what purposes conspiracy claims serve. It also has implications for how people
engage in politics. Claims by leaders that accuse people in their own country of
conspiring against the citizenry or the government can lead to scapegoating and
exclusion, or worse. Claims about events abroad, especially the assertion that ex-
ternal actors seek to undermine a country’s sovereignty or stability, can lead to
a semblance of unity, though perhaps a pernicious kind that enables rulers to
suppress legitimate criticism.10 It is noteworthy that five of the “street” events (in
bold) took place between 2003 and 2009 when fears of color revolutions were
widespread, and another is Ukraine’s second revolution of 2014, raising the pos-
sibility that—who else—Russia might have an interest in shaping the narrative.
To check whether conspiracy narratives related to critical events are prima-
rily domestic affairs or objects of foreign propaganda, the third column in Table
4.2 shows what proportion of claims about an event came from Russia. It turns
out that both domestic and geopolitical actors invoked conspiracies. Russian
commentators were, unsurprisingly, the most prolific in the 1996 Russian elec-
tion and the Russia-Georgia War. They also made nearly all the conspiracy claims
about Serbia’s 2000 revolution, unsurprising given Russia’s intense interest in the
Balkans. Of the events taking place in post-Soviet lands that Russia was not di-
rectly involved in, Russians provided 9% (ethnic violence in Osh) to 59% (Tulip
Revolution) of conspiratorial commentary. They were responsible for about
one-quarter of conspiracy claims about attempted or successful revolutions in
Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine in 2004, and Georgia, and almost half of those in
Ukraine in 2014. These figures indicate that accusers from Russia did get in-
volved, by enfolding developments abroad into their own narratives. However,
domestic politicians were the main narrators of their own street events.
How Are Conspiracy Claims Imagined across Borders?
Having established that some events are significant enough to gain geopolitical
notoriety, what can we say about how conspiracy claimants imagine politics in
other countries more broadly? I examine two ways in which the external world
influences conspiratorial rhetoric: as geopolitical signaling, and as rhetorical
inspiration.
First, do international alliance patterns determine the targets of conspiracy
claims? The main axis in the region pits Russia against the West. Some states
align themselves predominantly with Russia (Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan), while others view Russia skeptically (Georgia,
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan), are neutral (Turkmenistan), or vacillate depending on

who is in power (Moldova and Ukraine).11 Thus, conspiracists outside Russia
have a ready-made enemy at their disposal—and a way to signal their foreign
policy allegiances to their geopolitical patron, whoever it might be.
Yet there is no guarantee that geopolitical allies will make similar conspiracy
claims. First, there may be a discrepancy between popular attitudes and foreign
policy, such that leaders personally benefit from signaling allegiance to other-
wise unpopular patrons. Second, politicians may be preoccupied by domestic
politics and focused on locating internal conspiracies. Third, a state may prior-
itize more proximate external threats and minimize the East–West rivalry that
otherwise seems all-encompassing.
How often do geopolitical preferences influence the nationality of those who
are accused? Figure 4.3 shows who accuses whom for a selection of countries.
The thickness of the horizontal lines corresponds to the number of claims ema-
nating from the country on the left that implicate a perpetrator in a country on
the right.12
Figure 4.3 demonstrates four relevant points. First, geopolitics partly
determines the choice of targets. Accusers in Russia are prone to target the
United States and the West, with a sizable number of claims directed against
(sometimes) Western allies Ukraine and Georgia. Accusers from those two coun-
tries, by contrast, rarely impugn the West and are more likely to target Russia. In
Russia’s allies Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, claimants bandwagon to some extent by
targeting the West (including the United States) rather than Russia, but the num-
bers are small and indicate some displeasure toward Russia as well: 11 against
Russia
Russia
US
West
UK
Geo
Ukraine
Ukraine
Geo
Belarus
Belarus
Kyr
Kyr
Azer Azer
Arm Arm
Figure 4.3 Who accuses whom?

the West and 9 against Russia for Belarus, and 14 vs. 4 in Kyrgyzstan. Azerbaijani
accusers target Russia and the West in roughly equal measure.
Second, most conspiracies are claimed to occur at home. Domestic targets are
first or second in every country. They come in second only in Georgia, whose
accusations target Russia(ns) 1.5 times more often than fellow Georgians; and
for all intents and purposes in Russia, where conspiracists target the United
States and the West combined more than other Russians.
Third, hostile rhetoric does not extend to the friends of enemies. For example,
although Georgians target Russia, they do not target Russia’s allies Belarus,
Armenia, or Kyrgyzstan. And while Kyrgyzstanis join Russia in targeting the
West, they are indifferent toward Western-oriented allies Georgia, Azerbaijan,
and Ukraine. Those countries are simply too insignificant to matter to them,
and the Russian government does not insist on this form of geopolitical fidelity
among its allies.
Fourth, local rivalries sometimes take precedence over geopolitical confron-
tation. After domestic targets, both Armenians and Azerbaijanis are most likely
to target each other. The most popular external conspiratorial foil for Moldovans
is not Russia or the United States, but Romania, the main target of their claims
during the 2009 anti-government protests. Local irritants are less evident in
Ukraine and Georgia, where domestic polarization and aspirations to join
NATO make them the object of East–West struggles.
Another way geopolitical alliances might matter is by facilitating the diffusion
of ideas across borders. By looking at conspiracy claims by country and over time
together, it is possible to check whether Russia led the way in imposing an anti-
West line on the rest of the region, and whether allied states acted together more
than non-allied ones. To check, I first calculated the total number of incidental
and random anti-West/US claims in each year for Russia and for all others.13
Figure 4.4 shows that the lines move roughly in tandem.14 More anti-West claims
are made in Russia than in all other countries combined, with the highest spikes
occurring in 2005 and 2014, both years in which Ukraine was in the spotlight.
This high correlation indicates possible diffusion from Russia, although this
figure cannot indicate the direction that ideas travel.
If conspiracy narratives flowed from Russia outward, then how would they
spread and who would be receptive? If a rise in conspiracy claims across the post-
Soviet region is caused by Russian initiative rather than through parallel pro-
cesses or coincidence, then the correspondence should be closest between Russia
and its allies. To check whether this is the case, I examined claims in Russia
alongside those from four other countries where sufficient data are available.
Figure 4.5 shows that geopolitical affinities have limits. Russia does correlate
highly with Ukraine, which is evident in the similar pattern of their curves.15
Geopolitics does not dictate the diffusion of claims to Belarus; the correlation
50
40
Conspiracy claims
30
20
10
0
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Year
Russia
All others
Figure 4.4 Diffusion of anti-West conspiracy claims.
is actually negative. This is explained by the fact that Belarus does not produce
many claims, and they only partially reflect Russian priorities. At the same
time, Kyrgyzstan—a Russian ally that is highly plugged in to the Russian media
space—shows only a moderate correlation with Russian claims, suggesting that
its preoccupations differ. Georgia, which is more of a Russian adversary than ally,
shows no correlation at all.
The analysis of geopolitical factors suggests that the weight of Russian con-
spiratorial narratives plays some role in influencing other states, yet geopolitical
alliances only go so far. One challenge to demonstrating geopolitical influence
is the small number of conspiracy claims in some countries. In fact, it was not
even feasible to statistically analyze Russian allies like Kazakhstan and Armenia
because they produced too few claims. This variation in frequency begs the ques-
tion of what other factors shape the prevalence of conspiracy claims.
Total claims
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Year
Russia Ukraine Belarus

Kyrgyzstan Georgia
Figure 4.5 Diffusion across borders.
How Do Regimes Shape the Volume of Conspiracy Claims?
The limits of Russian influence point toward other, more intrinsic features of
states that might be associated with conspiracy theories. To find out what role
competitive politics or its absence plays, I correlated the number of conspiracy
claims from incidental and random dates with the country’s mean liberal de-
mocracy score from the V-Dem project, in which countries that score higher
are considered more democratic. Because Russia is so prolific, I did not include
it here but treat it separately in Chapter 5. Figure 4.6 plots regime scores against
average yearly conspiracy claims for the remaining 11 countries. Although there
are a small number of points, a relationship is evident.16 Ukraine is somewhat of
an outlier, having more conspiracy theories than its level of democracy would
Ukr
120
100
Geo
Conspiracy claims
80
60
Kyr
Az
40
Bel
Arm
20 Kaz
Uzb Mol
Taj
Tkmn
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Regime score
Figure 4.6 Conspiracy and democracy.
predict, while Moldova has fewer, but other states are close to the regression
line: more competitive regimes have more conspiracy theories, and more auto-
cratic ones have fewer.
However, this correlation might simply reflect bias in data collection. In more
pluralistic societies a wider variety of players, including civil society and govern-
ment opposition, can vocalize conspiracy claims in the press, while dictatorships
might print and broadcast only official claims. If non-regime claims artificially
inflate the numbers in some countries, then the relationship between conspiracy
claims and regime score may not hold for official claims only.
To test this conjecture, I examined only conspiracy claims from the previous
analysis that are uttered by presidents, military and security officials, representa-
tives of ministries, and pro-government politicians—all those whose statements
are likely to be reported regardless of media conditions. Even after reducing the
sample using these criteria, the relationship between conspiracy claims and re-
gime type shown in Figure 4.7 remains strong.17 This result indicates that the
volume of official claims reflects the number of overall claims, and that both are
influenced by political conditions.
Why is there a positive relationship between political competition, on one
hand, and official and overall claims, on the other? One supposition mentioned
70
Geo
60 Ukr
50
Conspiracy claims
40
30
Bel Kyr
20
Az
Arm
10 Kaz Mol
Uzb Taj
Tkmn
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4

Regime score
Figure 4.7 Conspiracy and democracy for official claims only.
in earlier chapters is that regimes use conspiracy claims to keep the population
enthralled and divided. In this formulation, rulers can succeed by promoting offi-
cial conspiracism and censoring alternative views, leaving their version of reality
as the only one available. If this is correct, then more claims by (authoritarian)
governments should coexist with fewer claims about them. In other words, au-
thoritarian regimes would have a high ratio of official to anti-government claims.
If, however, competition rather than domination leads to greater conspiracism,
then more claims by governments would correspond to more anti-government
claims, and the ratios would be similar regardless of regime type. The data in
Figure 4.8 suggest the latter: competitive regimes produce both more anti-regime
and official claims, while non-competitive regimes produce fewer of both types,
but the ratios do not vary systematically between types of regime.
The bars in Figure 4.8 show the frequency of conspiracy claims in which the
government is the target, all other claims, and the percentage of claims that target
that country’s government. Ukraine and Moldova have the highest proportions
of oppositional claims, as might be expected.18 But a fairly high percentage of
claims in autocratic Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are anti-government (25% and
26%), while a smaller share of claims in hybrid regimes Kyrgyzstan and Georgia
go against the government. With the exception of Russia, nondemocratic
750
500
Claims
250
13% 15%
26% 24% 40% 23% 38% 24%
24% 14% 25% 8% 14%
35%
0
Rus
Geo
Kyr
Az
Disputed
N.cauc
Bel
Mol
Arm
Uz
Kaz
Taj
Turkmen
Ukr
Location
Gov not target Gov target
Figure 4.8 Proportions of anti-government conspiracy claims by country.
countries are associated with fewer conspiracy claims than are hybrid regimes,
not only because their officials stifle anti-government voices, but also because
those officials are reluctant conspiracists themselves.
On What Authority Do Conspiracists Speak?
Another possibility worth considering is that while authoritarian regimes as a

whole are not prolific conspiracists, the worst dictators may be exceptions. In the
post-Soviet region, these would be the leaders of the most repressive regimes,
such as Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Sapurmurad Niyazov or his successor
and cousin Gurbanguly Berdimukhammedov in Turkmenistan, Nursultan
Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, Heydar or his son Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan,
Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, the “last dictator of Europe,” or Putin, the
archetypal “autocratic thug.”19 To check whether these individuals stand out
among their peers, Table 4.3 shows the countries with the most conspiracist
heads of state. Because some presidents serve longer than others, I also sum the
claims from all presidents by country.
It turns out that the most prolific conspiracists are not the most notorious
dictators, but rather those most involved in fending off challengers, like the heads
Table 4.3 Top Presidential Conspiracists
Country President(s) Total (of which, critical

events)
Georgia Shevardnadze (9), Saakashvili (8), 18 (1)

Burjanadze (1)
Kyrgyzstan Akaev (10), Bakiev (3), Otunbaeva 16 (10)
(2), Atambaev (1)
Belarus Lukashenko (11) 11 (3)
Russia* Yeltsin (1), Putin (6), 8 (5)
Medvedev (1)
South Ossetia Kokoity (8) 8 (3)
Ukraine Kuchma (2), Yushchenko (2), 7 (1)
Yanukovych (2), Poroshenko (1)
Moldova Voronin (7) 7 (5)
*For 2008–2012, I continue to count Putin’s claims, even though he was prime minister, along with
those of President Medvedev.
of state in raucous and competitive Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Ukraine ranks sur-
prisingly low by this measure, though every president made an appearance.
Lukashenko performs according to type, even if Belarusians are not especially
prolific. Putin is only in seventh place among presidents. How can we square
this figure with the knowledge that Russia produced three times as many claims
as the next highest country? It turns out that presidents do not need to vocalize
conspiracy claims themselves. Proxies such as pundits on television, members
of the Duma, security officials, ministers, and other spokespeople were ready
to spread Kremlin propaganda, relieving Putin of performing the task himself.
When autocrats personally utter conspiracy claims, it is a relatively rare occur-
rence and people tend to take notice. At other times, presidents can position
themselves above the fray.20
This observation highlights the fact that not all speakers are equally influen-
tial, yet to this point I have treated all conspiracy claims as identical. There are
good reasons to believe that people pay more attention, and may give more cre-
dence to a claim, when more authoritative actors speak.21 In order to capture
differences in stature and prestige, I scored claimants based on their proximity to
power and access to state secrets: 10 for presidents; 5 for members of the national
executive, security ministries, or ruling party; 3 for pro-government members
50
Conspiracy claims
30
10
0
Random date
Weighted Unweighted
Figure 4.9 Weighted claims on random dates.
of parliament; and 1 for all others. This weighting scheme yields a measure that
incorporates official importance: the degree to which a claim carries formal
authority.22
Using this measure, how does the picture change? Weighting by authority
makes a difference when examining trends over time. Figure 4.9 plots weighted
claims on random days alongside the unweighted points from Figure 4.2. It
reveals a steeper slope, indicating that more influential actors became more vocal
over time.23 In other words, holding constant the number of claims, officials such
as presidents, ministers, security officials, and parliamentarians represented a
greater share of speakers in relation to journalists, pundits, civil society actors,
and other less powerful people as time went on.
There are two interpretations of this graph, both of which I show later to have
merit. First, the steeper slope indicates “mainstreaming,” as ideas that percolate
on the fringes, among nationalists, ideologues, or sundry eccentrics, are grad-
ually adopted and promoted by elected (or just anointed) officials. Second, it
indicates brazenness. The changing balance of claimants does not imply that
non-officials who are assigned a score of 1 became more reticent; in fact, lowly
regime supporters, especially in the pro-government media, also became more
prolific over time. The graph therefore highlights how officials increasingly
entered the fray, speaking in their own voices without regard for—or possibly
embracing—how this would affect their credibility.
Another way to use information from weighting claimants is to re-examine the
impact of events over time from Figure 4.1. When looking only at the trend of
claims related to events in Figure 4.10, which spaces each event evenly rather than
by proximity in time, it is again evident that official claims increased at higher rates
than total claims. This is the case even when excluding Euromaidan, an event that
tempted almost everyone with access to a microphone to promote conspiracies.24
300
Weighted value
200
100
Rose
Tandem
Yel resign
Dayton
Kosovo 1
Yeltsin
Default
Prim
Tashbomb
Kosovo 2
Chch 2
USpres 00
9–11
Nordost
Khod
Uspres 04
Pensionprot
Andijon
Azerprot
Belprot
Geowar
Molprot
Osh
Bolotnaya
Euromaidon
Ryazan
Ruspres 96
NATO-97
NATO-99
Ruspres 00
NATO-02
Ruspres 04
Ruspar
Beslan
Dudayev
Fin crisis
Serbrev
Kadyrov
Orgrev
Kyrrev
Kyrrev
Kursk
Event
Figure 4.10 Weighted claims corresponding to events.
In the weighted graph, several events stand out more clearly due to a combina-
tion of volume and influence: in the first decade, a peak in the 1996 Russian elec-
tion; the modest peak of the 2004 Beslan attack; a higher baseline beginning with
the Orange Revolution; precipitous drops during the 2005 pensioner protests
and announcement of the Putin-Medvedev tandem; and finally, the acme of con-
spiracy in Euromaidan.
Conclusion
This chapter sought out patterns in the use of conspiracy theories. The data
showed that the conspiracism cannot be explained solely by cultural idiosyn-
crasy, tyranny, or paranoia. Among other findings, it appears to a greater extent
as time passes, when regimes face visible and contentious events, where there is
political competition, and in countries that are plugged into the Russian media
sphere. Conspiracy theories are an integral but intermittent feature of politics in
the region.
A partial exception to these patterns is Russia, which produced conspiracy
claims at higher rates than its regime type would predict, and a sizable number
about events occurring abroad. Russia often sees itself as exceptional, and in this
instance, it is. What is driving its peculiar and prolific mode of conspiracism? To
find out, the investigation turns toward Russia and examines conspiracy claims
in context.
5
The Emergence and Ascendancy
of Conspiracism in Russia
After pro-European protesters in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv prevailed in ousting

President Yanukovych in February 2014, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine
went into overdrive. According to Russian state television, Kremlin officials,
members of parliament, and nominally independent analysts, the new govern-
ment of Ukraine was composed of fascists intent on oppressing ethnic Russians;
the Ukrainian army shot down a Malaysian airliner flying over eastern Ukraine
in order to frame Russia; and Ukrainian nationalists crucified a Russian child,
among other fantastical claims. For those who had been monitoring Russian pol-
itics over the previous decade, the narrative being pushed was both of a piece
with the Kremlin’s ongoing campaign against perceived Western aggression and
a lurch beyond what had come before.
Russia’s conspiratorial tendencies, culminating in the paroxysm of 2014, have
been explained in two ways: as a product of history and as a product of author-
itarianism. First is the notion that Russia has always been prone to suspicion of
outsiders stemming from its historical insecurity and frustration at lagging be-
hind the West.1 If this instinctive tendency persisted across the Soviet collapse,
then the conspiratorial rhetoric of Putinism and the response to Euromaidan
were a reversion to a historical norm that predates Putin.
Another view sees the events of 2014 as an accessory to Putin’s increasing re-
pressiveness. According to this theory, although Putin may have been inclined to
be suspicious of others’ motives from his background in the KGB, it was the need
to boost his sagging approval rating that led to his regime’s conspiratorial turn.
Putin stoked fears of subversion and used emotionally resonant references from
World War II to distract from the government’s failures and to manufacture loy-
alty.2 In this reading of events, to understand Putin it makes more sense to com-
pare Russia to personalistic autocracies like Saddam’s Iraq or Chavez’s Venezuela
rather than to study Russia’s past.
Both arguments have some merit, but do not tell the whole story. Starting the
inquiry from 2014 mistakenly leads us to view Euromaidan as the inevitable cul-
mination of earlier trends and to project what we know ultimately happened
onto the past. Both the broad optic of history and the narrow focus on leader-
ship miss the ways that political leaders are constrained by circumstances out of
Conspiracism in Russia 85
their control, yet also seek advantage when responding to crises.3 In other words,
rulers are to some extent agents of their own destiny, but they are often playing
defense.
This chapter situates Russia’s transformation from a regime of competitive
conspiracism to one of sustained official conspiracism. The first part of the anal-
ysis demonstrates that there was neither a natural progression of conspiracism
over time nor a hard break in the Kremlin’s rhetorical approach from the Yeltsin
to the Putin era. Nor did conspiracy claims under Putin track the Kremlin’s
increasing heavy-handedness. Russia’s leaders may have had conspiratorial
inclinations, but they initially adopted conspiratorial rhetoric reactively and in-
termittently, in response to politically resonant events. It took a series of critical
setbacks in 2004 and 2005—threats to sovereignty, challenges to Putin’s narra-
tive about rebuilding Russia, and deteriorating relations with the West—to cause
the shift. During this period, certain conspiracy narratives became normalized,
as indicated by the increase in the frequency of conspiracy claims over time
and the “mainstreaming” of ideas that once percolated only on the ideological
fringes. Once that shift happened, it was difficult to imagine it as anything but
preordained. Even then, however, there was a division of labor between what was
claimed by government officials versus media personalities: the former focused
on the near abroad while the latter targeted the West, suggesting an awareness by
the Kremlin that the excessive promotion of some forms of conspiracism could
backfire.
To make sense of the Kremlin’s evolving approach, the second half of this
chapter examines conspiracy theories around select critical events, specifically
those that correspond to relative peaks and valleys from Figure 4.10 in the pre-
vious chapter: the 1996 Russian presidential election (peak), Beslan in 2004
(peak), the 2005 pension reform protests (valley), and Euromaidan (peak). For
each of these snapshots, I highlight how the surrounding context shaped who
was most likely to make conspiracy claims, who was targeted, and whether
the claims were sustained. The analysis reveals a more complex and contin-
gent picture than one that emerges from a narrow focus on Putin, or a view that
projects forward from the distant past or backward from the present. Table 5.1
summarizes these events, the narratives that surrounded them, the number of
associated conspiracy claims originating in Russia overall, and the number pro-
moted specifically by officials.4
One important task in any analysis of propaganda is to establish who speaks
for the regime. As noted earlier, most post-Soviet presidents were reluctant
conspiracists. Yet there are other actors with various degrees of proximity to
power whose speech usually reflects official policy, including ministers and
deputy ministers, press spokespeople for those ministries, officials in the army
and intelligence services (siloviki), and representatives of the ruling party.
Table 5.1 Selected Critical Events
Event Date Nature Accusers Event-Related Dominant

of Threat Claims Narrative
to the (of which,
Incumbent official)
Presidential June 16, Corruption Chubais, 21(8) Corruption,

election 1996 Zyuganov, political
Lebed intrigue
Beslan September Terrorist Ideologues, 11(3) Militants
attack 1, 2004 attack Putin supported by
international
financiers in
cahoots with
the West
Protests January Protests in Pro-Kremlin 4(3) Protesters
against 15, 2005 Russia legislators have
pension legitimate
reforms grievances
Euromaidan February Protests in The whole 76(21) Externally
24, 2014 Ukraine gamut instigated
protests
intended to
harm Russia,
via Ukraine
and fascists
Additionally, governments can disseminate messages indirectly, through allied

members of parliament, like-minded politicians, nominally independent organi-
zations, pro-government pundits, employees of supportive media organizations,
and sympathetic representatives of civil society. The extent of the government’s
reach and the degree to which we can assume that an accuser is speaking on
behalf of the government depend in part on how politics is organized. In non-
democratic regimes like Putin’s Russia, media are often subservient to the execu-
tive, and nominally independent legislators serve at the autocrat’s pleasure.5 The
analysis takes political context into account when assessing an accuser’s motives.
In Search of a National Narrative
By some measures, Russia after the Soviet collapse was already awash in
conspiracism. Ordinary people sought to cope with the sundry miseries of
the 1990s by imagining there was a grand design behind seemingly unrelated
traumatic events.6 Novels, films, and other forms of pop culture explored themes
of hidden truths, alternative histories, and “plots against Russia.”7 Communist-
nationalist intellectuals promoted conspiracy theories about the West as a way of
discrediting Russia’s liberal reformers.8
Conspiracy narratives were circulating and available for political use, but that
did not necessarily mean that politicians would rush to embrace them. Both
Yeltsin and Putin, like other leaders, decided what narratives to promote for a va-
riety of reasons, including the political environment they faced. Yeltsin’s political
origins lay in democratic opposition to Soviet power, and his justifications for
his early policy choices reflected that background. Liberals in Yeltsin’s political
circle believed Russia should reform to become a “normal” European country
and conduct a foreign policy consistent with its (middling) economic and mil-
itary power.9 But the political system had dramatically opened up during pere-
stroika, and the Kremlin found itself competing with alternative narratives about
what was happening in Russia and who was responsible.
Among the harshest critics of Yeltsin were nationalist ideologues, who
held positions in universities, think tanks, quasi-governmental bodies, and
newspapers.10 Although they advocated various positions, a common thread
was their regret over the Soviet collapse and the loss of Russia’s status as a
great power. National restorationists sought a state dominated by ethnic
Russians and the Orthodox Church, which would reassert control over the
former republics.11 Fascist offshoots, including Eurasianists, favored author-
itarianism, hyper- nationalism, and militarism.12 Communists jettisoned
Marxism-Leninism in favor of Russian chauvinism and a strong social safety
net. Despite their positions at opposing ends of the ideological spectrum,
the nationalist right and Communist left found common cause in opposing
Yeltsin’s reforms.13
Several nationalist figures deserve mention for their strident advocacy and
longevity in politics. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the ironically named
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), gained prominence for his ex-
treme and often outlandish imperialist views. Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the
Communist Party and a frequent critic of the United States, NATO, and eco-
nomic reform, was a frequent television guest and a perennial presidential can-
didate. Both men held seats in the Duma for a generation and won votes from
reliable constituencies: uneducated young men from provincial parts of Russia
for LDPR, and pensioners for the Communists. After television came under
Kremlin control, Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov continued to maintain a visible
media presence despite occasionally expressing views at odds with Putin’s. They
could be relied on to promote extreme viewpoints that made the Kremlin look
reasonable by comparison, and to enthusiastically support significant actions
such as the invasion of Georgia and the annexation of Crimea.14
If Yeltsin’s claim to legitimacy was to advance democracy and capitalism in

Russia, Vladimir Putin fashioned himself first and foremost as a state-builder. As
head of the FSB and then prime minister, Putin entered politics as conflict raged
in the North Caucasus and spilled over into other parts of Russia. The renewed
threat of instability from the south and a generalized sense of chaos congealed
into a vision that Putin marshaled when he became president on New Year’s Eve
in 1999: to restore a strong state as “the source and guarantor of order.”15 The es-
sence of that vision persisted even as the situation in Russia changed.
Putin’s presidency can be divided into at least three stages that correspond
to the overriding priorities his administration devised in response to changing
conditions.16 In the first, from 2000 to about 2003, Putin sought to bring about
stability by ending the Chechen War, restoring control over autonomous regions,
and reviving the economy.17 A critical move to advance this agenda was to re-
duce the power of the oligarchs, including transferring control of the major tel-
evision stations from private hands to Kremlin-affiliated owners. The Kremlin
spearheaded the creation of a dominant party, United Russia (UR), to coordinate
among regional officials. By the end of 2003 and into 2004, Putin had usurped
the power of local bosses by absorbing them into the party.18
In the next stage of Putin’s presidency (2004–2008), the Kremlin responded
to deteriorating relations with the West and the color revolutions on Russia’s
borders with a series of centralizing initiatives. With a new political team under
the auspices of Kremlin ideologist Vladislav Surkov, Putin brought about the
elimination of elections for governor and the Federation Council (the upper
house of parliament), an increase in the threshold for parties to gain seats
in the Duma, and greater restrictions on the activity of civil society groups.19
To challenge pro-democracy NGOs, Surkov oversaw the creation of Nashi, a
pro-Kremlin youth organization whose manifesto revealed its conspiratorial
worldview: “In the post-Soviet space, in the guise of slogans of democracy and
freedom, the West is playing a big geopolitical game, the aim of which is to push
Russia from world politics and introduce foreign management to Russia.”20 This
“counterrevolutionary” campaign continued through 2008, when Putin (tempo-
rarily) handed the presidency to his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev.
After one term out of office, Putin announced his intention to return to the
presidency, claiming that arrangement had been planned all along. Fraud in
the 2011 parliamentary election led to the largest anti-government protests
since the late Soviet period. With the legitimacy of his third term in question,
Putin sought to redefine his mandate by emphasizing conservative values and
demonizing groups that could be tarred as Western stooges: gays, liberals, and
regime critics, including the punk collective Pussy Riot. This new turn continued
through the Euromaidan protests in 2014. The annexation of Crimea and sup-
port for separatists in Ukraine, along with new forays abroad and interference in
the 2016 US election, arguably represented a new and more assertive version of
Putinism.21
A Putin Effect?
In order to disentangle the forces of history from the power of authoritarian per-
sonality when explaining conspiracy claims, I begin with the handover of power
and ask whether Putin brought a conspiratorial mindset into the government. If
there was a Putin effect, we should see a sharp break between the Yeltsin to Putin
eras. By contrast, if events caused Putin to alter his priorities, then we should see
more significant changes later in his presidency. Putin did not fully consolidate
power, arguably, until 2003, and the Kremlin did not begin to harshly criticize
the West until after Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Therefore, a fair test of
the effect of Putin’s entrance on the scene would be to compare conspiracy theo-
ries in the last five years of Yeltsin with the first five years of Putin.
A comparison of 1995–1999 and 2000–2004, shown in Table 5.2 and Figure
5.1, reveals that the average number of daily claims was somewhat higher in the
second (Putin-led) period (.71) than the first (Yeltsin-led) period (.58). This dif-
ference holds when examining the claims found only in the eight sources whose
coverage begins in 1992,22 showing an average of .29 before 2000 and .43 during
2000–2004, indicating a substantial rise in the second period. Zooming in fur-
ther reveals that most of these claims in both periods come from the Communist-
nationalist newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya. By contrast, official claimants invoked
more conspiracies under Yeltsin than under Putin. Television, used as a medium
for broadcasting the political interests of the stations’ owners in the 1990s, and,
Table 5.2 Conspiracy Claims by Source, Yeltsin to Putin
Average Daily Average Daily Percentage of

Russian Claims, Russian Claims, Total Russian
Period 1 Period 2 Claims
(1995–1999) (2000–2004) (1995–2014)
All sources .58 .71 44%

Eight continuous .29 .43 25%
sources
Sovetskaya Rossiya .15 .26 14%
Officials .15 .11 9%
Television .9 .8 6%
1.4
1.2
1.0
Claims per day
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
All sources Continuous sources

Sovetskaya rossiya Officials Television
Figure 5.1 Conspiracy claims by source, Yeltsin to Putin.
increasingly, the Kremlin’s after 2000, was equally the source of conspiracism
under either president.23
To understand what these figures mean, it is important to differentiate among
the targets of conspiracy claims. For example, it may be that most conspiracy the-
ories in the Yeltsin era were alleged against the government, whereas Putin’s gov-
ernment appropriated the rhetoric of the masses and turned it into propaganda
against its enemies. As Figure 5.2 shows, the identities of the alleged perpetrators
changed from the Yeltsin to Putin presidencies, though not as much as one
might expect. When examining perpetrators, we should take note not only of the
change from one period to the next, but also how the change differs from what
would be expected given the fact that Putin’s first five years saw 20% more con-
spiracy claims than Yeltsin’s last five years.
One immediately apparent result is that the change of presidents was per-
sonal: there were more accusations against Yeltsin than against Putin. Claims ac-
cusing other members of the executive and the siloviki decreased to a lesser extent,
while claims accusing foreign governments increased modestly—approximately
0.20
0.15
Claims
0.10
0.05
0.00
Pres
Foreigngov
Executive
Mil/spy
Collusive5th
Subversive5th
Unnamed
Ethnic5th
Other pol/party
Media
Oligarch
Perpetrator
1995–1999 2000–2004
Figure 5.2 Perpetrators named by Russians, five-year periods.
what would be expected assuming equal rises in all categories. Surprisingly, there
were more claims accusing “collusive” fifth columns (elements of the Russian
government secretly doing the bidding of a foreign power) under Putin than
under Yeltsin. Claims about non-regime (“other”) politicians or parties, in-
cluding the opposition, and about oligarchs, increased only modestly under
Putin. Both figures were lower than would be expected given the overall rise. The
most dramatic increases from period 1 to period 2 involved accusations about
the other categories of fifth columns. This includes subversive fifth columns: do-
mestic ideological foes supported by hostile outsiders. Likewise for ethnic fifth
columns, mostly involving North Caucasus militants purportedly receiving ex-
ternal support against the Russian state.
On the whole, these data show that Putin did not immediately launch a campaign
of conspiracy to accompany his new approach to governing. The increase from Yeltsin
to early Putin can be attributed entirely to more claims appearing in newspapers, and
not necessarily Kremlin-friendly ones. Despite a reduction in political competition,
the targets did not change substantially. Claims of foreign conspiracies, the hallmark
of Putin’s propaganda in recent years, did not increase as a proportion of all claims.
The only notable changes across the periods involved accusations involving presi-
dents (fewer) and fifth columns (more). Although the latter were disproportionately
found in nationalist editorials during these years, their appearance foreshadowed
narratives that the Kremlin would later embrace with enthusiasm.
An Autocracy Effect?
As we saw earlier, Russia under Putin became more authoritarian over the period
in question. Was conspiracy part of a bid to enable Putin’s power grab? If so, we
should see conspiracy claims increase under Putin (and Medvedev) as Russia is
judged to be more authoritarian. To check whether this was the case, Figure 5.3
compares the trend lines of regime quality against conspiracy claims made by
pro-Kremlin officials (see note 4 for coding) and on television. Regime scores
are measures of liberal democracy as assessed by V-Dem (0 to 1). Once television
came under the regime’s control, it was used as a platform to spread official prop-
aganda, so I included conspiracy claims on television not made by those officials
1.5
Claims per day
1.0
0.5
0.0
1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013
Year
Official CCs Regime score CCs on television
Figure 5.3 Democratic backsliding and conspiracy.

(so as to avoid double counting) as a separate line. The comparisons show no rela-
tionship. Regime scores gradually and consistently edge downward. Conspiracy
claims, while generally more frequent in the second half of the graph, tend to be
volatile, spiking or declining in particular years, whether endorsed by officials or
their proxies on television. Based on this comparison, authoritarianism did not
appear to feed conspiracism or vice versa.
Who Speaks for Russia?
If nationalist ideologues predated the Soviet collapse, how influential were they
in shaping official propaganda? Alternatively, to what extent did Putin’s centrali-
zation of power and control over the media co-opt the pundit class? To find out,
I compared what countries each contingent viewed as the perpetrators of con-
spiracy, and how that changed over time.
Figure 5.4 shows the national origins of perpetrators in Russian claims made
by pro-regime officials, and by ideologues, a category that includes editorialists/
polemicists and experts.24 Russians were more likely to accuse other Russians of
a conspiracy than any other nationality. The United States is second, and if com-
bined with the “West,” would surpass Russians. After a wide gap come Ukraine
and Georgia. Although officials and ideologues shared the same enemies, their
preferred targets diverged. Whereas ideologues delivered the brunt of the mes-
sage about distant actors—the United States and the West—official actors focused
disproportionately on Ukraine, Georgia, and the category of unnamed actors.
Nationalists were notoriously adversarial toward Yeltsin, but did they come
around to sharing Putin’s view of the world? In other words, did officials and
ideologues converge over time? Or did the two cohorts continue to divide the
labor of accusing near and far enemies? To check, I examined the relationship
between the two types of accusers over time as they targeted, first, the United
States/West, and second, Ukraine and Georgia.25
As shown in Figure 5.5, the two accusers closely mirror each other, rising and
falling together, until 2014, when ideologues rise far higher. Ideological accusers
made more claims about the West in every year but one (2009). The story is dif-
ferent when it comes to targeting the near abroad. As Figure 5.6 shows, there were
few claims about Ukraine or Georgia from either accuser until 2004. Starting in
2005, officials made equal or more claims than ideologues every year, with a no-
ticeable spike in 2008, when Georgia was declared a future NATO member and
Russia invaded. The only exception to this rule is 2014, when the ideological at-
tack dogs were unleashed on Ukraine during the Euromaidan events.
Together, these figures show two trends: first, the mainstreaming of
conspiracism, as officials over time became less reticent about articulating
100
Claims
50
0
Rus
US
West
Ukraine
Geo
Unnamed
Northcau
UK
Nonstate
Bel
Poland
Baltic
Jews
Location
Ideological Official
Figure 5.4 Official and ideological claims by target country.

1.5
Conspiracy claims per day
1.0
0.5
0.0
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Year
Official Ideological
Figure 5.5 Official and ideological claims about the West/United States by year.
conspiracies themselves; second, a division of labor: ideologues beat the drums

of resentment about the West from the 1990s through the 2010s on television,
in print media, and (later) on the Internet,26 while officials selectively adopted
but did not enthusiastically embrace their tropes. The Kremlin appeared to
be playing a double game. It challenged the West rhetorically through non-
conspiratorial speeches that plainly laid out its objections to Western (and spe-
cifically American) foreign policy.27 At the same time, it allowed or encouraged
ideologues to engage in a long-term effort to narrate Western plots against Russia
to shape public opinion. The government, meanwhile, specialized in promoting
conspiracism when the perpetrators lay in the near abroad, predominantly
1.0
0.8
Conspiracy claims per day
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Year
Official Ideological
Figure 5.6 Official and ideological claims about Ukraine and Georgia by year.
Georgia and Ukraine. The Kremlin’s responses to critical events at different

points in time show how these developments played out.
Conspiracism in Context
The 1996 Election
The 1996 presidential election was primed for conspiracy for two reasons: the
fierce competition between two candidates—Yeltsin and Communist Party leader
Zyuganov—in an election that seemed fated to decide the future of the country;
and intense palace intrigue among Yeltsin’s staff. An unhappy electorate deliv-
ered Yeltsin 35% of the first-round vote, just ahead of the 32% for Zyuganov.
That narrow margin came after a campaign in which Yeltsin used the full powers
of the presidency and hundreds of millions in oligarchic cash to raise his ap-
proval rating from single digits. Behind the scenes, power struggles were raging
in Yeltsin’s court like the proverbial bulldogs fighting under the carpet. A faction
led by Yeltsin’s security chief Alexander Korzhakov vied with a liberal team led by
reformer Anatoly Chubais to steer the direction of the campaign and elbow for
advantage after the election.
As discussed in Chapter 1, competition often drives contending players to lob
accusations to discredit rivals and preempt reputation-damaging allegations.
Impending elections only heighten the tensions. Another enabling factor, no-
table by comparison with Russia a decade later, was the visibility of court politics.
Independent television, journalists eager for scandal, and a public hungry for
news gave political players an incentive to advance their preferred narratives in
the press. Furthermore, the reality of high-level corruption and the blurred lines
between state and private actors meant that there was a baseline plausibility to
many unproven claims.
As the election approached, it was the supporting players rather than the
principals who made the most conspiracy claims. The campaign narratives of
the main contenders, Yeltsin and Zyuganov, were not conspiratorial. Zyuganov
criticized Yeltsin for his management of the economy and the disastrous war in
Chechnya, while Yeltsin warned of the dangers of a Communist victory: “Either
back, to revolutions and turmoil, or ahead, to stability and prosperity” may have
involved hyperbole, but it was well within the bounds of ordinary campaign
rhetoric.28
What made the 1996 election a prime object of conspiracism were Yeltsin’s
machinations to retain power and the actual conspiracies his aides engaged in.
Yeltsin had considered canceling the elections outright when it appeared he
would lose badly, but was talked out of it by his daughter and close advisors.29
Korzhakov, who had lost influence in Yeltsin’s inner circle, was believed to favor
canceling the election.30 Days before the first-round vote, bombs went off in a
metro station and on a public bus in Moscow, injuring dozens.31 Three days after
the election, the FSB arrested two members of Yeltsin’s campaign team as they
were leaving the Russian White House with $500,000 in cash to use as campaign
handouts.32 Recognizing the move as a power bid by his bodyguard, Yeltsin then
fired Korzhakov and two of his associates.
In the midst of actual conspiracies, supported by plentiful evidence, this
episode reveals the perceived benefits of going beyond what is known and
conjecturing conspiracy for political advantage. Several candidates capital-
ized on the unattributed bombings to attack their opponents. The Moscow
mayor’s office accused the opposition of carrying out the attack in order to
delay the election,33 while a candidate for deputy mayor, at a rally for the
national-patriotic bloc, blamed Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor of Moscow, and
called the explosion “another link in a chain of provocations intended to
disrupt the election, destabilize the situation in the country and, eventu-
ally, allow for a state of emergency to keep the current regime in power.”34
Zhirinovsky, also running for president, claimed it “had been engineered by
groups which doubted they could win the post of Russian president through
a free election.”35
After the conflict among Yeltsin’s advisors broke out into the open, broadcasts
on NTV, whose head was part of Yeltsin campaign team,36 claimed that the
“power ministries” were planning to “curb democracy and cancel the presiden-
tial elections,”37 while Chubais called it an “attempted coup.”38 An editorial in
the Communist newspaper Pravda struck back, accusing Chubais himself of
carrying out a coup.39 Zyuganov responded to the palace intrigue by focusing
attention on the dirty tricks Yeltsin’s team was implementing. He accused his op-
ponent of “trying to wreck the second round [of voting]”; “his helpers . . . are
today trying to manipulate public opinion and are again trying to get into gov-
ernment to finish Russia off altogether.”40
Another conspiratorial episode followed from a deal Yeltsin struck during the
campaign: the promotion of presidential candidate General Alexander Lebed to
the Security Council in exchange for his second-round support.41 Immediately
after taking office, Lebed claimed that the previous defense minister, Pavel
Grachev, who had long been a close Yeltsin ally, had planned a military coup
against Yeltsin.42 Sovetskaya Rossiya eloquently echoed the charge: “Lebed,
under the guise of opposition, demonstrated loyalty to Yeltsin, while Grachev
under the guise of loyalty to Yeltsin . . . wove an insidious opposition conspiracy
against him.”43
These claims came did not come out of the blue; they responded to real, vis-
ible manifestations of political turmoil. The use of conspiracy claims as polit-
ical cudgels is typical in competitive, weakly institutionalized, and, particularly,
polarized societies. Claimants rarely suffer reputational damage because their
words are not perceived to be beyond the bounds of ordinary political discourse,
as corruption, criminality, and dirty tricks are real and widely acknowledged.
These conditions obtained in Russia in the Yeltsin years, as they often do in hy-
brid regimes. But it was not Yeltsin who felt compelled to offer a conspiratorial
accounting. Rather, it was interested parties who believed they stood to gain
by pointing blame at their political rivals. Conspiracy was tactical and oppor-
tunistic. It was intended to gain momentary political advantage and served no
broader strategic purpose.
The Beslan Attack
The second relative peak of conspiracy claims took place under very different
circumstances. An attack on a primary school in the North Caucasus town of
Beslan in September 2004 led to the deaths of 334 children even as the second
Chechen war appeared to have been won. A constitution had been introduced in
Chechnya in 2003 establishing continued Russian rule over the republic. Putin
was re-elected in March 2004 and enjoyed high approval ratings.
Yet Putin faced two challenges that undercut his efforts to project a sense of
stability. First, even though the Russian army had imposed control in Chechnya,
it did so through a brutal and indiscriminate military campaign. The con-
flict spilled outside the republic when Chechen militants suddenly appeared
in Moscow in 2002 and took hundreds of theater goers hostage. Special forces
troops released poison gas that caused at least 170 deaths, a cavalier approach
to rescuing civilians the state was ostensibly trying to save. The tragedy hinted
at corruption at many levels and generated (muted) criticism toward the spe-
cial forces. In August 2004, two passenger airliners leaving Moscow exploded in
midair, killing 90 people. Two women from Chechnya, so-called black widows
whose husbands had been killed in fighting, were found to have been the suicide
bombers. Chechen terrorists were also implicated in carrying out explosions at
metro stations in Moscow in April and August of that year.
A second concern for the Kremlin related to the Rose Revolution in Georgia.
Putin was initially unperturbed by the change in power, having lost respect for
the now-deposed Shevardnadze. He initially treated Shevardnadze’s successor,
pro-Western, English-speaking Mikheil Saakashvili, as a potential partner.44 Yet
it did not take long for ideologues and some Kremlin advisors to reframe the Rose
Revolution in sinister terms. They portrayed it not as a failure of Shevardnadze’s
leadership—Putin’s original sentiment—but as a coup instigated by the United
States.45 To complicate matters further, throughout 2002 and into 2003, Russia
accused Georgia of sheltering Chechen militants in the Pankisi Gorge, from
where it claimed fighters could stage attacks in Russia.46 This concern roped
neighboring states into Russia’s framing of the Chechen conflict.
The Beslan attack occurred on the first day of school, September 1, 2004, when
several dozen masked men and two women wielding Kalashnikovs surrounded
a courtyard of over 1,000 schoolchildren and their families. They demanded
that Russia immediately withdraw troops from Chechnya and grant it indepen-
dence. News of the hostage crisis quickly spread. After two days and halfhearted
efforts at negotiations, Russian special forces launched a raid on the school. In
the ensuing firefight, which lasted 10 hours, 334 hostages were killed. The cha-
otic and tragic end to the siege—it was unclear how many did from the hands of
the terrorists versus the commandos—not only angered people who were able
to learn the details of the raid, but also revealed the corruption and rot within
the state.47 Political geographer Gearóid Ó Tuathail calls the denouement “a
public relations disaster for the Kremlin and one of the worst crises of Putin’s
presidency.”48
Putin gave a speech two days after the attacks that sought to demonstrate
both empathy and outrage. The climactic line in his speech posited a conspiracy,
seeing the events not as an outgrowth of the ongoing conflicts in the North
Caucasus, but as something more grave:
We showed weakness, and the weak are trampled upon. Some want to cut off a
juicy morsel from us while others are helping them. They are helping because
they believe that, as one of the world’s major nuclear powers, Russia is still
posing a threat to someone, and therefore this threat must be removed.49
This claim is noteworthy, first because it represented a fusion of two streams

of thought that had previously been expressed separately: the Chechen threat
to Russian sovereignty, and the geopolitical threat to Russia’s power. The allu-
sion to unnamed actors left some room for ambiguity, although the nuclear
reference suggested the West. The implication of a geopolitical motive behind
the attacks ironically occurred at a moment of alignment between the Putin
and the Bush administration on the threat of terrorism, in ways that make
claims of US support for militants in the region even less plausible than usual.
Yet it also came at a time of rising tension between the superpowers, provoked
by Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the US
invasion of Iraq.
A second notable element of the speech is that it reflected a scaling up of the
explanation of the attack. The fact that the Chechen conflict had metastasized,
despite the military’s indiscriminate tactics and Putin’s uncompromising rhet-
oric, was therefore a source of embarrassment and frustration to the Kremlin.
The speech heightened the sense that Russia’s challenges extended beyond the
bands of militants it had been battling, mostly successfully, since 1999. The invo-
cation of an international element made the threat appear more severe.50
Putin further elaborated on the challenge by way of a comparison to the dis-
puted territories of the region, touching on themes of sovereignty, borders, and
instability that had also continually plagued Russia:
If we allow ourselves to be blackmailed and if we give in to panic, we will

submerge millions of people into endless and bloody conflicts like those in
Karabakh, in the Dniester region, and other well-known tragedies we know
only too well.
One cannot fail to see the obvious. We are dealing here not just with separate
actions aimed at frightening us, not just with separate terrorist sorties.
We are dealing with direct intervention of international terrorism against
Russia, with a total, cruel and full-scale war in which our compatriots die again
and again.51
Other commentators echoed Putin’s insinuations, claiming to know of the

terrorists’ benefactors or leaving them unidentified and shadowy. FSB General
Aleksander Mikhailov argued that “we need to talk about the motives of the
puppeteers, those who conceived this attack.” Referring to smaller recent
attacks, he continued, “There is no doubt that all the terrorist actions of the
last two weeks [in the North Caucasus] against Russia were coordinated.”52 For
pro-Russian Chechen Duma member Aslambek Aslakhanov, the Beslan attack
was the product of “tremendous, titanic work, aimed at dismembering Russia.
These people have worked extremely hard, and the fact that funding comes from
[abroad], and that they are puppeteers—this is for sure.”53
Some made the vague claim of unnamed, but perhaps obvious, outside
sponsors. The vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems called
the attack “part of a ‘general’ plan aimed at weakening Russia’s position in the
North Caucasus and, ultimately, its expulsion from this region.”54 This view was
buttressed by other commentators, including Eurasianist philosopher Alexander
Dugin, who claimed that the goal of the attack was the “disruption of the emer-
ging Paris-Berlin-Moscow axis,” while the United States had to be responsible
because “the tasks are too large for Islamic ‘international terrorism.’ ”55 Leonid
Ivashev, the president of a Kremlin-affiliated think tank, posited that the United
States, the United Kingdom, and Israel had sponsored Chechen terrorists in
order to weaken Russia.56
On television, analysts implicated al-Qaeda, transnational corporations, and
the West. Media commentator Mikhail Leontyev linked Western meddling in
the North Caucasus with Western assistance to Saakashvili in Georgia, stating:
If we look at the logic, the consistency and the scale of planning involved in the
terror against Russia, neither the Maskhadovs nor the Basayevs of this world
could have masterminded it, to say nothing about paying for it, and neither
could al-Qaeda in an Afghan cave. If Basayev and Maskhadov can be treated in
line with al-Qaeda, then comrade Saakashvili is definitely a part of a different
agency. And this agency is located on the Potomac River, from which comrade
Saakashvili receives his daily instructions and is openly boastful about this.57
Beslan made a salient impression on Putin and his advisors in ways that pre-
vious events did not, for several reasons. First, an attack on a school, and the
deaths of hundreds of children on a celebratory day, was unusually shocking

and potentially politically damaging. Second, coming on the heels of other
attacks, and the Kremlin’s promises to protect the population from further ter-
rorism, Beslan exposed the regime’s weakness to a greater degree than if it had
been an isolated incident. Third, the location of the attack, bordering the dis-
puted Georgian region of South Ossetia, exposed the possibility of cross-border
support for militants and highlighted Russia’s seeming inability to defend its
sovereignty.
As a result of these factors, conspiracy became the dominant official narrative
about Beslan, in contrast to earlier events such as the sinking of the Kursk subma-
rine, the Moscow theater attack, or the Rose Revolution. Beslan’s weighted con-
spiracy score is second only to the 1996 election out of 28 events up to that point,
yet it is a relative molehill compared to the mountains that come after. While the
event came as a shock, it did not lead immediately to a campaign of sustained of-
fensive propaganda to impose the conspiratorial narrative. Less than a year after
Beslan, in April 2005, Putin gave one of his most memorable speeches, in which
he regretted the collapse of the Soviet Union as the “major geopolitical disaster
of the century.”58 Yet what is less remembered about this speech—which, in its
6,700 words includes no conspiracy claims—is that Putin mostly discussed mun-
dane and technical issues, including economic development, bureaucracy, and
property rights.59 This is a reminder that, even in a period of “high Putinism,”
conspiratorial rhetoric was not the only game in town.60
Unlike in other cases in which conspiracy was a dominant narrative, the in-
terpretation of Beslan was deliberately linked to a significant policy change. In
the immediate aftermath of the attacks, Putin called, cryptically, for unity, “a new
system for coordinating the forces and resources controlling the situation in the
North Caucasus,” and “an effective, crisis management system, including a fun-
damentally new approach to the actions of the law-enforcement agencies.” He
followed up with a series of proposals to centralize power that subsequently be-
came law: the elimination of elections for regional governors, the appointment of
administrators of seven newly created federal districts, and a change in the elec-
toral rules to further advantage the UR party.61 Claiming that Russia needed to
“build immunity” against “germs and viruses,”62 Putin used the Beslan attack as
the pretext, and the conspiracy narrative as the justification, for his crackdown.
In the months after Beslan, Russia faced a new crisis, this time in a neigh-
boring state. Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Leonid Kuchma, was leaving
office and an election would determine whether he would be replaced by his
designated successor Viktor Yanukovych or a reformer, Viktor Yushchenko.
Once relations soured with Saakashvili, the Kremlin began to view the Rose
Revolution as a transgression fundamentally detrimental to Russian interests.
Because Yushchenko and the democratic opposition to Kuchma enjoyed strong
Western backing, the Kremlin feared a replay of the Georgian events, but with
even greater geopolitical consequences. In anticipation of a competitive election,
Putin sent a team to assist Yanukovych’s campaign, crafting messages to appeal
to voters in Ukraine.63 Around this time, Gleb Pavlovsky, a leading advisor to
Putin, began to develop a network of intellectuals and journalists who would am-
plify the Kremlin’s message at home.64
To shape a narrative about Ukraine, editorialists and the usual conspiracists
Zhirinovsky, Zyuganov, and pundit Sergey Markov entered the fray in the lead-
up to the election, writing primarily for Russian audiences. They claimed nearly
in unison that US intelligence was supporting Yushchenko, paying activists to
protest, or planning to divide Ukraine along the lines of Yugoslavia. The disputed
election and mass protests supporting Yushchenko seemed to lend credence to
many of those theories. The ultimate defeat of the Kremlin’s candidate, despite
its massive effort to sway the election, was a major blow to Russia’s influence in
Ukraine.
Seeing protesters as a geopolitical tool, acting as the tip of the American
spear, dovetails with the other major narrative in circulation, that Caucasian
terrorists were being used as proxies to advance (Western) geopolitical goals.
The purported manipulation of peaceful protesters in Ukraine would not di-
rectly threaten Russian interests the same way that anti-state militancy would.
However, the importance of Ukraine to Russia for sentimental as well as strategic
reasons made Ukraine appear vulnerable to external manipulation. The logic of
the conspiracy was self-evident: if both the North Caucasus and Ukraine are cen-
tral to Russian national interests, then why wouldn’t Russia’s adversaries employ
underhanded means to advance their interests?
The Pension Reform Protests
The ink had barely dried on the Ukrainian election results when the Russian
government proposed replacing Soviet-era transportation and energy subsidies
with cash payments—a reform typical in post-communist economies eager to
reduce their budgetary liabilities. The proposal caused a backlash in which tens
of thousands of people mobilized in over a dozen cities to produce the largest
protests of the Putin era to that point. 65 The generation that had fought in the
Great Patriotic War stood to lose an important benefit, and were the first to pro-
test. They were soon joined by opposition parties, including the liberal Yabloko
and the Communists, and enjoyed the support of the Patriarch of the Orthodox
Church.66 Slogans and signs were not limited to economic issues, but included
anti-Putin sentiments as well.67 The Kremlin did not anticipate the magnitude
of opposition to what it considered minor reforms. Observing the scale and
durability of the protests, commentators compared them to the 1917 street mo-
bilization that led to the Russian Revolution.68
Because the protests took place on domestic soil and implicated Putin directly,
one might expect that the Kremlin would invoke conspiracy to distract from the
focus on the government and deflect blame. Yet this was not the case, as evidenced
by the low number of conspiracy claims and the government’s technocratic framing.
One Duma member from UR implicated the Communist Party in “directing” the
events, adding, “Cynically hiding behind populist slogans, they push the elderly, sick
people onto winter streets, in every possible way inflating and imitating the scale of
social discontent.”69 Another party member blamed those “who are actively trying
to use retirees as gunpowder for the ‘orange revolution’ in the Russian manner.”70
Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov said the protests were “probably provoked by other
political forces . . . that are trying to destabilize the situation in the country.”71
It is unclear how to interpret these claims in context. The fact that the four
claimants represented the ruling party or were Kremlin allies could suggest ei-
ther that they were tasked with suggesting conspiratorial interpretations as trial
balloons or were acting on their own initiative. The absence of conspiracy claims
from members of the executive branch or media commentators who usually am-
plify the Kremlin’s messages suggests that it did not seek to advance a conspira-
torial narrative. The contrast between the weighted score of the protests—among
the lowest of any events after 2004—and those that followed over the next few
years underlines how non-conspiratorial the Kremlin’s response was.
Why did it demur? Like all protests, there was a semblance of ambiguity about
their origins, but claims of outside interference were implausible—though that
did not deter the Kremlin at other times. Putin was never a fan of protests, and
they were not helpful in his efforts to create a façade of stability. Yet there was
also no question of sovereignty being under threat. The widespread participation
of ordinary people—pensioners who overwhelmingly supported Putin rather
than more skeptical liberals—evoked sympathy from Kremlin officials and
caused splits within UR.72 Because this event did not fit the mold of geopolitical
or militant threats that had animated regime discourse under Putin, invoking
conspiracy to implicate protesters might have backfired. Instead of launching
a campaign to discredit and demonize the protesters, Putin acknowledged the
legitimacy of their grievances and eventually acquiesced, by maintaining the
transport benefits and increasing pensions.73
Euromaidan
There was little doubt that the February 2014 events in Ukraine would take on
a conspiratorial hue in Russia. In 2004, Russia had been outmaneuvered by a
democratic backlash against corruption and outside interference. In 2014, Russia

risked “losing” Ukraine a second time, and possibly forever, if Yanukovych were
to sign a comprehensive economic agreement with the European Union. The
Kremlin offered Yanukovych a $15 million aid package to reject the agreement,
yet again found itself on the losing side after mass demonstrations thwarted
Russia’s will.
The Euromaidan protests were a conspiracy-worthy upheaval bringing to-
gether long-standing geopolitical conflict, revolutionary potential, and con-
tentious clashes between the Ukrainian authorities and opposition. More
importantly, the result—yet another triumph of grassroots protesters against an
ally of Russia—spurred a vehement response in the Kremlin: the dismantling
of Ukraine, a true violation of sovereignty accomplished through deception and
disinformation. A dominant narrative had taken root in the previous 10 years: the
West, and the United States in particular, were out to weaken Russia’s position in-
ternationally, deprive it of its prerogatives in the near abroad, and deny it the re-
spect it sought. Yet the events of 2014 appeared to trigger something new.74
Thematically, the conspiracy narrative about Ukraine built on the founda-
tion that was already in place. Only the volume of the barrage was novel, as con-
spiracy theories crowded out other messages that would usually emanate from
the Kremlin. According to the database, the two-week period surrounding the
change of government involved 76 event-related conspiracy claims—more
than two times the second highest-volume event. And this period represents
only a snapshot of the months-long episode stretching from the start of the
protests in November 2013 to the proxy war Russia waged in eastern Ukraine
beginning in March 2014. The sample of conspiracy claims does not include
the press conference in which Putin said, “Our major concern is the orgy of
nationalists, and extremists and anti-Semites on the streets of Kyiv.”75 Nor
does it capture the extensive disinformation campaign following the shooting
down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17). To be sure, Russians were used
to hearing and seeing conspiratorial propaganda. They had come to expect it,
enjoyed watching it (according to ratings), and possibly believed much of it.76
But the paroxysm of conspiracy was a development even Russia had not expe-
rienced in recent memory.
Although official and ideological actors promoted a common message, they
took distinct approaches to the search for a perpetrator: ideologues saw Western
powers as culpable twice as often as they accused Ukrainians, whereas govern-
ment officials implicated Ukraine nearly as often as they accused the West. What
was unusual was that officials made more than half as many claims as ideologues
did, as opposed to most previous cases, in which officials comprised 20%–30%.
To a greater degree than before, official actors embraced not only ideas once on
the fringes, but also the task of disseminating them.
There were three main themes about Euromaidan, which broadly correspond
to the past, present, and future: US/Western backing of a coup to overthrow the
legitimate Ukrainian government; a campaign of ethnic cleansing by Ukrainian
fascists against Russians in Ukraine; and Western plans to erase Russian influ-
ence in Ukraine, including its naval base in Sevastopol. Foreign Minister Lavrov
encapsulated some of these ideas:
At the same time, they [Western countries] persistently, consistently and

shamefully refused to make fundamental assessments of the actions of
extremists, including neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic manifestations, to which we have
repeatedly drawn their attention.77
Now compare Dugin:
The United States has embarked on establishing a nationalist fascist dictator-

ship in Ukraine. If this option does not work out, then the disintegration of
Ukraine will begin and draw in Russia. In the first case, the Black Sea Fleet is
demanded of us, in the second, we will be bogged down in Ukrainian chaos.”78
While Dugin’s rhetoric is more colorful, in essence he is making the same

claims and insinuations as Lavrov. The rationale of both speakers rests primarily
on the question of who benefits: the finger points at the West. Dugin also alludes
to a slightly different logic: who loses? As usual, the victim is Russia, which is
deprived not only of an ally but also of its geostrategic foothold in the Black Sea.
As for the claim that the protesters are Nazis, no evidence is brought to bear, but
in previous descriptions of the Euromaidan events, Russian officials pointed to
the role played by far-right parties such as Right Sector, which embraced fascist
symbols.79 This association, and its generalization to all the opposition, would
became an article of faith for the Euromaidan’s critics.
Another spate of conspiracy claims was tactical, dealing with the thrust and
parry of the contending sides of Ukraine’s extended melee. Russia’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs claimed that the United States and the European Union “turned
a blind eye to the aggressive actions of the activists, encouraging them to esca-
late and provoke against the legitimate authorities.”80 Zhirinovsky, true to form,
claimed that “foreigners” were planning to poison Yanukovych, and that “there
was a third force which sent snipers to kill both protesters and pro-government
forces, to lead towards a great war.81
Once the war got underway, propaganda on Russian television nourished
conspiracy theories with a healthy supply of disinformation. As one author
writes: “The Russian media did not just distort reality—they invented it, using
fake footage, doctoring quotes, using actors (sometimes the same actor would
impersonate both the victim and an aggressor on different channels).”82 The fre-
quency of claims on random dates throughout 2014, some of which deal with
the shooting down of MH17, confirms that this trend continued and was institu-
tionalized into offensive propaganda. According to one of many TV broadcasts
about the downed airliner (aired on August 1):
Russia’s Defense Ministry has analyzed the satellite images that were released
by Ukraine seeking to prove that rebels in the southeast of the country were
to blame for the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight crash. The images were fake as
they were taken days after the tragedy, the ministry concluded.83
Even the new heads of artificial states got into the action. A representative of the
so-called Donetsk People’s Republic claimed that the Ukrainian military was se-
cretly planning to fire missiles at chemical storage facilities to cause an “ecolog-
ical catastrophe” across the region.84
As the rest of the world tried to make sense of the conflict, the major thrust
of explanations for Russia’s overwhelmingly conspiratorial response had to do
with Putin himself. Julia Ioffe of the New Republic wrote that Putin had “lost it”
and Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post tweeted, “we may have reached the
weird moment when the dictator believes his own propaganda.”85 Putin during
this time may have been less reserved than usual in public. But the conspiracy
campaign that so befuddled observers might have less to do with Putin suffering
a psychotic episode than characteristics of the event and the cumulative weight
of Russian propaganda.
Despite the seemingly exceptional nature of the Russian response to
Euromaidan, we can still draw on insights about the logic of conspiracy in past
events. As with Beslan, the outbreak and outcome of the protests made a palpable
impression on observers in Moscow. The suddenness with which the protests
emerged and the complex mix of oppositional forces created ambiguity typical
of large protest events. Protesters employed both peaceful and violent tactics.
Western diplomats sometimes maintained a hands-off stance and at other times
provided more overt support to the opposition. In one incident that received sig-
nificant attention on Russian television, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria
Nuland was caught on a phone call discussing with the US ambassador which
opposition figures they planned to have appointed to new government posts. In
light of the immense geopolitical implications of the outcome, from Russia’s per-
spective the Euromaidan events cried out for an accounting commensurate with
the magnitude of the crisis.
The response to Euromaidan also cannot be understood without paying atten-
tion to what the Kremlin had learned when dealing with unexpected challenges
since Putin’s early years. As we saw, the Kremlin cultivated cynicism toward
matters of geopolitics and grassroots activism. The propaganda work conducted

over the previous decade yielded a readily accessible conspiratorial interpreta-
tion of anti-government protests, to be brandished by leaders who found them-
selves unexpectedly challenged in the street. Unlike previous instances in which
the Kremlin was caught off guard, by 2014 the groundwork had been laid in ad-
vance, and it could immediately go on the offensive.
An additional wrinkle not present in most earlier episodes was the ex-
ploitation of the conspiracy narrative as a springboard to take the initiative
militarily and not just rhetorically. Russia’s seizure of Crimea and its instiga-
tion of a proxy war in Ukraine followed logically from, and were enabled by,
the conspiracy claims disseminated piecemeal over the previous decade and
the agitprop pushed intensively over the previous month. The marshaling
of conspiracy narratives in service of revisionist foreign policy goals made
Russia’s relentless allegations of geopolitical machinations appear prophetic,
except for the fact that the aggressor in this instance was not the West, but
Russia.
Conclusion
This chapter has examined the evolution of conspiracy claims in Russia over
20 years. Although the Russian media were overtaken by conspiracy after
Euromaidan, the bigger picture indicates that official actors in the Putin era
were initially reluctant conspiracists. Putin’s justification to rule was premised
on restoring a semblance of stability after the tumultuous 1990s and rebuilding
the Russian state. Only when it appeared that fundamental threats to that nar-
rative would persist did the Kremlin adopt a strategy of sustained conspiracism
to proactively frame those threats. In doing so, it appeared to embrace the belief
that releasing a steady drumbeat of propaganda is more effective than asserting
claims intermittently, only after a demonstrable threat has emerged.86 Asserting
a conspiracy once the groundwork has been laid enables a regime to demonstrate
foresight and reinforce perceptions of strength, characteristics the Kremlin
sought to project during Euromaidan.
When considered alongside other post-Soviet states, Russia stands out for its
volume of conspiracy claims. Because we cannot rerun history, it is impossible
to know if sustained conspiracism was destined to emerge as a result of Russia’s
post-imperial hangover or ambivalent relations with the West. Or, whether a
different president might have reacted differently to events in the Caucasus and
the color revolutions. Or, for that matter, whether the government would have
taken a different approach to public discourse had Russia become a democracy.
The fact that Russia became less free as it embraced conspiracism—even if the
year-to-year changes do not correspond—may suggest that its primary function
in politics was to enable autocracy. Yet close examination of other post-Soviet
states shows that the connection between political domination and the official
endorsement of conspiracy claims may be illusory.
6
Shadowy Deeds in Russia’s Shadow
Conspiracy Claims in Four Countries
As 2004 came to a close, Askar Akaev was getting nervous. The president
of Kyrgyzstan, first elected in 1990, started out as a democrat. Uniquely
for a Central Asian head of state, he enthusiastically carried out economic
reforms, allowed an independent media to flourish, and made no attempts
to subdue the legislature. However, in recent years he had backtracked,
attacking political opponents and harassing critical media outlets. Perhaps
his greatest mistake, he now believed, was his embrace of the international
nongovernmental aid community. The danger of foreign NGOs had not been
obvious before, but they had recently been implicated in the revolution in
Georgia in 2003 and the mass protests then happening in Ukraine. As the
2005 parliamentary elections approached, Akaev began to regret allowing his
country to have among the highest concentrations of NGOs per capita in the
post-S oviet region.1
In an interview with a major Russian daily, Akaev warned that Kyrgyzstan
faced “new and growing trans-border threats,” which “represent a group of po-
litical and military-political threats, and these actually are a result of the merger
of internal and external threats.” In case he was not clear enough, he went on to
say, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, that the protests in Ukraine were “orchestrated in
the West” and that
the Kyrgyz opposition is funded by foreign capital and is using smear tactics. It
is therefore obvious . . . that the opposition in Kyrgyzstan intends to seize power
in the republic at any cost and is attempting to propagate democracy from out-
side. This is a harmful practice, it does not serve our national interests, and it
could have unforeseen consequences.2
Akaev was going on the offensive, at least rhetorically. By this time, as the
previous chapter showed, Russia had developed and spread the idea of exter-
nally sponsored revolutions as a pervasive threat. Akaev may have decided he
wanted to stay in power longer than his mandated term limits allowed, like his
Central Asian counterparts. But with a substantial opposition and the precedent
Shadowy Deeds in Russia’s Shadow 111
of grassroots challenges to leaders in other post-Soviet states, Akaev had limited

tools to prevent mass protests. By calling out an event that had not yet happened,
he perhaps hoped to prevent it. He did not name a specific villain, but connecting
the “opposition” with “foreign capital” and implying a link with Islamist threats
to the state, he could discredit his detractors and deter potential revolutionaries
from joining them.
Akaev’s predicament illustrates how political pluralism drives conspiracism. In
settings where there is genuine competition, incumbents may find their hold on
power threatened and struggle to deal with their problems discreetly, in contrast to
settings in which the goings-on in the palace are concealed from the public. It is the
plausible opportunities for opponents of the regime to bid for a share of power—
also present in Ukraine and Georgia—that made conspiracy a part of the political
conversation in Kyrgyzstan. By contrast, Belarus was a consolidated authoritarian
regime that effectively neutralized day-to-day political competition but left rulers
vulnerable to challenges that occasionally break through the veneer of control.
Only in rare cases did politicians in Belarus level conspiracy claims.
This chapter analyzes four countries—Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Ukraine, and
Belarus—to show how domestic competition and geopolitical alliances affect
conspiracy claims. After elaborating on mechanisms, it considers each case in
turn, making comparisons along the way. Unlike Russia, in none of these cases
was conspiracy invoked consistently for offensive purposes. Instead it came
about reactively and intermittently, though at moments of high intrigue or anx-
iety it could appear all-consuming.
All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic
Another distinction of Akaev’s claims from the time of the Tulip Revolution was
their striking similarity with verbiage coming from Russia. Despite the abun-
dance of Western NGOs, Kyrgyzstan has also been dependent on and closely
aligned with Russia for all of its brief independent history. By sitting for an in-
terview with a Russian reporter, Akaev was speaking to a Russian audience and
signaling solidarity with the Kremlin. Just as many of the conspiracy claims
from Russia narrated the West as the master perpetrator, so did many of those
from Russian allies Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, especially when the president faced
threats from below.
Conspiracy theories enable smaller countries to signal to larger ones (e.g., Russia)
that they are on the same geopolitical “team” by inveighing against common foreign
adversaries. Kyrgyzstan was consistently pro-Russian, as was Belarus. Georgia has
been predominantly pro-West but became explicitly antagonistic toward Russia
Table 6.1 Comparison of Cases
Competitive? Geopolitical Conspiracy Conspiracy Events in

Orientation Claims Claims Database
(Incidental/ (Event-
Random) Related)
Ukraine Yes Vacillating 137 68 2

Belarus No Pro-Russia 40 16 1
Georgia Yes Pro-West 98 5 2
Kyrgyzstan Yes Pro-Russia 53 40 3
after 2003.3 Alone among these cases, Ukraine remained internally divided about
which direction it should face. Its foreign orientation wavered depending on which
party controlled the executive branch: pro-Russia or neutral until 2004, pro-West
after 2004, and pro-Russia from 2010 until 2014.4 Most important, Georgia and
Ukraine were “front line” states in larger struggles between Russia and the West.5
The ongoing geopolitical intrigue involving these states provided fuel for claims
about external meddling and for allegations about the connivance of domestic
adversaries with outside actors, otherwise known as fifth columns. These nested
levels of conspiracism—Georgia and Ukraine punch up at Russia, while Russia
lashes out at the West—create a “Russian dolls” arrangement of accusations.
Table 6.1 depicts these cases by their level of competition and geopolitical
alignments, and shows the total number of conspiracy claims collected on each
in the database. Ukraine had by far the most, while Georgia and Kyrgyzstan saw
about half as many, and Belarus half as many again.
Figure 6.1 shows the frequency of conspiratorial perpetrators for the four
countries. For the most part, conspiracy claims by incumbent regimes targeted
domestic actors like opposition groups and members of parliament; they were
the primary focus in all but Georgia, where domestic claims were outpaced by
claims about Russia. Ukraine, due to its high overall volume but also its ambiv-
alent foreign policies, saw a decent number of claims about both Russia and the
West. Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, both closely tied to Russia, saw more claims about
the West than about Russia, but still far fewer than domestic claims. In short,
competitiveness and geopolitical alignments explain much about the volume
and content of conspiracism.
Kyrgyzstan: Conspiracies Close to Home
In Kyrgyzstan, politicians implicating the West around the 2005 election ini-
tially echoed the line being pushed Russian commentators. Akaev, after being
100
Conspiracy claims
50
Ukraine Belarus Georgia Kyrgyzstan

Country
Perpetrator
Domestic Russia
US/West Unnamed
Figure 6.1 Accused perpetrators by country.

deposed in the Tulip Revolution, claimed that “the intention of the opposition
was precisely that—to seize power, not just to organize peaceful rallies and
demonstration[s]‌the way it was done in Kiev and Tbilisi last year. I think they
had a plan to seize power from the start. Negotiation was not their objective.”6
Yet the broader interpretation of the Kyrgyz revolution and its aftermath did
not follow along simple geopolitical lines. Unlike states in Eastern Europe and
the Caucasus, Central Asia was not a site of major geopolitical tensions between
Russia and the West. There was no question of their joining the European Union
or NATO, and little risk of the superpowers coming to blows over minor events
in the region. This is why, outside of revolutionary moments, Kyrgyzstan was
preoccupied by matters closer to home. This focus became clear after Akaev de-
parted and parts of the country were temporarily outside of government control.
As organized crime figures filled the void left by the panicked police, officials
suggested that actors other than “the West” stood to gain.
A curious fact from Figure 6.1 is that a significant number of perpetrators in
Kyrgyzstan were unnamed. In fact, Kyrgyzstan had the second highest propor-
tion of claims using the keyword “third force” or leaving the origins of the per-
petrator unnamed. Akaev’s immediate successor, acting president Kurmanbek
Bakiev, claimed that “unidentified, organized forces” were deliberately fomenting
chaos,7 and the speaker of the Kyrgyz Legislative Assembly said, “There are
forces who are interested in the destabilization of the situation in the country.”8
This lack of specificity, coupled with the air of menace, is puzzling when the West
remained an available scapegoat. Officials may have left the culprit unnamed be-
cause it allowed audiences to project their own fears, or because they were preoc-
cupied with restoring order rather than maligning their enemies at that fraught
moment. The assertion of knowledge—about a concerted plan against the state,
conducted by unnamed actors—was a way to signal strength to the national au-
dience even while physical control was lacking.
In April 2010, when then president Bakiev was himself overthrown in
circumstances roughly similar to Akaev’s ouster, the dominant interpreta-
tion again did not take on a geopolitical cast, despite the country’s continuing
alignment with Russia. While members of Kyrgyzstan’s security forces and even
former president Akaev favored an anti-West narrative,9 Bakiev implicated
“snipers hired by the opposition” and criminal structures, muddying the wa-
ters.10 This lack of clarity, five years after the “color revolutions” had subsided,
carried over into claims about who might have been responsible for the ethnic
clashes that engulfed southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010. The interim govern-
ment, facing a general breakdown of order and the eruption of violence between
Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, eschewed conventional anti-West explanations that Russia
might endorse, in favor of a local claim: that disgraced former president Bakiev,
along with his brothers and sons (the Bakiev “clan”), lay behind it.11 Three
claims (additionally) named militants. When foreign countries were referenced,

Tajikistan made for a convenient patsy three times for providing mercenaries,
while Russia was implicated twice for deliberately stoking ethnic conflict as the
Soviet Union reputedly had done in its waning days.12 Yet, strikingly, given the
dominant tendency of states in the region, especially pro-Russian ones—no
commentator on the riots blamed the United States or the West. Instead, playing
on popular dislike for the previous regime, officials stuck to the unified theme
of blaming their predecessor and his corrupt family. This episode highlights the
limits of broader regional influences on conspiracy claims and the tendency for
local and more immediate tropes to flourish under crisis conditions.
Georgia: Geopolitical Realities and Fantasies
If domestic politics was the primary driver of conspiracy claims in Kyrgyzstan,

geopolitics loomed larger in another semi-democratic country: Georgia. Both
are small countries with state-building challenges and both experienced color
revolutions. But unlike Kyrgyzstan, events in Georgia were overlaid with global
implications owing to the ongoing confrontation between Russia and the West.
The reason is simple: Georgia sought to exit Russia’s sphere of influence while
Kyrgyzstan did not.
It was typical for post-Soviet states undergoing simultaneous political and ec-
onomic shocks to suffer various forms of social, political, or ethnic strife. But
the role of Russia in Georgia’s breakaway territories added another barrier to
consolidation. Russia militarily supported secessionist movements in Abkhazia
and South Ossetia beginning in 1988. Once these conflicts settled down in 1994,
the Georgian state had to be repaired, while Russia relaxed its involvement but
retained “peacekeepers” in the two regions. President Eduard Shevardnadze
had risen through the ranks of the Communist Party in the Soviet era and
served as Soviet foreign minister under Gorbachev, providing him with strong
connections to the Russian government as he focused his attention domestically.
Yet Russia continued to loom over Georgian politics. It could be invoked not
only on matters involving the breakaway territories, but also in Georgia’s tumul-
tuous and cutthroat domestic struggles.
Shevardnadze faced tremendous resistance in his efforts to bring to heel
militants and power brokers from Georgia’s early years of conflict.13 Facing
threats on multiple fronts, he demonstrated how leaders can use the specter of
geopolitical menace to signal the impression of control. In an annual address in
1999, Shevardnadze sought to account for three destabilizing events in the pre-
vious year: an assassination attempt, clashes in Abkhazia, and an attempted mili-
tary mutiny. According to a news report on Georgian television, he said:
Forces hostile to Georgia are continuing purposefully to implement their plan

to overthrow the current leadership of the country. . . . Despite attempts to de-
stabilize the situation in Georgia, neither domestic nor foreign enemies will
succeed in finding a platform among the multiethnic population of our country
and their efforts are doomed.
He closed by reassuring his audience, “Special departments for observing

constitutional order, fighting terrorism and carrying out military counterintel-
ligence work were set up at the Ministry of State Security in direct subordination
to the head of state.”14
In classic conspiratorial fashion, he elided details and expanded the scale of
these attacks. He conflated “the current leadership” with the Georgian state.
Notably, the speech alluded ambiguously to foreign enemies; many of the
“thieves-in-law” bedeviling the government had Russian origins or backing. Yet
the president refrained from naming the country, a prudent move when Russian
officials were also likely to be watching. Although his statement proposed a
policy response, the conspiracy claim did important work, preemptively ac-
counting for future instability and signaling that, despite his seeming weakness,
Shevardnadze was actually in a position of strength.
This example illustrates how Russia—or unnamed foreign actors who ema-
nate from Russia—could be implicated in Georgia’s domestic politics without
the need for evidence. The confluence of visible struggles and a plausible villain
just over the horizon—or border—gave Georgian conspiracy claims their reso-
nance. Alleging conspiracies involving Russia was a popular rhetorical weapon
for officials to gain domestic advantage by emphasizing their national security
credentials and to curry international sympathy. Despite Georgia’s pluralism, the
president and other executive actors, including security officials, made 54% of
its conspiracy claims, and Shevardnadze appears nine times—almost as many as
Belarus’s Lukashenko—despite being in power for only eight years covered in the
database.
Another line of conspiracism stemmed from Russia’s struggles with its own re-
bellion in Chechnya. The Chechen conflict was both a mirror image of Georgia’s
conflict with Abkhazia and proximate enough that the two conflicts could be-
come commingled. Just as Russia accused Georgia of aiding Chechen rebels,
Georgian officials accused Russia of exploiting instability in Chechnya to further
its designs on Georgia. Thus, in one shot, Shevardnadze both countered Russian
conspiracy claims and lobbed one of his own:
“If arms are supplied to Chechnya from Georgian territory, it is done from
Russian military bases over which Georgia still has no control,” Eduard
Shevardnadze said. He said that there were attempts by influential forces to pro-
voke war between Georgia and Chechnya.15
Other conspiracy claims in Georgia were purely domestic and typical of

the venomous politics of a weak democracy. In March 2000, less than a month
before a presidential election, a car carrying Jumber Patiashvili, a leading op-
position candidate for president, was involved in a crash that injured a pedes-
trian. This event, redolent with political implications, could not fail to produce
suspicions of a conspiracy in some quarters. In this case, theories circulated that
put Shevardnadze on the defensive, forcing him to refute two different claims, in-
cluding one that benefited him: “that the road accident had been provoked by his
leadership or that it had been ‘staged by Patiashvili’s supporters’ for the purposes
of political blackmail to discredit the leadership in the run-up to the election.”16
This was a rare case in which the president did not exploit a conspiracy claim for
electoral advantage but instead tried to debunk it. By also denying the accusation
that implicated himself, the result was a wash.
The common knowledge that Russia sought to keep Georgia in its sphere of
influence made it tempting for politicians to wax conspiratorial, especially when
they could ensnare their opponents. Whereas Shevardnadze implicated Russia
alone, his successor Mikheil Saakashvili combined an anti-Russian orientation
with ruthless political tactics in an effort to dismantle his domestic opposi-
tion. One pro-government member of parliament alleged that an oppositional
presidential hopeful was financing his campaign with “very dirty money from
[oligarchs] Patarkatsishvili, Berezovskiy, and many others like them, capital
accumulated only on blood, murders, robbery, and violence,” and was working
with “those forces that do not promise Georgia anything good.”17 Saakashvili
himself alleged that the Georgian opposition enjoyed Russian backing, adding,
“I have documentary proof of that, which I am not making public yet.”18 He
never made it public.
Two episodes indicate that rulers sometimes exercise discretion, eschewing
conspiracism even when the opportunity is available. The Rose Revolution,
which later resonated in the region as a suspiciously pro-Western development,
at the time struck most observers as a domestic affair. Shevardnadze, who had
survived several fraudulent elections, was expecting his party to perform well in
the parliamentary election of 2003 despite his unpopularity and a growing oppo-
sition movement. He did not anticipate being forced to resign. In the two weeks
surrounding his ouster, he remonstrated but did not allege a conspiracy. It was
only later, when Shevardnadze was joined by other embittered presidents ousted
in color revolutions, that the ex-president claimed to see a prominent American
hand in the events.19
The Georgia War was a conspiratorial non-starter for different reasons.

In 2008, in the midst of Russian conspiracy claims alleging American control
over Saakashvili and his purported efforts to provoke a conflict with South
Ossetia, Georgia did not reply in kind, producing only two claims (in compar-
ison to Russia’s 29) in the two weeks around August 8, the date of the invasion.
Saakashvili, unlike Shevardnadze, had a well-rehearsed arsenal of claims to de-
ploy about Russian machinations. But that preparation precluded the need for
conspiracy claims during the war itself: the relevant audiences already perceived
Russia as the aggressor and Georgia as the victim. Saakashvili took to the air-
waves to promote Georgia’s version of the conflict, but—even while exaggerating
and playing fast and loose with the truth—did not resort to conspiracy even
though Georgia’s supporters might have been receptive to more conspiratorial
interpretations.20 Far from challenging Saakashvili’s authority, the Russian in-
vasion appeared to vindicate his warnings. As a result, it led, at least initially, to
an outpouring of support by Georgians for the president. Only later, when new
accounts of the war placed greater blame on Georgia, did Georgian officials con-
tend that Russia had laid a trap by moving troops into South Ossetia to provoke
Georgia into attacking.21
In 2011, a new development in Georgian politics again combined foreign and
domestic factors: Bidzina Ivanishvili, a Georgian businessman and billionaire,
earned his fortune trading metals in Moscow, where he also went by the more
familiar Russian name of Boris. After keeping a low profile, in 2011 he created
a political party, Georgian Dream, which fielded candidates for the 2012 parlia-
mentary election. Despite the 2008 invasion, he promised a warmer relationship
with Russia. Given the known facts about Ivanishvili, he was an easy mark for
Saakashvili, who dutifully labeled him a “Kremlin project” and campaigned for
his party as a bulwark against Russian infiltration.22 In the end, Ivanishvili’s party
dominated, winning a majority of votes and 85 out of 115 parliamentary seats.
Ivanishvili later flipped the script by crafting conspiracy narratives about his
opponent. In the process, he demonstrated that conspiracism was a currency
of Georgian politics and not a quirk of one person or regime. As a candidate,
he had exploited Saakashvili’s unpopularity and reputation for public relations
stunts. After the “Lopota incident,” in which Georgian special forces launched a
raid on the Russian border that freed several hostages but led to 14 deaths,23 he
told a journalist that he believed the operation was “staged,” presumably to aid
Saakashvili in the upcoming election, but did not offer any evidence.24 After the
Georgian Dream gained power, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili capitalized on
the unpopularity of the former president, then serving as governor of Odessa in
Ukraine, asserting that “Saakashvili seeks to destabilize the situation in Georgia”
and “embroil the country in a military conflict with Russia.”25
Georgian conspiracy claims show remarkable continuity over 20 years, de-

spite the wild swings in political leadership. Two constants over this period are
competitive politics—including a strong opposition and independent media
sources—and tension with Russia. The former meant that incumbents would
have the motive to vilify their adversaries in search of electoral support. The
latter infused national security themes into allegations emerging from domestic
competition.
Ukraine: Swords and Shields Engaged
Ukraine shares some of Georgia’s dynamics: fraught geopolitical relationships,

competitive but murky politics, and— in 2014— contested territory. What
Ukraine lacked in actual conflict it more than compensated for in its cutthroat
domestic political scene. If Russian conspiracism under Putin served to consol-
idate the regime’s power over society on the pretext of defending against out-
side threats, Ukraine’s penchant for conspiracism emerged from its multiple
and shifting power centers: parties, regional factions, oligarchs, oligarch-owned
media, and assertive civil society. Conspiracy claims were democratized. If Putin
used conspiracy to deflect challenges to his claim to rule while remaining above
the fray, politicians in Ukraine’s raucous democracy were unable to escape the
fray. Unlike in Russia, no Ukrainian government made conspiracy claims a cen-
tral component of the its narrative. But leaders invoked conspiracy theories se-
lectively when political threats appeared. Second to Russia in the overall volume
of conspiracy claims, Ukraine represents an alternate reality of how conspiracies
might have been used in Russia had it remained competitive—emanating not
from the top but from all directions.
An additional factor fueling conspiracism in Ukraine is polarization.
Ukrainian politics is shaped by regional identities that correspond to the
nation’s historical subordination to empires of the west (Habsburg or Polish)
or east (Russia). In every election between 2000 and 2016, votes in presidential
elections split roughly along the same regional divides.26 Regional identities also
align with foreign policy orientation: the west is more likely to be pro-EU and
pro-NATO and the east and south lean pro-Russian and anti-NATO. These in-
ternal divisions leave the political system open to real or imagined outside in-
fluence. The previous chapter noted that Russian advisors were sent to support
Yanukovych’s campaign in 2004. Yet the United States and Europe have also pro-
vided over five billion dollars in aid to Ukraine since 1995.27 The documented
involvement of geopolitical players in Ukrainian politics, the willingness of
politicians to accept assistance from those states, and the high stakes of elections
in polarized conditions provide rich material for people to wonder whether there
are unseen influences on the political system and to speculate about who really
calls the shots.
Ukraine’s conspiracy claims involve both foreign powers—predominantly
Russia or the West—and domestic actors; sometimes they were commingled. The
combined impact of domestic and foreign claims in Ukraine shows up in spikes
around salient events, with the Orange Revolution of 2004 and Euromaidan of
2014 producing almost half of Ukraine’s total claims. Despite the passage of time,
the two events produced uncannily similar narratives about how the United
States or Russia exploits domestic actors to advance their interests.
For an illustration of how electoral motivations and geopolitics combine to
produce conspiracism, there is no better exemplar than Yulia Tymoshenko. One
of the few women in the post-Soviet region to become a major political actor,
Tymoshenko became wealthy from trading in natural gas in the 1990s and
entered politics in 1996. Her background in business, ties to Russia, and posi-
tion in or around power throughout her career place her at the intersection of
domestic and geopolitical intrigue. She or her party appeared 14 times in the
database: three as the accuser and 11 as the accused perpetrator (two of which by
Russians). These claims touch on many of the central issues that typify Ukrainian
politics, including geopolitical alignments, elections, corruption, spying, and en-
ergy trading.
Back in 2000, when she was vice premier under President Kuchma, Ukraine’s
deputy prosecutor-general implicated her in the payment of a three million dollar
bribe to the Russian defense minister. The allegation came at a time of rising
tensions in Kuchma’s inner circle, as Tymoshenko and her ally Prime Minister
Viktor Yushchenko were considering breaking from Kuchma and seeking better
relations with the West. Tymoshenko regarded the announcement by Kuchma’s
prosecutor’s office that she was wanted for questioning in Russia as “a crude prov-
ocation by the clans that control Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.” She went
on, “Those who ordered this filth actually lost their credibility and trust from the
public. They just spit on the authority of the Ukrainian state and turn to another
country asking for help in discrediting the Ukrainian authorities.”28
In 2007, after a parliamentary election in which Tymoshenko’s party
performed well and entered into the governing coalition under then president
Yushchenko, she was about to become prime minister. In a rhetorical continu-
ation of the campaign, her party claimed that (Yanukovych’s) Party of Regions
activists “are massively forging letters which say that the Yuliya Tymoshenko
Bloc bribed the electorate.” It continued to allege that the party
paid people to participate in street rallies, playing the role of so-called victims.
This aim of this “all-Ukrainian dictation” by Yanukovych goes beyond only
discrediting the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc. After shamefully losing the election,
they are looking for pretexts to not recognize the election results in order to
prevent the newly elected parliament from working.
The statement called it “sad” that “the Party of Regions starts its work in opposi-
tion with a dirty provocation and attempts to destabilize our country.”29
In 2010, shortly after Yanukovych won the presidency, he purged people loyal
to the opposition from the intelligence services. To rationalize the removal of
the intelligence chief of the previous president, a pro-government member of
parliament and former defense minister claimed that “Yulia Tymoshenko and
the other leaders of Maidan [Orange Revolution] were secretly meeting at the
military intelligence headquarters . . . in the autumn of 2004 to coordinate
their actions with the law-enforcement agencies.”30 It is not a coincidence that
Tymoshenko, of all the Orange activists, was named; she remained a major com-
petitor to Yanukovych.
Yanukovych later used the prerogatives of his office to charge Tymoshenko
with various financial crimes, for which she was convicted and sentenced to
seven years in prison. However, her case gained international attention as a po-
litical persecution. In 2011, an anonymous MP of Tymoshenko’s party offered a
conspiratorial take on the events:
If Yanukovych had simply forgotten about Tymoshenko, it would be very hard

for us. . . . Yes, when we watched our [approval] rating drop in the first months
after the election—it just was something! And now here’s this gift. Moreover,
I am sure that Tymoshenko wanted it too. She gritted her teeth: Why are they
taking so long, why aren’t they putting me in jail? Well, in general, a powerful
opposition must be created, it won’t come out of the blue, and you cannot think
of a better way than repression.31
One can surmise about the reporter’s motives, and whether the MP who claimed
Tymoshenko sought out prison to help her party was actually on her side, but
that kind of thinking would also be conspiratorial.
Another member of her party offered another angle on her arrest. He implied
that it was masterminded by Russia to prevent Ukraine from signing an im-
portant agreement with the European Union, an action that could not proceed
while the president’s rival languished in prison. He called the move a provoca-
tion: “This looks like a planned special operation, possibly of the special services
of a neighboring state.”32 He did not need to mention the name of that state.
Tymoshenko’s fate as the frequent object of conspiracy claims parallels that
of Ukraine as a whole. No doubt she was involved in shady business practices
and political gamesmanship, while also maintaining connections to Russia even
as she sought to move Ukraine toward the European Union. The opacity of her
political moves, the ambiguity of whom she was collaborating with, and un-
doubtedly her gender made her an object of fascination and intrigue. She could
variously serve as a symbol of corruption and a martyr. She exemplified how no-
holds-barred politics translates into conspiracy claims for tactical gain.
Political competition reaches a fever pitch in closely contested elections.
The previous chapter noted how seminal the Beslan attacks and the Orange
Revolution were in shaping Russia’s political discourse. Occurring in close suc-
cession at the end of 2004, they focused attention on threats to Russia’s sover-
eignty from within and without, and precipitated the embrace of a narrative
about Western infiltration through neighboring states. The 2004 presidential
election in Ukraine that presaged the Orange Revolution was of similar mag-
nitude for Ukraine, as it threatened to not only to restructure its ruling elite but
also to reorient its foreign policy. As a result, it attracted unusual attention and
heightened the sensitivity of commentators for anything amiss. In advance of the
election, opposition politician Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine coalition, in a
series of charges, accused the Yanukovych government of staging “acts of prov-
ocation,” plotting violence against the opposition, and using criminals to cause
instability as a pretext to declare an emergency and cancel the election. Kuchma’s
government in turn accused the opposition of being Western puppets, planning a
coup, plotting a revolution (before the protests had started), manipulating televi-
sion reporting, and staging a fake assassination attempt on Yushchenko in order
to implicate Yanukovych. Even before the vote, there were two parallel realities.
In another example of dueling conspiracy claims, an explosion at Kyiv’s
Troyeshchyna Market that killed one person and injured several others was im-
mediately deployed to further the interests of those both in and seeking power.
A Yushchenko advisor, in response to police reports that implicated members
of Yushchenko’s coalition, called the finding “a planned act of provocation and
a manipulation trick.”33 Three days later, Yushchenko asserted, “Of course, what
happened at the Troyeshchyna market was organized by the authorities. . . . Our
Ukraine has information about who ordered and executed this act.” According
to the article, “he also expressed hope that ‘in time’ this information will be
published and people will learn who among the authorities and at the Interior
Ministry organized and managed this, what score they were trying to settle,
whoever they were.”34 Both political factions turned the events to their advan-
tage, irrespective of facts. In an authoritarian regime, the government might have
ignored the explosion if it lacked obvious political benefits, or could have blamed
the opposition in wall-to-wall coverage. In a hybrid system like Ukraine’s, it in-
stead became weaponized and exploited by both sides. The opposition, especially
in the context of an election campaign, was able to punch back by implicating the
Kuchma-Yanukovych pairing, a claim that could resonate given the regime’s his-
tory of brutality and cover-ups.35
Another theme that runs across several presidential administrations is in-

trigue over Crimea. The autonomous peninsula, which had been transferred
from Russian to Ukrainian control under Khrushchev, was home to a Russian na-
tionalist movement in the early 1990s but then subsided. However, it retained the
potential to generate controversy and allegations of attempts to alter the status
quo. In 2007, the heads of the nationalist Crimean organization Nashe Pravo
claimed that President Yushchenko, in concert with the Crimean Tatar mejlis,
would “try to destabilize the situation and ultimately deprive the Ukrainian gov-
ernment of power and authority.”36 And in a prescient claim that came two years
too soon, Mustafa Dzhemilev, the head of the Crimean Tatar community, said
that Russian special services planned to engineer its separation from Ukraine.
A pro-Ukrainian nationalist group supported him, claiming the existence of an
“extensive network of agents who control the activities of the majority of Russian
chauvinistic parties of the peninsula and do everything possible to incite ethnic
and religious hatred.”37
Intrigue and prospects for further machinations resulted when an increasingly
corrupt Yanukovych consolidated power and repressed civil society while the op-
position sought to shape the agenda in advance of the next election. Perceptions
of conspiratorial actions by the other side may have been self-fulfilling, as each
side sought to counter perceived conspiracies by engaging in their own conspira-
cies. In retrospect, this escalating mutual distrust may have laid the groundwork
for the clash over the European free trade agreement.
As in other cases, conspiracy claims during the 2010s often came in opposing
pairs. For example, Yanukovych claimed, without naming the perpetrator, that
“there are calls for a revolution, purchase of weapons in the country, and the prep-
aration of armed attacks on authorities.”38 Opposition MP Arseniy Yatsenyuk
responded in kind, saying that Yanukovych’s declaration about armed attacks
suggested that the authorities were planning to “tighten the screws” according to
the “Belarusian scenario” and warned of a Stalinesque “doctor’s plot.”39
Finally, the Euromaidan protests combined high-stakes intrigue with major
geopolitical implications. Clashing political coalitions promoted conspiracy
claims that mirrored each other, but the content depended on who was playing
offense or defense. The opposition alleged conspiracies of a primarily tactical
nature, aiming to attract supporters by focusing anger at Yanukovych and his
Russian backers. It claimed the government was contriving “provocations”—in
this case provoking clashes that could be used as a pretext to crack down—and in
some cases, taking orders directly from the Kremlin rather than responding on
its own initiative.
Figure 6.2 visually depicts the different approaches taken by the government
and the opposition. It shows claims implicating either domestic or foreign actors,
or the two working in concert: subversive fifth columns of regime opponents and
20
15
Claims
10
Government Opposition
Accuser
Perpetrator
Ukrainians alone Subversion
Foreign powers alone Collusion
Figure 6.2 Accuser-perpetrator combinations in Euromaidan.
their Western backers, or collusive fifth columns of the Ukrainian government

doing Russia’s bidding. The opposition made more conspiracy claims against
the government (“Ukrainians alone”) than about geopolitical meddling, fo-
cusing on Yanukovych’s manipulative tactics. For example, a spokesperson for
the UDAR party, which was involved in the protests, said that Yanukovych “de-
liberately staged a provocation and shed blood” on Maidan to avoid engaging in
peace talks.40 Three leaders of the opposition said that attacks on protesters in
the Maidan during a visit by ministers of foreign affairs of EU countries were a
“planned provocation” by the government intended to cause violence during the
truce and discredit the opposition.41
By contrast, a higher proportion of the government’s claims placed the
protests in a broader geopolitical frame while few of its accusations implicated
Ukrainians alone. One narrative echoed claims coming from Russia, alluding
to the malign characteristics of the opposition. According to the government,
the protesters were supported by an unholy (and widely touted) alliance of the
CIA, US and EU diplomats, and Ukrainian “fascists.” A second set of claims cen-
tered on the clashes in the Maidan and speculated that the unexpected, confron-
tational turn of events was pre-planned, foreign-sponsored, and deliberately
Table 6.2 Claims of Unnamed Perpetrators on February 21, 2014
Speaker Title Claim
Vitaliy Zakharchenko Ukraine’s minister of There are puppeteers in

Internal Affairs Ukraine that act according
to the scenarios of Syria,
Egypt, and other countries
that have been thrown into
chaos.
Alexander Skipalsky Former head of the Main There is a third force that
Intelligence Directorate provokes both sides on
Maidan, the representatives
of which shoot protesters.
Andriy Klyuyev Head of the presidential There are provocateurs in
administration in Ukraine Ukraine who do not profit
from peace in the country,
and whenever things
begin to calm down, they
organize provocations and
confrontations.
provocative. Some of the government’s claims posited collaboration between the

opposition and its external supporters: subversive fifth columns. The govern-
ment also made numerous claims in which the origins of the perpetrators were
unnamed, again demonstrating the rearguard posture of incumbents who have
visibly lost control.
The highest volume of regime claims of conspiracy with unknown prov-
enance occurred on February 21, when a tentative deal was signed between
Yanukovych and the opposition, the day after the massacre of protesters.
These claims, though unlikely to be persuasive to observers who did not al-
ready believe government propaganda, represented a last-ditch attempt by the
president’s team to signal their power by demonstrating their knowledge of
massive and frightening, if implausible, plots. Needless to say, their efforts were
in vain, as the deal collapsed and Yanukovych fled the next day. Table 6.2 shows
how pro-government actors sought to account for the massacre as their power
seeped away.
Belarus: The Façade of Stability
If Ukraine and Georgia demonstrated the convergence of numerous strands of

intrigue, Belarus shows what happens when control is tight and geopolitics is not
salient. Outwardly, all is dull, as dictators prefer it. Intrigue is kept discreetly be-
hind the scenes—until it suddenly bursts into the open.
Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, did not face serious political op-
position from the time he consolidated power in 1994 until 2020, which is out-
side of the timeframe covered by the database. Yet there was always a small, brave
contingent of politicians who were willing to openly flout his rule, including by
running against him. The second-highest yearly total of conspiracy claims took
place in 2001, an otherwise uneventful year in which a presidential election took
place. Although Lukashenko (supposedly) won 75% of the vote in an election
he was never likely to lose,42 the government carried out a concerted campaign
to preemptively discredit the opposition. The government claimed a conspiracy
by the West, foreshadowing the counterrevolutionary rhetoric that would res-
onate in the Kremlin and among other incumbents targeted by mass protests.
Lukashenko’s conspiratorial interpretation was influenced by the shock of the
revolution that had deposed Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic the year be-
fore and news about an infusion of cash from the United States to the Belorussian
opposition.43
Around the election, Lukashenko twice accused the West of plotting to un-
dermine him, while demonstrating his purported knowledge of the opposition’s
actions and intentions.
Western emissaries rushed to Belarus, bringing in equipment and money. The

aim was to undermine the situation, to split society, to sow hatred between
people on religious, ethnic or ideological grounds, and finally to destroy our
state sovereignty. These are all techniques of controlled crises, the scenarios of
which are worked out by Western special services, while the opposition is a bar-
gaining chip in their plans.44
In an indication that this statement was part of a larger campaign, an “open

letter to the people of Belarus” was published in the Russian nationalist news-
paper Sovetskaya Rossiya, authored by a group called “The Movement to Stop
NATO.” It claimed that the United States and NATO intended to carry out the
“Yugoslavia option” by supporting the opposition to overthrow Lukashenko.45
A similarly vehement reaction to an electoral challenge occurred in 2006.
Lukashenko faced the greatest threat to his presidency in the form of Alexander
Milinkievich, an experienced politician who enjoyed the support of the uni-
fied opposition. Prior to the March 19 election, Lukashenko and proxies, in-
cluding KGB46 head Stepan Sukhorenko, preemptively unleashed a barrage
of conspiracy claims, seeking to head off mass protests or at least reduce their
impact. The opposition—this time well prepared and organized—was impli-
cated alone or as a pro-West fifth column eight times. The classic trope of a false
flag attack appeared on state television: protestors were planning the “prov-
ocation” of purposely killing some protestors and blaming the authorities.47
Another Lukashenko claim implicated the United States but also indicated that
Georgians (the mere mention of which was sure to strike fear in the hearts of pa-
triotic Belarusians) were arriving on American money to incite anti-government
protests.48 The Russian press service TASS quoted Sukhorenko saying, “the op-
position intends to use explosive devices, commit arson, to ‘sow fear and con-
fusion’ with Georgian help” (quotations in the original).49 The allegation of
planned violence usefully transformed an anti-Lukashenko action into an attack
on the nation itself.
The use of anti-Western tropes in Belarus calls to mind Kyrgyzstan and its
mostly monogamous relationship with Russia. But if Kyrgyzstan and Belarus
shared a geopolitical orientation, their domestic political circumstances were
sufficiently different so as to produce drastically different outcomes in the fre-
quency and content of conspiracy theories. Whereas Kyrgyzstan’s politics
allowed dirty laundry to air, in Belarus commentary was restricted to the regime
elites who also controlled the media. Yet, as Figure 6.3 shows, in Kyrgyzstan not
only were there more non-official commentators, such as editorials and NGOs,
but its presidents made an equivalent number of claims as Lukashenko and it saw
more claims by other government officials than Belarus did. The difference owes
to the fact that in Kyrgyzstan the authorities faced more criticism from below, in-
cluding conspiracy accusations. These constant pressures created the impetus to
respond in kind. Belarusian officials were not shy about using conspiracy when
10.0
7.5
Claims
5.0
2.5
0.0
Editorial President Other gov Mil/spy Non-ruling pol Intellectual NGO/activist Legislator
Accuser
Belarus Kyrgyzstan
Figure 6.3 Conspiracy claims in the pro-Russian states.

necessary but, thanks to the repressive structure of the regime and limitations on
political competition, they were otherwise able to remain aloof from the sordid
clashes of the political world.
Outside of election-related conspiracy claims, Belarus is eerily quiet; four
claims expressed solidarity with Russia and Yanukovych during Ukraine’s
Euromaidan, but there were one or no claims in most remaining years.
Lukashenko may have felt insecure at times, but he did not adopt the Kremlin’s
strategy of releasing a steady drumbeat of anti-West diatribes, nor did he lay the
groundwork for invoking conspiracy during inevitable future crises. Instead,
threat-related claims came without preparation, suggesting that the regime was
complacent, assumed anti-West claims would be self-evidently plausible, or
simply did not care whether they were believed or not. The fact of claiming—
signaling to the citizenry that everything could be accounted for and was there-
fore under control—could suffice. Tight security, economic control, Russian
patronage, and ordinary pro-government propaganda were the main guarantors
of regime stability.
Conclusion
Conspiracy claims in post-Soviet politics are not unusual, but neither do they
usually dominate political rhetoric. Several points stand out from these four
countries. First, fierce competition for power, coupled with space for elements
outside the regime to assert themselves, provided the means and the motive for
conspiracism. Where citizens still play a role in choosing their leaders, opponents
can be discredited by association with a conspiracy, while claimants can benefit
in several ways: as the victim, therefore deserving of sympathy; as competent, as
demonstrated by identifying the conspiracy and naming the plotters; and as less
abhorrent than the implicated perpetrators. In a dynamic familiar to polarized
democracies in recent years, when both parties accuse each other, they drag one
another down and hope to remain the last candidate standing.50
Second, events matter. In both competitive and non-competitive regimes,
moments that visibly disrupt the status quo, such as mass protests or violence,
put incumbents on the spot and call out for an explanation. In some cases, a
straightforward account of what is happening might prove sufficiently persua-
sive, as with Georgia during the 2008 war. In other cases, such as the ethnic
clashes in Kyrgyzstan, beleaguered officials claimed a conspiracy but made no
pretense of identifying the actor responsible, a puzzling outcome unless seen in
the context of sheer panic. Without recourse to a well-developed narrative to
which a claim could be attached, shouting into the void was still seen as a way to
assert an impression of control where it was patently eroding.
Third, geopolitics and domestic politics interact in different ways. Ukraine

and Kyrgyzstan saw conspiracism result from cutthroat domestic politics, while
Georgia’s struggles over sovereignty led to a greater number of Russia-centric
conspiracy claims. But in all three cases, domestic competition provided the
opening, while the prospect of foreign manipulation was a bonus: an albatross
to hang around a political adversary’s neck. Previous work tends to conceive
domestic and foreign threats distinctly or as substitutes.51 Yet the impetus to
geopoliticize domestic politics comes naturally in the shadow of great powers
and as a consequence of unstable political coalitions.52
The post-Soviet region also demonstrates how news and narratives spread
across national borders. As Chapter 5 showed, Russian commentators were fre-
quently fixated on action in the near abroad, mostly for the benefit of their own
constituents. This chapter has demonstrated that the dynamic was reciprocal, as
conspiracists, especially in Georgia and Ukraine, freely invoked Russia in their
political disputes. And just as Russian officials assimilated the claims of nation-
alist polemicists in the early 2000s, insecure incumbents in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan,
and Ukraine readily borrowed Russian tropes of NATO aggression and Soros-
backed NGOs as a way to demonize the opposition and signal fidelity to Russia.
Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus highlight how conspiracy claims
emerge from the real preoccupations of incumbent regimes. Insofar as conspir-
atorial rhetoric materializes from bad news that cannot be concealed, it is a sign
of pluralism and an indicator of barriers to dictatorship, albeit in a setting where
truthfulness is not the highest virtue. While citizens of Ukraine, Georgia, and
Kyrgyzstan may justifiably recoil at the internecine personal attacks that exem-
plify their politics, they at least live in political systems in which power is con-
sistently openly fought over, unlike in Belarus, or for that matter Azerbaijan or
Uzbekistan.
When we consider the four countries in this chapter alongside Russia,
contrasts emerge. Despite having self-interested politicians and cynical citizens,
none of the countries analyzed above produced a conspiratorial demagogue.
Although Ukraine saw a large number of claims, conspiracism never became
the sole province of the party in power. Russia alone combined the high volume
typical of competitive conspiracism and the pro-regime thrust of sporadic of-
ficial conspiracism. Russian elites may have been suspicious of the outside
world from the start, but the Kremlin adopted sustained official conspiracism
only after competition in the Yeltsin years, an emphasis on restoring order in
the early Putin years, a series of threats to sovereignty and stability, and inten-
sified geopolitical confrontation. Once Russia’s counterrevolutionary narrative
took hold, it became difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. Given that se-
quence of events, it is conceivable that other non-democratic regimes might turn
to sustained conspiracism in similar fashion. Few observers would doubt that
presidents such as Aliev or Rahmon and their proxies are capable of such a move.
It may take the right combination of factors—a threat that is severe and sustained
but not powerful enough to topple the regime—to materialize, a turn of events
that may apply to Belarus in 2020, which I discuss in Chapter 9. Nevertheless, in
light of the Russian example, the conspiratorial reticence of the region’s leaders
remains conspicuous.
To this point, this book has done three things: First, it has provided a descrip-
tive overview of post-Soviet conspiracy theories. Second, it tested hypotheses
about the origins and spread of conspiracy theories by examining the data. Third,
it examined in depth how conspiracy claims are used in several countries. This
and the previous chapter highlighted the political context at important junctures
and narrated events to show how conspiracy claims emerge. Together, these
chapters have shed light on the causes of conspiracy claims.
At this point, having established the conditions in which public officials are
most likely to make conspiracy claims, this study turns to the question of their
effects. Politicians who use conspiracy claims presumably intend for them to
serve an advantageous purpose, yet they cannot be certain what messages reso-
nate with which audiences. The short-term consequences of conspiracism for the
claimant, and its long-term impact on democracy and governance, depend on
how people on the receiving end think and behave. The next two chapters there-
fore shift the focus by examining conspiracism from the perspective of ordinary
citizens.
7
The Consequences of Conspiracism
What People Believe and Why
To this point, we have seen how conspiracy claims are put to use in sustained
propaganda campaigns or are vocalized sparingly to fend off occasional threats.
In either instance, claimants clearly assume that their rhetoric will be effective
in shaping opinions and otherwise boosting their political fortunes. It might be
tempting to leave the inquiry there and give them the benefit of the doubt. And
yet, there is no guarantee that conspiracy claims will have their intended effects.
Even if people are predisposed to believe certain conspiracy theories, they may
be ambivalent about embracing the rhetoric of politicians they do not consider
trustworthy.
As such, there is no reason to assume that invoking conspiracies neces-
sarily serves the political interests of the claimant. As mentioned in Chapter 1,
politicians may have good reasons to avoid excessive conspiracism, including to
forestall doubts about their popularity and to preserve credibility. If conspiracy
claims in fact are not very effective, or are useful only under certain specified
conditions, then this might suggest the wisdom of reticence; politicians may
intuitively understand their drawbacks. This chapter therefore asks, if public
officials resort to conspiracism to discredit their enemies, account for unex-
pected events, and/or preemptively defend themselves from future challenges,
what are the effects?
I assess the effects of conspiracy claims by posing several related questions,
which I test using original surveys of Georgia and Kazakhstan. First, what con-
spiracy theories do people subscribe to? Second, because both countries lie
within Russia’s orbit, to what degree are beliefs influenced by people’s exposure to
Russia and its media?
Third, do conspiracy claims “work” for their purveyors? Simply measuring
what people believe does not reveal how they respond to conspiracy claims when
they are used as political rhetoric. In fact, it may be that politicians simply echo
what they assume the masses already believe. To sort through these possibilities,
I employ a survey experiment to ascertain what factors make conspiracy claims
more believable, and how people perceive those who endorse them.
Finally, I return to a question that gets asked less often than the question of why
people believe: Does belief in conspiracy theories matter? More concretely, how
does it relate to civic and political engagement? I break this question down into
whether conspiracy belief is associated with pro-social attitudes and behaviors
such as social capital, community participation, and ethnic tolerance; and polit-
ical behaviors such as engaging in political discussion and voting.
I explore these questions within the theoretical framework laid out earlier,
highlighting the effects of political competition and geopolitical alignments. In
particular, people’s exposure to greater or lesser amounts of intrigue and polit-
ical dirty laundry may determine their openness to conspiracism. Additionally,
foreign alignments in the post-Soviet region should be a useful indicator of what
types of claims people deem plausible.
The analysis shows that most people are willing to give conspiracy theories
the benefit of the doubt, with Georgians being more conspiratorial overall. Yet
politicians who promote conspiracy theories are not automatically believed or
rewarded politically. In an ironic twist, the success of conspiracy mongers in
winning popular support is limited by the very cynicism that conspiracy theo-
ries produce in the first place. Where politics is disdained, people view the claims
of public officials with extreme skepticism. Finally, conspiracy believers are dif-
ferent from the less conspiratorial, as they are more alienated from politics but
more socially engaged. Overall, the evidence suggests that propagandists have
their work cut out for them: audiences who are predisposed to find a conspiracy
claim plausible do not necessarily reward the messenger for sharing it.
A Practical Pairing: Georgia and Kazakhstan
As I argued in the Introduction, the former Soviet Union can be thought of as

a political laboratory. Among the 15 successor republics, the three Baltic states
became outright democracies while the rest were strongly authoritarian, semi-
democratic, or somewhere in between. After 1991, some countries developed
strong ties to Russia, some rejected it entirely, and others were internally di-
vided about their foreign orientation. Georgia and Kazakhstan, while not
powerful or geopolitically pivotal, represent distinct points on two important
dimensions: type of regime and geopolitical alignment. Georgia, as discussed in
the previous chapter, is a weak democracy, with efforts to strengthen the state
coming at the expense of political freedoms.
Kazakhstan has had a less tumultuous and, on the surface, less eventful po-
litical trajectory. Nursultan Nazarbaev was the republic’s Communist Party first
secretary in 1989 and smoothly rook the reins of power when Kazakhstan gained
independence. Although he faced early democratic opposition, by 1995 he had
brought the legislature, courts, media, and civil society under his effective con-
trol. He remained president until voluntarily stepping down in 2019. Along the
The Consequences of Conspiracism 133
way, Kazakhstan developed its energy industry to become the wealthiest country
in Central Asia—overall and per capita—and a player on the international stage.
It served as a go-between for Russia and the West for summits on the war in
Syria, and was the runner-up for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Yet there was intrigue worthy of Machiavelli’s Florence lurking under a placid
surface. Kazakhstan was ruled by a constellation of political “clans” involving
Nazarbaev’s family, close associates, and various wealthy business magnates.
Members of his extended family personally owned or administered large media
holdings, banks, and shares of the national oil and gas industries. Nazarbaev had
a falling-out with his son-in-law and leading candidate to succeed him and sent
him into exile in Austria, where he later committed suicide. Other cracks in the
façade of regime stability include the assassination of a high-ranking former gov-
ernment official-turned-opposition leader, the exile and prosecution in absentia
of a banking tycoon and former regime insider, and the death of several inde-
pendent journalists.1 Additionally, while Kazakhstan rode out the period of color
revolutions without incident, there was a major demonstration by oil workers
in 2011, to which security forces responded by killing 14 protesters. This event
was a rare episode tarring Kazakhstan’s otherwise benign international image.
In 2016, several additional developments belied the impression of stability, in-
cluding a mass protest against a law that would allow China to lease Kazakh land
for 25 years and an attack on police officers in the largest city, Almaty, that left
10 dead. These incidents occurred as speculation intensified about Nazarbaev’s
succession plans. He voluntarily stepped down in 2019 and was replaced by a
loyalist, while still remaining powerful behind the scenes.
When it comes to conspiracy theories, another important feature of states
is their geopolitical orientation. The ways a country defines itself in relation to
other countries—in this case, Russia or the West—is usually a product of history
and is often intertwined with the identities of the citizenry.2 On the issue of geo-
political alignment, Georgia and Kazakhstan are sufficiently distinct that simply
living in a country can shape the types of claims people find believable.
Georgia’s anti-Russian orientation goes back to at least the Soviet period.
Georgia was one of the few republics to see widespread protests against Moscow
before perestroika: in 1956 during de-Stalinization and in 1978 to defend the
Georgian language. A significant event shaping Georgians’ attitudes toward
Russia took place on April 9, 1989, when Soviet troops opened fire on a large
group of pro-democracy and pro-independence demonstrators, killing 21. The
backlash was intense, and Georgia became the fifth republic to declare indepen-
dence from the Soviet Union.3 Moscow also backed autonomy movements of
Ossetians and Abkhazians within Georgia, contributing to the wars of secession
that lasted into the 1990s. Although Shevardnadze was a product of the Soviet
system, he reflected popular opinion in trying to resist Russia’s gravitational
pull and sought membership for Georgia in NATO. After the Rose Revolution,
President Saakashvili sharply moved Georgia’s foreign policy toward the West,
befriending president George W. Bush and becoming a darling of the US for-
eign policy establishment.4 American support for Georgian NATO accession
contributed to Russia’s invasion of 2008. Subsequently, disenchantment with
Saakashvili’s rule and style led to an overwhelming victory for Georgian Dream,
which advocated closer ties with Russia. Yet the desire for greater integration
with NATO and the European Union remained government policy. Indicative
of Georgia’s Western turn, while most Georgians, especially urban ones, still
speak Russian, it is less spoken by those born after 1991 and is increasingly being
supplanted by English as a second language.5
Kazakhstan is more closely bound with Russia thanks to history and geog-
raphy. Unlike Georgia, Kazakhstan had no history of statehood prior to Soviet
rule. Although Kazakhstan saw some of the earliest protests during perestroika,
Kazakhstanis voted overwhelmingly to stay in the union, and Kazakhstan
maintained a pro-Russian foreign policy after 1991. Kazakhstan remained a
loyal member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and the
autocratic club of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and was in the first
wave of countries to join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Kazakhstan
neither endorsed nor condemned Russia’s annexation of Crimea, as it was wary
of the potential for Russia to stir up discontent among Russians in northern
Kazakhstan. In contrast to Georgia, Russian is still spoken widely in Kazakhstan.6
Before examining public opinion in these countries, we should take note of
what previous surveys in the region say about conspiracy theories. Thanks to
heightened international interest, several polls about conspiracy theories in
Russia have been conducted in recent years. The survey firm Russian Public
Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), for example, asked Russians whether they
believed that “there is a certain organization or group of people that affects all
world processes, controlling the actions of the governments of many countries.”
In 2014, 45% of Russians polled agreed; in 2018, the number jumped to 67%.7
Another 2018 poll showed that 57% of Russians believe that man never landed
on the moon.8 A different poll from 2018 found that 63% believed in the “exist-
ence of an organization that seeks to destroy the spiritual values held by Russians
through the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations.”9
On more concrete matters, Russians are far from unified when it comes to
the dubious claims the Kremlin promotes. This ambivalence is evident when
considering conspiratorial propaganda about the Ukraine war. In March 2014,
a Levada poll found that 37% of Russians believed that Ukraine had been taken
over by “radical nationalists.” Yet on the question of whether the overthrow of
President Yanukovych was a “popular uprising against the corrupt regime,” 44%
mostly or completely agreed and 38% somewhat or completely disagreed.10 Yet
by 2016, opinions about Euromaidan had changed: 8% called it a peaceful pro-

test and 80% agreed it was “an attempt[ed] violent coup.” As to what led to the
protests, 46% cited Western influence, yet a substantial number provided con-
trarian responses: “anger at Yanukovych’s corrupt regime” (21%), “desire to free
Ukraine from Russia economically and politically, [to] become independent”
(15%), the “desire to make Ukraine a civilized country like other European na-
tions” (15%), and a “feeling of dignity at odds with authorities’ abuse of power”
(10%).11 These snapshots of public opinion indicate that even the people most
exposed to Kremlin propaganda had reservations, suggesting limits to the effec-
tiveness of sustained official conspiracism.
Asking the Right Questions
To measure belief in conspiracy theories in Georgia and Kazakhstan, I take two

approaches: adapting a set of questions used to measure generic conspiracy
belief, and creating a new list of locally relevant questions. Borrowing from a
study of the United States and the United Kingdom, I began from a list of con-
spiracy theories that replace proper names with “non-specific descriptors” such
as “the government” and “certain organizations” and selected eight that would
be familiar and relevant in post-Soviet states.12 This method allows us to com-
pare responses across countries directly because it does not make the heroic as-
sumption that people everywhere have the same knowledge of specific people
or events. Respondents can imagine their own government when pondering the
question.
In the current survey, respondents were asked whether they believed the fol-
lowing eight statements were true:
1. Regardless of who is officially in charge of governments and other organ-

izations, there is a single group of people who secretly control events and
rule the world together.
2. The government is involved in the murder of innocent citizens and/or
well-known public figures, and keeps this a secret.
3. The power held by heads of state is second to that of small unknown groups
who really control world politics.
4. The spread of certain viruses and/or diseases is the result of the deliberate,
concealed efforts of some organization.
5. The government permits or perpetrates acts of terrorism on its own soil,
disguising its involvement.
6. The government uses people as patsies to hide its involvement in criminal
activity.
7. Experiments involving new drugs or technologies are routinely carried out

on the public without their knowledge or consent.
8. A lot of important information is deliberately concealed from the public
out of self-interest.
Responses to conspiracy questions were measured on a scale of 1 to 4, from

“definitely true” to “definitely false,” with higher numbers indicating stronger
agreement. Before proceeding, it is important to note that not all of these
statements are necessarily false. In fact, statement 8, a measure of distrust in gov-
ernment, is almost certainly accurate in both countries and arguably not a con-
spiracy theory, but it is useful to compare with other responses.
To get a sense of how typical Georgia and Kazakhstan are, we can compare
responses to the first conspiracy statement with those from other countries, as
some version of it has been asked in Russia, as described earlier, as well as in
the United States, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Sweden. Table 7.1 shows
that post-Soviet countries cluster at the more conspiratorial end of the spectrum.
The quality of political institutions would appear to be a factor, distinguishing
Sweden from all the others, and placing Portugal closer to post-Soviet states.
Short-term factors are also evidently at work, accounting for how Russia leap-
frogged from fourth to first place in a mere four years. Georgia, where more con-
spiracy claims already circulate, scores higher than Kazakhstan on this question.
Does that difference hold more broadly?
Table 7.1 Belief in a Secret Global Cabal
United States a 30
Sweden b 10
United Kingdom b 34
Portugal b 47
Russia, 2014 45
Russia, 2018 67
Georgia c 57
Kazakhstan c 50
a Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American Conspiracy Theories
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 78. Their wording is slightly different.
b Hugo Drochon, “Who Believes in Conspiracy Theories in Great Britain and
Europe,” in Joseph E. Uscinski, ed., Conspiracy Theories and the People Who
Believe Them (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 340, 343.
c The categories of probably and definitely true in the survey are combined to
create these figures.

Figure 7.1 presents mean scores for generic conspiracy theories for both coun-
tries. Scores range from 2.09 for state terrorism in Kazakhstan, to 3.12 for gov-
ernment concealment of information in Georgia. Responses indicate that there
were not many dyed-in-the-wool conspiracists: on every question, choices 2 and
3 were more popular than 1 or 4, though overall responses were closer to “prob-
ably true” (3) than “probably false” (2). Georgians were more conspiratorial than
Kazakhstanis on every generic question.13 This suggests that Georgia’s plentiful
production of conspiracy theories, or the political free-for-all that underlies it,
has some effect on attitudes.
To gain a better sense of what resonates in the region, I created a second list
of conspiracy claims that names specific groups and countries. The statements
were derived from Soviet-era tropes, articles from the database, reporting from
secondary sources, and focus groups I conducted before the survey. It consists of
the following eight items:
1. The idea of man-made global warming is a hoax that was invented to de-
ceive people.
2. Regardless of who is officially in charge of governments, media organiza-
tions and companies, Masons really control world events like wars and ec-
onomic crises.
3. Mikhail Gorbachev was really working for the CIA when the Soviet Union
collapsed.
3.5
3.0
Conspiracy score
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
Cabal State murder Secret groups Viruses Terrorism Patsies Experiments Conceal
Conspiracy
Georgia Kazakhstan
Figure 7.1 Mean scores for generic conspiracy theories.

4. America supports fascists in Ukraine in order to increase its geopolitical

influence.
5. Russia, America, and other powerful countries secretly work together to
control world events.
6. The 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers were perpetrated by the America
government.
7. Regardless of who is officially in charge of governments, media organiza-
tions, and companies, Jews really control world events like wars and eco-
nomic crises.
8. America employs local nongovernmental organizations to overthrow
governments in the former Soviet Union.
These claims involve a variety of actors, with differing historical and contem-
porary associations in the region. The global warming hoax is obviously not spe-
cific to the region, but is widespread in the United States and among conservative
politicians in a number of countries.14 The 9/11 canard has global resonance, and
has been propagated in Russia and Central Asia. Claims about the machinations
of Jews and Masons have circulated worldwide but also have a particularly
Russian tinge.15 Claims about Gorbachev were pushed by Russian nationalists
after the Soviet collapse;16 NGOs developed bad reputations in nondemocratic
regimes in the first decade of the 2000s;17 and fascists, though of older vintage,
had a revival in 2014 thanks to Russian propaganda. Finally, statement 5 adds a
twist to the global cabal conspiracy: the counterintuitive (but genuinely conspir-
atorial) notion that ostensible enemies collude against the masses simply because
they are powerful.
The first notable feature of Figure 7.2 is that scores are lower overall than for
generic conspiracy theories, lying closer to “probably false” than “probably true,”
albeit in the same middling range. Second, Georgians were no longer univer-
sally more conspiratorial than Kazakhstanis. In fact, Kazakhstanis scored higher
on two questions and were statistically indistinguishable from Georgians in
three others. Respondents in both countries scored the same on the topics of
global warming, Jews, and NGOs. Kazakhstanis scored significantly higher on
fascists in Ukraine and 9/11. Georgians scored significantly higher on Masons,
Gorbachev, and Russian-American collusion.
Geopolitical orientation and domestic politics help make sense of these
results. Kazakhstanis were more open to conspiracy theories endorsed by the
Russian government. The narratives about fascists in Ukraine and 9/11 both
share the distinction of making the United States the villain and conform to a
Russian campaign to blame the United States for a variety of global ills. Another
feature of the claims that Kazakhstanis believed more strongly is that they pertain
3.5
3.0
Conspiracy score
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
Global warming Masons Gorbachev Fascists Rus-US 9–11 Jews NGOs
Conspiracy
Georgia Kazakhstan
Figure 7.2 Mean scores for specific conspiracy theories.
to action taking place elsewhere—in this case, the United States and Ukraine—
rather than in Kazakhstan. This might indicate that they are more susceptible to
conspiracy claims they cannot check against their own experience.
Georgians were more prone to see events through the lens of a small state
whose open political system is easily manipulated by outside powers. It is
surprising that Georgians saw NGOs as vehicles for infiltration as much as
Kazakhstanis did. Ambivalence toward NGOs may reflect anxiety about
reforms imposed by the European Union, which Georgians in focus groups
interpreted as a threat to national values and traditions. Distrust of NGOs may
also reflect disenchantment with the effects of the 2003 Rose Revolution, in
which NGOs played an important part. As the discussion of focus groups in
Chapter 8 will demonstrate, a new revisionist account of the revolution depicts
it as an American power play conducted through local proxies rather than an
indigenous grassroots uprising.
By the same logic, Georgians’ agreement with the assertion about Gorbachev
and the CIA appears to betray their belief that high-level politicians can be cap-
tured and manipulated, even if they were leading the Soviet Union! Finally,
Georgians’ belief in Russian-American collusion seems to reflect the perceived
meddling of both the United States and Russia in Georgian politics, coupled with
Georgia’s disappointment from its associations with both actors. Given both
superpowers’ perceived willingness to throw their weight around, what is to stop
them from working together to maintain the status quo?
How Large Does Russia Loom?
Chapters 3 and 5 have revealed the sheer volume of Russian conspiracy claims
in the region. We also saw evidence in Chapter 4 that narratives originating in
Russia, such as Western support for protests, were adopted by politicians in the
near abroad in the first decade of the 2000s. The Russian narrative about the
Euromaidan in Ukraine involved several interwoven conspiracy theories, in-
cluding the US role in the protests and the fascist leanings of the opposition. The
Kremlin also promulgated various diversions to obscure an actual Russian con-
spiracy to incite a separatist war in Donbas. Most people in Russia get their news
from television, as do 89% of Georgians and 84% of Kazakhstanis, according to
my survey. People in both countries are exposed to Russian narratives, to some
extent. So, the following question arises: How responsible is Russia for con-
spiracy beliefs in the two countries? In particular, how does watching Russian
television affect the endorsement of conspiracy narratives?
To find out, I compared conspiracy scores for people who reported watching
Russian news in the most recent week with those who did not. But how many
people watch? Unsurprisingly, national differences are substantial: 75% of
Kazakhstanis reported watching Russian news, whereas only 11.6% of Georgians
did.18 These figures underscore the importance of recognizing that people select
the media they wish to consume. Presumably, the Georgians who are already in-
terested in, or favorably inclined toward, Russia are the ones who decide to tune
in. Because of self-selection, we should not presume that people’s attitudes are
the result of being persuaded by what they watch.
In Georgia, viewers of Russian television turned out to be somewhat less con-
spiratorial for a combined measure of generic statements about one’s govern-
ment and more so for global conspiracies19—the first two sets of bars—but in
neither case was the difference significant. In fact, as Figure 7.3 shows, Russian
television also had little impact on the eight specific claims: viewers were less
likely to believe Gorbachev was a CIA spy and more likely to believe Jews run
the world, but these differences—in opposing directions—are no more than we
would expect by random chance. Russian television had no discernible effect on
Georgian respondents on the whole.
In Kazakhstan, there are more possibilities for Russian ideological influ-
ence: More people are plugged in to the Russian mass media, and there is a sub-
stantial minority of ethnic Russians resident in Kazakhstan. Observers who fear
Russian subversion in neighboring countries worry that ethnic Russians might
be sympathetic to Russian propaganda or may even operate as a fifth column.20
I therefore also test whether being Russian is associated with greater levels of
conspiracism.
3.5
3.0
Conspiracy score
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
Govct Globct Warming Masons Gorbachev Fascists Rus-US 9–11 Jews NGOs
Conspiracy
No Russian TV Russian TV
Figure 7.3 The impact of viewing Russian television in Georgia.
3.0
2.5
Conspiracy score
2.0
1.5
1.0
Govct Globct Warming Masons Gorbachev Fascists Rus-US 9–11 Jews NGOs
Conspiracy
Non-Russian + no Russian TV Non-Russian + Russian TV Russian + Russian TV
Figure 7.4 The impact of being Russian and viewing Russian television in
Kazakhstan.
Ethnic Russians are approximately 20% of Kazakhstan’s population, but

I oversampled them in order to test whether their attitudes or behaviors differ
from those of other nationalities.21 As Figure 7.4 shows, both being Russian
and viewing Russian television matter, but not as much as one might assume.
I divided people into three categories: non-Russians who do not watch Russian
television (lightest shade; from here on R0), non-Russians who watch (medium
shade), and Russians who watch (darkest shade; R2, for short).22 R2s were sig-
nificantly more likely to favor generic conspiracy theories about the government
than R0s (2.42 vs. 2.20). However, there was no difference between the groups
when it came to global cabals. It is also noteworthy that even though R2s were
the most conspiratorial group in Kazakhstan, they were not as conspiratorial as
Georgians who do not watch Russian television.23
What about for conspiracy claims involving geopolitically fraught events?
Russian narratives on the Ukraine war appeared to have some effect on viewers
of Russian television, but especially so for ethnic Russians. There were signif-
icant differences among the three categories on fascists, and between R2s and
everyone else on NGOs—but not on other specific claims, including those con-
cerning 9/11. It is probably no coincidence that attitudes diverged most sharply
on two topics associated with a salient geopolitical event and emphasized in
Russian propaganda, suggesting that recent exposure to conspiracy claims at
high volume made an impression. Of course, this does not prove that watching
television causes people to believe what they watch. As noted earlier, it is also
likely that people who already agreed with Russia’s version of events enjoyed
watching programming that confirmed their beliefs.
Does Conspiracy “Work”?
Do conspiracy theories work? It is typically assumed that they do, if not to per-
suade people that the claim is true, then at least to affect people emotionally in
ways that benefit the claimant. Yet leaders seeking to alter beliefs or win support
through conspiracy face at least two challenges. First is the hurdle that confronts
any attempt at persuasion: people are not clean slates, but enter with preexisting
biases that make them partial to some ideas and resistant to others. As the survey
has demonstrated, people in Georgia and Kazakhstan were predisposed to be-
lieve different narratives based on their country’s great-power alignments and
their own media consumption. Recall that Georgians were more conspiratorial
overall, but Kazakhstanis leapt ahead when the villain was also a favorite target
of Russia.
A second wrinkle concerns how individuals relate to authorities: people
who are inclined to believe conspiracy theories also tend to be suspicious of au-
thority, leading them to discount claims from official sources.24 Opportunistic
politicians therefore face a conundrum: how to convince people to accept con-
spiracy claims when those people might believe that politicians are complicit in
conspiracies against them.
Although it may seem simple to know when conspiracy claims are effective—
why not just ask?—it is actually not clear-cut. We saw that Russians in Kazakhstan
who watch Russian television favored conspiracy claims about subversive NGOs
and Western-backed fascists in Ukraine—talking points from the Kremlin—but
we do not know how it happened. Perhaps unsuspecting Kazakhstani Russians
tuning in for their daily dose of Channel 1 learned Putin’s perspective on the
Crimea invasion. It is also possible that these viewers heard the conspiracy
theory from friends and family living in Russia—whom they are likely to trust
more than a stranger on TV—and watch Russian television because they find the
quality of reporting better than what is on offer in Kazakhstan.25 In order to con-
clude that the strategic deployment of conspiracy theory is effective, people need
to be persuaded after being exposed to a new conspiracy claim. The most effec-
tive propaganda would convince people of a claim that they would not otherwise
believe. After all, if politicians are preaching to the choir, they are not winning
new converts.
One way to assess whether persuasion is occurring is to use experiments.
Experiments can help establish the direction of causality by presenting infor-
mation that is identical for all respondents except for the randomly assigned
elements—the treatments being tested. Differences in responses between groups
can therefore be attributed to the treatments alone. Just as administering a drug
or a placebo in a medical trial can reveal whether the drug is effective, exposing
people to different messages can tell us what messages were more persuasive. The
key is to create texts that may imply a conspiracy theory and to include relevant
information within it that can tip the balance either way. Fortunately, this can be
done outside of a laboratory.
(Possible) Conspiracy Claim 1: Air Disaster
I included two experimental vignettes in the survey that varied whether a con-
spiracy is claimed and what actor is implicated. Both involved four versions (two
variables with two alternatives each), with one-quarter of the sample randomly
assigned each version. The first vignette read:
A(n) [a. American/b. Russian] civilian airliner flying over the Pacific Ocean
mysteriously crashed, killing all 129 people on board. The weather was good
and the airplane was in excellent condition. There were reports of [a. Russian/
b. American] military exercises in the area. An anonymous [a. American/b.
Russian] official said [c. there was no suspicion that anyone deliberately caused
the crash and blamed pilot error/d. it’s likely the plane was deliberately shot
down]. The [a. Russian/b. US] government denied it.
As an example of how it appeared to respondents, Version 1 read as follows:
An American civilian airliner flying over the Pacific Ocean mysteriously crashed,
killing all 129 people on board. The weather was good and the airplane was in
excellent condition. There were reports of Russian military exercises in the area.
An anonymous American official said there was no suspicion that anyone deliber-
ately caused the crash and blamed pilot error.
Respondents were then asked how likely it was that the plane was deliberately
shot down.
The vignette involves Russia downing a US airliner, the United States downing
a Russian airliner, an American airliner crashing by accident, or a Russian air-
liner crashing by accident. Because both countries’ airliners fly over the Pacific,
and both militaries are capable of operating in the region, the scenario, stripped
of connotations, is realistic. It is potentially conspiratorial, as air crashes often
invite speculation as to causes and are often accompanied by conflicting claims.
This experiment pits motivated reasoning about good and bad guys against
the power of suggestion.26 Georgia and Kazakhstan do not have salient ideo-
logical divisions like most established democracies do, but their citizens should
have strong and contrasting feelings toward the West or Russia.27 Does geopoli-
tics determine how people perceive the vignette, or will people see a conspiracy
when the spokesperson claims there was a conspiracy?
The results of the plane crash vignette, shown in Figure 7.5, reveal that the
claim of a conspiracy made little difference in people’s judgments. Instead, it
was their geopolitical intuitions that mattered. The first thing to notice is that
Georgians were more conspiratorial than Kazakhstanis, with only the most con-
spiratorial of the latter scoring higher than the least conspiratorial of the former.
This again suggests that Georgia’s higher volume of conspiracism predisposes
its citizens to suspect the powerful, even when the threat comes from outside
Georgia, and—in this case—when people other than Georgians are the victims.
Along those lines, respondents in Georgia scored highest if they were assigned
one of the treatments in which a US airliner was shot down and Russia was at
fault (the dark gray bars labeled “plausible”), and lowest when the doomed air-
liner was Russian (“implausible”). Notably, in neither instance was there a sig-
nificant difference between a conspiratorial claim and a denial, even when a
(presumably) trusted US official was speaking. Whether the official claimed or
denied a conspiracy, only the identities of the victim and likely perpetrator made
a difference.
Kazakhstanis were almost the mirror image. The treatments in which Russians
were the victims were viewed as most suspicious scenarios, with “claimed/
4.5
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
US victim US victim Rus victim Rus victim US victim US victim Rus victim Rus victim
accident conspiracy accident conspiracy accident conspiracy accident conspiracy
(denied/ (claimed/ (denied/ (claimed/ (denied/ (claimed/ (denied/ (claimed/
plausible) plausible) implausible) implausible) implausible) implausible) plausible) plausible)
Georgia Kazakhstan
Figure 7.5 Plane crash vignette: Likelihood plane wаs deliberately shot down.
plausible” scoring the highest, whereas when the United States was the victim,
the scores were lower. When a conspiracy was claimed, respondents were more
likely to believe the plane was shot down if it was Russian. However, when a con-
spiracy was denied, respondents were equally (un)likely to perceive a conspiracy
regardless of the victim. In other words, Kazakhstanis accepted the denial of US
involvement in shooting down the plane. Why? Kazakhstanis, who we saw were
less conspiratorial, had greater trust in authorities than did the Georgians. This
may have inclined them to give the spokesperson the benefit of the doubt even
when a conspiracy was plausible. On the whole, though, respondents in both
countries were willing to ignore both official claims and denials that conflicted
with their intuition about whether a conspiracy took place.
(Possible) Conspiracy Claim 2: Protest
A second vignette investigates the effect of a conspiracy claim not on what people
believe, but on their perceptions of the claimant. As argued in Chapter 1, when
rulers claim conspiracies for defensive reasons, they are not necessarily hoping
to persuade their audiences that the accused party is truly guilty. More important
is to appear strong by giving the impression that they are in control. Do con-
spiracy claims actually work in these instances, or do people see through the ar-
tifice? To find out, I crafted a second vignette that is also realistic but fictitious.
There was recently a protest of 200 people in a major city of [country] in which
people demanded greater rights for [factory workers/the LGBT community]. The
official in that area refused to make any concessions and warned them to dis-
perse, saying [the group’s actions threatened public safety/he had good evidence
that they were sponsored from abroad by an unfriendly country].
This vignette randomly varied the identity of the protesting group and the
allegation against it, for a total of four scenarios. Based on social and cultural
beliefs, people might be expected to be broadly supportive of the interests of
“factory workers” who—in the spirit of communism—sacrifice their labor for
the good of society. LGBT groups, on the other hand, have faced discrimina-
tion and hostility in the region. In 2013, Russia passed a law banning “propa-
ganda” in support of homosexuality, emboldening leaders in other post-Soviet
states to agitate against gay rights for political gain. Kazakhstan flirted with
passing a copycat law in 2015,28 and Georgia’s Orthodox Church and nation-
alist politicians have demonstrated their opposition to gay rights in various
ways.29
Both of the official’s rationales for dispersing the protest are typical. As we saw
earlier, the trope of foreign sponsorship has been used frequently in the region.
Rhetoric against democracy promotion and Western influence have fed fears
about fifth columns—and have allowed politicians to grandstand as defenders
of sovereignty. Varying both the actors (liked/disliked) and the official’s rationale
for attacking them (threat to public safety/foreign-backed conspiracy) makes it
possible to isolate the effects of this information on people’s attitudes. A series of
questions after the vignette asked respondents about the official and their own
favored response.
1. What characteristics do you think describe this official? For each character-
istic, state how much you agree or disagree:
Intelligent
Weak
Decisive
Trustworthy
Compassionate
2. If he wanted to ascend to higher office, how likely would you be to sup-
port him?
3. How much do you agree or disagree that the government should try to ad-
dress the protesters’ demands?
This experiment can indicate whether purporting to counter a conspiracy is in

fact an effective political tactic. By posing questions about the official, it directly
tests how conspiracy claims shape perceptions of leaders. Question 1 includes

three characteristics that relate to strength (intelligent, weak, and decisive), con-
sistent with the signaling mechanism, and two “placebo” traits that have little to
do with strength (trust and compassion). Question 2 ascertains the conditions
under which the official’s intended actions translate into popularity. Question
3 measures whether the conspiracy claim makes people less supportive of the
protesters. LGBT rights have been framed as a Western imposition and might
strike observers as subversive on their face. Yet the “sponsored” treatment makes
that connection explicit and may heighten suspicions in ways the “public safety”
treatment does not.
Does claiming conspiracy translate into political support? I first combined
scores for the characteristics intelligent, decisive, and weak (reversed) into a new
variable called strong; and trustworthy and sympathetic into the variable kind.
It turns out that respondents provided more positive evaluations of the official
who ordered the crackdown in versions 2 and 4—the LGBT treatments—than in
the workers treatments, whereas there was no discernible difference between the
public safety and foreign subversion rationales. So there was no benefit—but also
no penalty—to claiming a conspiracy. The official earned respect by threatening
a disfavored group regardless of whether it was supposedly sponsored from
abroad. The official scored significantly more highly as “strong” than as “kind” in
every condition—unsurprising since he was cracking down on protesters—yet
even the score for “kind” increased when the official intended to crack down on
LGBT protesters.30
Figure 7.6 breaks down the results of support for the official. They re-
veal the same pattern as leadership assessments, with the LGBT treatments
leading to greater levels of support than the worker treatments. The official
boosted his popularity by targeting an unpopular group, but there was no
additional benefit to claiming to defend the nation against an unfriendly
country. Although LGBT protesters in the post-S oviet region are often asso-
ciated with Western values, it is striking that there was no additional effect
of an explicit conspiratorial appeal and an invitation to seek protection from
an authority figure. It is possible that respondents were unimpressed with the
worn-out claim of external meddling. Rather than being shocked, the reac-
tion was blasé.
The third question asked whether being smeared with a conspiracy allegation
cost the protesters support. Is it necessarily the case that (dis-)approval of the
official’s actions must correlate with the opposite view of the protesters? Figure
7.7 shows how readily respondents agreed that the government should address
the protesters’ demands.
The stepwise pattern again indicates that respondents cared more about
who the protesters were than whether they were part of a foreign conspiracy.
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
Workers, LGBT, Workers, LGBT, Workers, LGBT, Workers, LGBT,
safety safety foreign foreign safety safety foreign foreign
Georgia Kazakhstan
Figure 7.6 Protest vignette: Support of official for higher office.
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
Workers, LGBT, Workers, LGBT, Workers, LGBT, Workers, LGBT,
safety safety foreign foreign safety safety foreign foreign
Georgia Kazakhstan
Figure 7.7 Protest vignette: Support for official to address protesters’ demands.
Georgians were more supportive of protesters overall, a difference that is attrib-

utable entirely to the workers treatment. Anti-LGBT bias overrode any desire
to make concessions in the public safety condition, and even when the official
alleged a conspiracy in the case of workers, respondents still took a conciliatory
approach.
Conspiracy as political rhetoric did not fare well in these experiments. People
were drawn to conspiracy theories only when the accused actors were already
disliked and were presumed capable of nefarious activity. This was demonstrated
in both vignettes, as people endorsed a conspiracy claim when the villain was a
geopolitical rival or a domestic (sexual) minority. There was no additional ef-
fect in vignette 1 when the spokesperson claimed the plane was deliberately shot
down, or in vignette 2 when the official alleged that the protesters were spon-
sored from abroad.
What Does Conspiracy Belief Mean for Participation?
What are the broader implications of conspiracy belief? To find out, we need
to distinguish the behavior of people who are more or less conspiratorial. But
what kinds of behaviors should we care about? The consensus from the dem-
ocratic West, where most research has taken place, is almost universally nega-
tive: Conspiracy believers tend to be distrustful,31 disengaged from politics,32
prone to paranoia,33 and even supportive of violence.34 If there is a silver lining, it
is the possibility that common belief in a conspiracy theory can help like-minded
people form communities.35 But there is a dark side in that case, too: those
groups tend to act as echo chambers, reinforcing prejudices and false beliefs.
But do these patterns hold for nondemocracies? Where corruption is endemic,
then perhaps the implications for citizenship and participation are different.
A model citizen is not necessarily one who trusts the government, scrupulously
obeys the rules, and diligently acts out rituals of political participation. Even
democratic theory tells us that citizens should be skeptical because officials must
be held accountable. In a system in which those at the top habitually abuse their
power, the conspiracy theorists in society might not be the recluses and misfits
they were once imagined to be, but in fact could be socially engaged and active
members of their communities. Politically alienated people, who are more likely
to believe conspiracy theories, may be model citizens in their communities.
To find out how conspiracy theorists behave in their communities and in the
political realm, I included survey questions that capture social and political par-
ticipation,36 social capital,37 interethnic tolerance,38 voting,39 and political dis-
cussion.40 All of these activities are considered important for democracy and
stability but have been long considered lacking in the post-communist world and
are in increasingly short supply even in established democracies.
Before examining conspiracy beliefs, I compare how people in both coun-
tries scored on the social and political measures. Table 7.2 shows that people
in Kazakhstan were more likely to participate in civic activities (give to charity,
Table 7.2 Social and Political Participation
Georgia Kazakhstan Minimum Maximum

(Mean, (Mean,
Standard Standard
Deviation) Deviation)
Civic participation .23 .28*** 0 1

(charity, resolve (.30) (.35)
disputes, communal
improvements)
Political participation .05 .04 0 1
(public meetings, (.14) (.14)
petition, online
commentary)
Protest .024 .016 0 1
(.15) (.13)
Social capital 4.55*** 3.87 1 7 (more
(1.83) (1.81) frequent
interaction)
Ethnic tolerance .44 .51*** 0 1 (more
(.36) (.41) tolerant)
Political discussion 2.18 2.23 1 5 (more
(1.08) (1.02) discussion)
Vote .74* .69 0 1
(.44) (.46)
mediate in neighborhood disputes, and take part in communal cleaning activi-

ties) and had higher tolerance of other nationalities. Georgians had higher levels
of general social interaction and voting rates. The countries were equivalent
when it came to political forms of participation (taking part in public meetings,
signing a petition, making critical comments online), taking part in an “act of
protest or demonstration,” and discussing politics.
Next, I distinguish high and low conspiracists by calculating the mean of
the six questions on generic government conspiracies and dividing it into two
parts.41 Figure 7.8 shows how often these two types participated in each activity.
Darker shares of gray indicate high conspiracists. Two results stand out: first,
conspiracism was not associated with negative behavioral outcomes, with the ex-
ception of voting. In both countries, high conspiracists were significantly less
likely to vote.
Second, conspiracism had positive effects on a number of other activities.
For Georgians (the first two bars in each group), high conspiracists scored
1.0
0.8
0.6
Score
0.4
0.2
0.0
Civic Political Protest Social capital Tolerance Political Vote
participaton participaton discussion
Social or political activity
Geo:low con Geo:hi con

Kaz:low con Kaz:hi con
Figure 7.8 Levels of conspiracism and behavioral outcomes.
higher on political participation, protest, tolerance, and political discussion. In

Kazakhstan (the third and fourth bars of each group), high conspiracists had
more social capital than low conspiracists but showed no measurable differences
in other areas.
Why did the two countries differ on so many variables? Georgia has a more
developed civil society than Kazakhstan, with a history of protests, grassroots
and nongovernmental organizations, and less inhibition toward discussing con-
troversial issues and confronting the authorities. If conspiracism enables the
creation of new coalitions in opposition to the authorities, there is greater oppor-
tunity to realize this ambition in Georgia. In Kazakhstan, there are few barriers
to associating on the social level, but in a less politicized society, there are fewer
opportunities to coalesce around political causes. Still, high conspiracists there
scored no worse than low conspiracists on most measures.
These results suggest that conspiracy belief can be a boon to—or at least is not
always the bane of—social and civic life. Georgia’s results indicate that, rather
than isolating individuals from one another, suspicion of authority can give
rise to collective endeavors to counter state power. Even the “political partici-
pation” activities in the survey take place in the social sphere as they do not in-
volve working within formal political institutions, and in the case of petitions
and protests, are adversarial to them. Only voting is an expressly political ac-
tivity that takes place on the state’s terms. And this is the only activity that high
conspiracists were significantly more likely to reject—both in Georgia, where
votes count, and in Kazakhstan, where they usually do not.
Conclusion
This chapter has analyzed how ordinary people perceive and react to conspiracy
claims. Respondents were, for the most part, open to believing a number of con-
spiracy theories, but their attitudes varied by country and specific details. The
official use of conspiracy claims did not “work,” either in persuading people to
accept what they were not already inclined to believe, or by increasing their sup-
port for a conspiratorial official. Yet conspiracy claims “mattered” because higher
levels of belief were associated with being adversarial toward politics yet socially
engaged. Harboring conspiratorial beliefs may bring people together, facilitating
political discussions that reaffirm anti-government sentiments.
The implications for aspiring demagogues are not encouraging. This chapter
has provided evidence that conspiracy claims are not the powerful rhetorical
weapon they are sometimes made out to be. People were ready to agree with con-
spiracy theories when asked, but when a political official endorsed them, they
expressed ambivalence. The next chapter seeks to make sense of this conundrum
by asking people what they believe and why.
8
Citizen Cynics
How People Talk and Think about Conspiracy
What goes on in people’s minds when they weigh the merits of a conspiracy
theory? This chapter, like the previous one, is concerned with the public, and it
addresses a larger question being asked around the world at a moment when pop-
ulist politicians appear to be thriving while institutions are faltering: If politicians
are selling conspiracy, are people buying it? There has been heightened concern
among scholars and pundits about the proclivity of some leaders in both dem-
ocratic and authoritarian regimes to manipulate what their citizens believe by
playing fast and loose with the facts, and appealing to their base emotions. We
have seen from the survey what people believed and in what numbers, and more
importantly, how they responded to political appeals that involved conspiracy
allegations. Yet the survey could not tell us how people arrived at their beliefs or
formulated opinions about authority. This chapter closes the loop, using focus
groups in Georgia and Kazakhstan to examine not only how ordinary people
respond to conspiracy theories, but also how they articulate ideas about power
more generally.
The focus groups showed that people were in fact receptive to a wide range of
conspiracy claims, whether endorsed by governments or not. But, contrary to
the most alarming fears, people were not unwitting dupes, nor were they ren-
dered politically quiescent. Citizens who accepted conspiracies were motivated
by cynicism toward political authority, which came from personal experience,
not messages dictated by the Kremlin or their own leaders. The upshot is that
politicians who aim to win support by claiming conspiracies face a dilemma: the
people who are most willing to agree with conspiracy claims are also the most
suspicious of those who seek advantage by spreading them.
Previous chapters have shown how competition and geopolitical orientations
shape both the top-down endorsement of conspiracy claims and the public’s
willingness to believe them. The importance of these factors is evident from the
focus groups. Georgians endorsed a wide array of plots and perpetrators, an
openness that reflects the country’s unbridled intrigue and wealth of political
information available. They readily volunteered conspiracy theories involving
Georgian politicians, viewing them as patsies subject to control by more pow-
erful states. Kazakhstanis speculated about how power operates in their opaque
political system and delivered Russian- inflected geopolitical analysis. Yet

Kazakhstanis were more willing than Georgians to accept official conspiracy
claims and to reject conspiracy theories about the government when national
security was at stake.
After briefly describing the methodology, I present representative excerpts
from the focus groups relating to several themes: domestic politics, geopoli-
tics and global plots, and destabilizing events. I then discuss the social aspects
of group discussions and conclude by linking the findings to the politics of
conspiracy.
Capturing Opinions in Real Time
Whereas public opinion is a snapshot, focus groups provide opportunities to

elicit the rationale and logic behind people’s attitudes.1 Discussion prompts
participants to reflect on, react to, and build on the comments of others to provide
a deeper understanding of how they think about an issue.2 Focus groups reveal
the voices of ordinary people—potential conspiracists and non-conspiracists—
to draw out what they are thinking.
Twelve focus group discussions were conducted in 2016, each involving
eight participants and lasting for two hours. In Georgia, two were held in each
Tbilisi, Kutaisi, and Batumi. People in Tbilisi, the capital, tend to have higher
incomes, more education, and better access to information than in other parts
of the country. Kutaisi is a mid-size town in the interior, while Batumi is a vi-
brant and fast-growing city on the Black Sea. In Kazakhstan, three focus groups
were conducted in Almaty, the cultural and economic hub and former capital;
and in Pavlodar, an industrial city in the north with a large Russian population.3
Participants were selected to reflect a mix of age, gender, income, profession,
and, in Kazakhstan, nationality. In Georgia, groups were organized by age cohort
(one group in each city aged 18–30 and one group over age 30). In Kazakhstan,
one group in Almaty and two in Pavlodar were entirely ethnic Russian, while the
remaining groups comprised people of mixed nationality. One of the Russian
groups and one of the mixed groups were aged 18–30, while the remainder
consisted of older participants. All groups had a 50–50 gender split.
I provided moderators with a script that progressed from general to specific
themes on the general topic of conspiracy: trust of institutions and perceptions
of power within the country; beliefs about power globally; whom people hold
responsible for domestic and global problems; attitudes toward specific groups;
reactions to terms associated with conspiracy; and explanations for recent major
events. The full script is in the Appendix. I observed all focus groups from behind
a one-way mirror or from a live video feed. In order not to tip off participants
Citizen Cynics 155
about the purpose of the study, moderators did not utter the word “conspiracy”
until near the end of the script, when it was part of the word association exercise.
Familiarity Breeds Conspiracism
Whereas fears about a dystopian post-truth world involve the spread of misin-
formation from cynical elites or misguided peers, people in the focus groups typ-
ically formed impressions about the political world by extrapolating from their
personal experience. This approach makes sense, given that the stakes of misper-
ceiving reality are higher when matters are local and personal than when they are
distant and abstract. A person needs to know when to trust a potential business
partner or when to believe rumors that the government plans to devalue the cur-
rency. For these reasons, people develop heightened sensitivity to important and
immediate information and update their beliefs when they learn new facts.4 The
effects of such quotidian awareness were manifest in the Soviet Union, where the
discrepancy between cheerful official propaganda and people’s actual experience
nurtured a generation of cynics.5
The recognition of political malfeasance and an ability to connect it to larger
forces were evident when participants were asked about the problems in their
country and who was responsible for them. Chapter 7 showed that Kazakhstanis
were less conspiratorial than Georgians, yet their interactions with the govern-
ment made them cynical, as this typical (non-conspiratorial) excerpt illustrates.6
Participant 3: The government is guilty of corruption, it creates the conditions

for corruption. For example, in the village they allegedly laid out a water
pipe, everything is going according to plan, but then it turns out the money
disappeared.
P8: The tender is 20 million, and somebody wins 13 million.
P3: Law enforcement, laws against corruption, and the whole bureaucratic ap-
paratus, it has to be shaken up, and a majority should be removed altogether.
(Almaty, 31–65, mixed)
Participants were asked how much they trusted what they saw on television.
One speaker critically contrasted state media from other sources of information,
referring to a recent episode in which the discrepancy was clear:
P1: Well, for example, remember the rallies on June 18 [protesting a land deal
with China]? In my opinion and on television they reported about the
rallies that everything in the square is fine and good, but everything is there
on YouTube, so you go out somewhere, and you don’t know what is going
on—after it’s over, videos have already appeared on the Internet, they are al-
ready refuting the [authorities], and that’s why I don’t trust it.
Moderator: In your opinion, why is it not accurate?
P1: Maybe they don’t want to frighten people either, so that the masses don’t go
out and do something worse? But still, you can explain this in a different way,
and it didn’t go down like that. (Almaty, 18–65, Russian)
Georgians similarly believed that the government tries to manipulate them, as

seen in this comment about trust in television:
M: What do you think, is someone trying to influence people using television?

P1: Yes, they want submission, fear.
M: Who wants this?
P1: I don’t know, it’s probably from the top—the authorities.
M: The bosses of television?
P1: The television authorities are not interested. More important are representa-
tives of the government.
M: So representatives of the government?
P1: Probably.
P4: Even representatives of the opposition.
P6: Television can make a coup today and overthrow the government and turn all
of Georgia 360 degrees.
P4: The government can also strengthen its position through television.
P6: After August 8, there was a small clip that Russia attacked again.7
P2: Yes, they did. It was horrible. (Batumi, 31–65)
If it is widely acknowledged that the powerful seek to benefit at the expense of

the people, the question remains who the ultimate beneficiary is. In Kazakhstan
under Nazarbaev, power was concentrated in the hands of the president and the
fallout from political intrigue was mostly concealed. Yet the question of who re-
ally pulls the strings was an open question. Divining the truth can be a quasi-
sociological exercise, as seen in a discussion from Almaty about who in the
country is powerful:
M: Tell me, who do you think is the most powerful person?

P6: I think you know this man.
P1: Nazarbaev probably, most likely.
P4: It’s shadowy, these clans, southern clans, northern clans.
M: Maybe people have heard rumors, I don’t know what this southern clan is sup-
posed to be . . .
Citizen Cynics 157
P1: For me, he’s not even the leader; they say he’s the president but when there’s
no war, what else does he do?
P8: You should be happy about this.
P5: I don’t know how powerful he really is—he’s just a face, they give him a paper
and tell him to read it, he reads it and people believe him, but who’s really in
charge, I don’t know.
M: On the one hand, you believe that it may be Nazarbaev, and on the other, there
may be people in the shadows.
P5: It may not be just one person.
P4: That’s always how it is. (Almaty, 18–65, Russian)
The attempt to discern the real power behind the throne has an analogy at the
global level. Just as individuals believed they were exploited by the government,
they saw their country being manipulated by even more powerful forces. A ma-
jority of participants in every focus group were receptive to the question from
the survey in Chapter 7 on the idea of a secret global cabal that controls world
events. Thus, from Kazakhstan:
M: What do you think about the following statement? [Reads statement]

P1: To control the planet or country.
P5: No, the planet.
P1: Again, to create small states.
M: Tell me, who does this group consist of?
P2: These are, first, intellectually advanced people.
P6: Very smart politicians.
P7: Global groups of people, you’d say, clearly very educated people who must be
smart in order to manage everything.
M: How much do you believe that there really is such a group?
P1: I doubt that it exists.
P2: I believe that it exists.
P1: Well, to rule the whole world, I doubt it.
P2: It’s logical, just take the government, there’s the president, ministers, akims
[local officials], et cetera. And in order to rule the world, there should also be
something like this.
P6: Yes, I agree.
P2: If there weren’t these people in control, then we would have chaos.
P7: Chaos happens in the world as it is.
P6: Who can these people be?
P2: Either they are the presidents of each country, so they get together and dis-
cuss things. Or representatives of this country. (Almaty, 18–30, mixed)
A group in Georgia similarly found that idea intuitively plausible but strug-
gled to provide details about the identity of the group or its intentions.
P1: There is such a group, I agree.

P8: Yes.
P4: It is clear in and of itself that they are invisible.
P8: We haven’t seen them, but we know about them.
M: Why do you think that they exist?
P8: A lot of people talk about it, but I can’t imagine.
P2: I saw it on the Internet.
P3: The top 20 leaders, when they meet, what do they decide? Probably there is a
conversation about all the problems.
P5: Yes. I agree, we are only talking about our opinions here, but there is no
argument.
M: Do you believe that yourself?
P1, P2, P6: I believe it.
P4: It’s likely that the whole world is ruled from the shadows.
M: We have already talked a little about this. Let’s summarize the goals of
this group.
P1, P2: They want power.
P6: They want to rule the world.
P8: A lot of money.
M: Whom does this group consist of?
P4: They are the richest.
P6: Of the strongest representatives of the world.
M: What have you heard specifically?
P7: McCain? Just saying, I don’t know for sure.
P1: They used to say it was Rockefeller, I don’t know.
P4: I actually just watched this the other day, it was on a Russian channel, about
the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, all the banks in America belong to
them, they rule everything, they appoint the government as they want. To
this day, these two surnames rule everything in America and control the
world, it was on the Russian channel that I watched. When they realized that
Hitler was supposed to start a war, they built him oil refineries in Germany to
provide equipment in Germany. (Kutaisi, 31–65)
Geopolitical Imagination
Like the politicians whose claims I analyzed in previous chapters, participants

engaged in geopolitical analysis that blended considerations of national
Citizen Cynics 159
interests with conspiratorial accusations of nefarious goals and secretive

designs. If the United States and Russia (and sometimes China) were engaged
in an epic clash to exercise control over Eurasia, Georgia and Kazakhstan
were mere bystanders, but they had a front-row seat at the fight. People in
both countries saw their territories as objects in an old-fashioned geopolit-
ical struggle for resources or military leverage. This view helped people make
sense of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States, based on the logic of who
benefits.
As you know, Afghanistan is a strategic point for America, plus it’s close to
Russia and controls Pakistan and Iran. To get there, a large terrorist attack was
needed, and it was done in 2001 in America. . . . [T]‌here was a terrorist attack in
America that gave the United States an excuse to invade Afghanistan, and from
there it already controls Pakistan, a large opium pipeline, and monitors Iran.
(Kutaisi, 18–30)
Cynical geopolitical logics extended to the migrant crisis afflicting Europe at

the time:
P1: This is America’s influence that many refugees arrived in Europe.

P2: Yes, I agree.
P1: This way America wants to weaken Europe, and then to have influence over it.
P9: (Nods in agreement)
M: So America is trying to weaken Europe?
P1: Yes, what good is a strong Europe?
P6: Of course. Recently, in Cologne, in a train station 30 Syrians attacked and
raped three Germans and robbed 50. And Germany is not exactly a helpless
country.
P1: Regarding war, when Russia starts to fight, it soon ends, but when America
starts it, the war goes on, they put military bases somewhere, and in the rest
of the country there is endless turmoil. (Tbilisi, 31–65)
This unusual interpretation of relations between the United States and Europe
conforms to a template of geopolitical rivalry among great powers. Instead of the
Cold War’s dueling protagonists, the players are otherwise friendly governments
that, if one squints, may be seen as competing for global supremacy. A world in
which great powers vie for ultimate control—and in which America and Russia
loom largest in people’s conception of the world—is one in which neither country
can be completely absent during a major event. While the notion that the United
States seeks to weaken Europe may be a stretch even for most conspiracists (who
usually lump the two together as “the West”), the mode of action—“weaponizing
refugees”—was a conspiratorial charge leveled by some American commentators

against Russia based on its military involvement in Syria.8
Geopolitical discussion in Kazakhstan resembled analysis often put forth by
pundits on the “new great game”—a notional geopolitical struggle for the hearts,
minds, and energy resources of Central Asia. In Almaty, one such analysis took
geography seriously in a discussion of Russia’s influence in the region:
M: If this is the maneuvering between Obama and Putin, who gains from their
influence?
P4: The Russian side got more involved and the Chinese are there on the doorstep.
M: Why did Russia get more involved at this moment?
P6: Because it took Crimea.
P4: Not because it took Crimea, but because this policy pursued by Russia is
closer than that pursued by the Americans. The [Americans] pursue their
interests, but for now and for some time we see that it is impossible for the
Americans to dominate, even in their embassy.
M: But it still has influence—
P6: It’s slightly weakened.
P5: It seems to me that the [Kazakhstani] government is maneuvering from
America to Russia because it’s close by and you really shouldn’t shake things
up too much. (Almaty, 18–65, Russian)
Some analyses forecasting potential scenarios veered into conspiratorial terri-

tory, also faintly echoing Russian tropes about the United States:
P4: I think we should expect a lot of bad things from the Americans. You can bet
that they will destabilize our position.
M: What for?
P4: The confrontation of two world powers.
P7: If we assume that a person’s back itches, he cannot do something normally, he
is constantly distracted, and that’s how it is.
M: Then what is the interest of the USA?
P8: If something happens in Kazakhstan, then naturally Russia will come first to
help Kazakhstan, and naturally it will be too distracted to help Kazakhstan.
(Pavlodar, 18–30, Russian)
Whereas Kazakhstan’s geopolitical analysis took place at the regional level, as

on a Risk board, in Georgia strategic moves were played out in the domestic po-
litical arena as well. Georgians perceived their political class as easily penetrated
by outside interests. A case in point is Bidzina Ivanishvili, a billionaire living in
Russia who appeared on the Georgian political scene in 2011 and rapidly built a
Citizen Cynics 161
party that prevailed in the 2012 elections. Ivanishvili declined to play a formal
role in politics but remained influential behind the scenes. His obscure origins
aroused the suspicions of many:
P4: He was a very successful businessman in Russia, one of the major shareholders
of very large mines. I think the government sent him to spread its influence.
M: Which government?
P4: Russia.
M: Russia? A specific person in Russia?
P4: No, it’s the interest of the Russian state.
P5: It was a direct hit on America. (Tbilisi, 31–65)
Domestic and international intrigue tend to converge when your neighbor is

Russia:
As time has passed since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Shevardnadze came
to power in Georgia and Russian influence has decreased, while American in-
fluence has increased. This was followed by the war in 2008, and Russia again
sought to achieve influence in Georgia. Probably something got in the way, but
then it sent the owner of a 1% stake in Gazprom, Bidzina Ivanishvili. In my
opinion Russia correctly calculated because it’s easy to deceive Georgian people
and in this regard, Bidzina Ivanishvili is a Russian pawn, a pawn of the Kremlin.
(Kutaisi, 18–30)
Russia was not the only external actor suspected of meddling in Georgian pol-
itics. The United States, despite being Georgia’s most generous patron since 2003,
was also believed to maneuver behind the scenes, and through local proxies, to
advance its interests. Although US policy supported the promotion of democ-
racy in Georgia, participants discerned a more selfish—and typically post-
Soviet—motive: geopolitical influence.
M: What is the interest of America in Georgia?

P7: Location.
P6: They have military bases in Georgia.
P7: This way they can get closer to eastern countries.
P1: The fact that America is interested is obvious, for example, they made such
a large consulate here, nowhere is there a consulate of this magnitude. They
made a small island in order to control the region.
P9: Also, for example, Asia, Iran.
P4: I think that what America wants is to put its military bases here, the consulate
and all that . . . because America wants to weaken Russia’s influence. These
are the two dominant powers, America and Russia, it’s always been this way.
(Tbilisi, 31–65)
A trope appearing in many discussions was Georgia’s vulnerability as a small

country historically occupied by outside powers. The suffering it has supposedly
endured at the hands of others is moral and symbolic as well as material. For
example, while people were seemingly resigned to the (mostly real) efforts of
Russia to exert control over Georgia’s foreign policy, they reacted with indigna-
tion to perceived attempts by Western powers to change Georgian culture. This
reaction was evident in regard to anti-discrimination legislation (which contro-
versially included LGBT rights) whose passage was a requirement for visa-free
travel to the European Union:
P7: According to my sources they [Masons9] have influence because they impose
these laws, which are already in Europe and if you want to enter the European
Union, you have to accept them, which means that the Masons also have in-
fluence here.
M: So, as I understand it the Masons are linked with the European Union?
P7: Basically yes, because they wrote that the EU requires us to pass the law on
same-sex marriages, to organize gay parades. (Batumi, 18–30)
It is not only Europe—or the Masons—that reputedly sought to undermine

Georgian values. Several groups referred to George Soros, the common bo-
geyman of the Kremlin and the American Right, as a mastermind. He appeared
in a discussion about Masons:
M: I remember you also mentioned Soros. Why?

P6: At that time, Soros actively figured in the financing of Georgia. If there was a
fund somewhere, then Soros immediately gave to it.
M: And the effect of all this was positive?
P8: At that time we thought that [it was] good.
M: And then how did it turn out?
P8: Today it turned out very badly.
P6: In any case, there was no result.
P2: He funded the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
P6: Yes, Soros funded them.
M: What else do they fund?
P2: Lots of bad things.
P4: They intrude into lots of issues, such as the marriage between men. Why
do we have to discuss this in Georgia? Why discuss it in Parliament? There
should not even be conversation on this subject, not to mention passing a law.
Citizen Cynics 163
M: In whose interests is this?

P4: In the interest of Europe. I myself heard that in Germany, one male minister
married another male minister and Merkel congratulated them.
P3: People, didn’t we live in Communist times? Then, too, we had same-sex rela-
tions in Georgia.
P6: Maybe, but it didn’t reach all the way to us [ne do nas eto ne dohodilo].
M: Sergo, what do you think, why do they want to destroy our traditions?
P2: To pervert the country and then it will be easy to rule, that’s their goal.
P4: How much can they show these Keso and Beso on TV?10 (Kutaisi, 31–65)
Another group, unprompted, brought up Soros and similar themes:
P3: I remember people said that Soros decreed the introduction of changes in the
school curriculum, and wanted to add a subject that was against our religion,
against tradition. I don’t know how believable that is.
M: And for what? What is Soros’s interest in the destruction of our values?
P2: It would be easier to rule over people.
P7: He was acting in the interests of America.
P3: They wanted to affect people’s thinking, so that children grow up here with
such views. Then it will be easier to rule.
P2: They change the mentality, and then it is easier to rule.
P1: Previously, it was easier to control people: they brought in troops, killed
people, and all this came to an end. Now they can’t do this anymore.
P5: Now they act differently. (Tbilisi, 31–65)
Interestingly, the linkage of Soros, gays, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, which

reflects insecurity about national sovereignty stemming from the perceived in-
cursion of alien values, resembles narratives trumpeted by populist parties in
Europe as well as by Russia as part of President Putin’s “civilizational” rhetoric.
This rhetorical linkage of geopolitics and conservative values places America’s
best Caucasian ally in Russia’s camp.
People Power Plots
Many of the underlying logics of conspiracy from focus groups would be fa-
miliar to anyone who speaks with a taxi driver or another amateur observer of
politics in virtually any city in the world: in short, the fix is in, and little people
get exploited in the process. No one is an angel. The game and the players may
vary, but the goals are always the same: money, power, geostrategic advantage, or
simply spite.11 Certain themes, however, have distinctly post-Soviet flavors, as
they echo elite tropes described in previous chapters. This is particularly evident
when destabilizing “street” events occur.
One trope that gained self-evident status across all focus groups is that actions
ostensibly initiated from below are actually disguised instruments of the pow-
erful. A group in Kazakhstan addressed a question about what caused the color
revolutions:
P6: No, they were incited, as if it could be otherwise.

P3: If the leader is okay, then why would they do it?
P6: They would have endured it and nothing would have happened, they just
mobilized them.
M: Who mobilized them?
P6: Those who are interested in destabilizing the situation around Russia, specif-
ically Russia, because it occupies too large a territory.
M: Are these subversive forces within the state or from outside?
P6: First from the outside. They appeared from the outside and everything
moved inside.
P7: People themselves can stand there and that’s all, but then what can they do?
But suddenly people rose up with such fury.
P8: Again, someone is sitting there and controlling things.
M: The West acts through local organizations, inciting protest to advance its ge-
opolitical goals. Is this what you mean? So that’s its purpose, to destabilize?
P7: Yes.
P4: I agree. (Pavlodar, 18–30, Russian)
The notion of contrived protests masking geopolitical interests even applies

to an event in Georgia in which many citizens participated: the Rose Revolution.
Nine years later, its beneficiaries, Saakashvili and his UNM party, were voted out
of power and revisionist narratives began to appear. One of those, in post-Soviet
counterrevolutionary fashion, denied the indigenous origins of the event:
P4: Shevardnadze had a lot of influence in Georgia, and I think his influence
remained through his clan inheritance. Saakashvili also belonged to his clan,
after all the Rose Revolution was staged—a performance [spektakl]. Who can
overthrow a government with roses? When two countries wanted to topple
[the previous president] Gamsakhurdia, they overthrew him by force. He
didn’t suit America or Russia.
M: Mzia, what do you think of the Rose Revolution?
P6: It was indeed a performance.
...
M: A performance put on in whose interests?
Citizen Cynics 165
P4: In the interests of America. So much support came suddenly, the army was
equipped and given a salary, whose money was it? America’s. Then they built
up our army to go to Afghanistan.
P6: They say the United States came up with the script.
P7: In my opinion Russia no longer had influence over Georgia, so they removed
Shevardnadze. (Kutaisi, 31–65)
In Kazakhstan, protests against the leasing of land to China were so unu-

sual and unexpected that people accepted the government’s conspiratorial
insinuations that outsiders had played a role:
P6: It was subversive.

M: Who was subverting?
P6: Certain presidents, this is one of the reasons.
P4: You know, it’s easy to play on the feelings of our nationalists. More than easy.
P8: It seems to me that we have such peaceful people that we don’t even under-
stand what a protest is.
M: What did they want then?
P8: They tried to get on people’s nerves, but they did not succeed.
P6: In order to create an atmosphere like in Ukraine, or something.
P8: To slowly bring about the situation in Ukraine. (Pavlodar, 18–30, Russian)
Terrorism, like protests, is inherently destabilizing of authority. Because it

often has international linkages, it lends itself to interpretations of contrivance,
hidden connections, and deception. In Georgia, one participant pithily summa-
rized the conspiratorial thinking of many:
About terrorism, I’ll say that I think terrorism is a dirty game, in which both
puppets [marionety] and powerful people [shishki] are involved, and we are
small pawns who are playing on our own. (Kutaisi, 18–30)
In Kazakhstan, a group discussed a question on the origins of ISIS and came to

the same conclusion: that “terrorists” serve the interests of certain states:
M: Now what is their purpose?

P3: To dishonor Islam, to remake Islam with a brutal face so that it is hated
around the world.
M: They themselves are Muslims.
P3: Because Islam began to penetrate into Western Europe and the United States.
Now they want to show these people that this is not acceptable. What are they
doing? They destroy the monuments, they close the fountains.
M: Then who created this organization?

P3: Saudi Arabia.
M: But they are all Muslims there, why should they defame Muslims?
P8: This is some kind of religious movement.
P4: Masons are doing all this.
P3: There is a clan of Masons in Saudi Arabia. That is, they are sitting in the lead-
ership, their task is to change Islam. (Almaty, 31–65, mixed)
In Kazakhstan, cynicism toward the government did not stop people from
trusting the official version of a recent attack on police that was blamed on
Islamists.:
M: Do you accept the official version that it was a terrorist act?

P5: Yes.
P6: Yes.
M: Of those who do not accept it, what was it?
P5: This was just a test. They are simply Wahhabis who are trying to attract
people, and are not trying to show their allegiance to these internal groups
that we have.
P2: We have a lot of them. (Almaty, 18–30, mixed)
The telling reference to “Wahhabis,” a term used in post- Soviet states

that is equivalent to “jihadists,” shows that the speaker had internalized the
government’s discourse about terrorism. At the risk of sounding credulous,
respondents eschewed a conspiratorial interpretation of a false flag attack or
other official machinations. Instead, they converged on the official version,
which posited a conspiracy emanating from outside the country.12 In this case,
like in the experimental vignettes from the previous chapter, people accepted
elite claims implicating actors who were already disliked. National security is
an area in which people lack independent sources of intelligence and afford the
state deference—at least in Kazakhstan. Ongoing propaganda about the terrorist
threat to Kazakhstan, some real but mostly exaggerated, paid off. But we cannot
assume that endorsement of a conspiracy claim automatically translates into
support for the authorities.
Dealing with Ambiguity
Contrary to the expectation that some people are endowed with a conspirato-
rial mentality, participants were able to fine-tune how nefarious they viewed
actors to be, depending on the domain.13 In some cases, this meant trusting
Citizen Cynics 167
some institutions but not others, for example, religious authorities but not po-
litical parties. Rarely did a participant view every potentially suspicious matter
as a conspiracy. When asked to name the most serious problems in Georgia,
respondents cited unemployment, education, migration, the environment, and
agriculture—the kinds of everyday issues post-Soviet citizens often complain
about. When asked to say who was responsible, participants did not automati-
cally claim conspiracies, but rather cited political incompetence, invoked struc-
tural factors, and blamed corruption. The same people who endorsed these
mundane causes would, at other points, speak of Masonic conspiracies or back-
room deals involving the Kremlin and local politicians. There was no necessary
connection between endorsement of conspiracy in one context and another.
The social nature of focus groups may also cause people to express more
agreement with conspiracy theories proposed by others than they would in pri-
vate settings. Research has shown that people look to others for validation about
what to believe in social settings, so discussion groups may be a better simula-
tion of how they form opinions than one-on-one interviews.14 Where cynicism
is widely shared, as in Georgia and Kazakhstan, commiserating about con-
spiracy produces solidarity. It allows people to revel in their shared status as the
objects of exploitation, both as individuals and as compatriots living in a country
surrounded by competing great powers.15 It is consistent with survey findings
that more conspiratorial people are better socially integrated but less willing to
engage with the state. On occasions where people lack concrete information,
they might acquiesce to the claims of confident, opinionated participants.
The search for solid ground is especially difficult when facts are scarce and
there are only rumors—sometimes conflicting ones. An underlying belief that
power corrupts can only take you so far when there are multiple versions of the
story. The struggle to seek out a plausible explanation in the presence of minimal
facts is illustrated by a discussion of the coup that had recently been attempted
in Turkey. Unlike the authoritative conspiratorial version of 9/11 or the Ukraine
war, the details of that event were unfamiliar in Georgia, leaving participants
with an open mind:
M: Have you heard anything about the coup in Turkey?

P5: Only from TV, nothing more. They said that suddenly a coup occurred, be-
sides that there’s only what I heard on television and I don’t know much.
P4: About 60,000 like-minded people were arrested.
M: Tamar, what do you know about this?
P7: I heard that the Turkish president blamed the Turkish oligarch who lives in
America.
M: Do you believe this version?
P7: Maybe.
P4: I have other information.

P1: I do not think that the Gülen [theory] is right. So many people don’t like this
president, so I doubt it.
P2: I have information that America had an interest in the conflict. When the
first planes were shot down, it was a bone of contention between Russia and
Turkey, but then Erdoğan apologized to Russia and offended America. Then
a few days later there was a terrorist attack. In fact, America was preparing
Turkey to attack Russia.
M: Why did America intervene?
P2: On the contrary, Putin took over Turkey; it already has close ties with Russia.
It didn’t work out for America.
M: And why is America involved in this?
P1: America is involved in everything.
P2: This was its plan.
M: There was also a version that Erdoğan himself made a coup in order to gain
more power.
P1: Yes. Gülen talks about it.
P2: Who knows, it’s logical to assume that America is trying by all possible means
to weaken Russia.
P8: I think so too.
P3: Until someone gives us a glimpse into this matter, all versions are believable.
Maybe it was America, I can’t say, or maybe Turkey planned it itself, or even
Russia might have done it.
P6: It’s hard to say, this is why politics is a dirty business. (Kutaisi, 31–65)
Despite the pressure to conform within groups, there were many cases of rea-
soned skepticism toward the conspiracy claims of others. Dissensus was more
common on topics that people could not draw on personal experience to assess.
On Masons and Jews, for example, several participants openly expressed skepti-
cism about the claims of the vocal conspiracist at the table, noting that they could
not endorse what they could not observe themselves. The 9/11 attacks elicited
roughly equal numbers of adherents to the official story and some version of
conspiracy. There was also some doubt about a secret cabal that controls world
events in Georgia:
I think we’re going back to a recent topic and somehow I do not think that 20
people from different countries sit down and decide where tomorrow should
be a hotspot [ochag voiny], where there’s a celebration [prazdnik], and where
there’s a crisis. I don’t think that this is the case because wars happen for a spe-
cific reason. (Batumi, 18–30)
Citizen Cynics 169
In Kazakhstan, a participant raised doubts about claims of fifth columns,

applying skepticism toward his own government—which he could observe up
close—to Russian rhetoric that looked very similar:
M: Raise your hands if you have heard of fifth column.

[P2, P5, P7 raise their hands]
P5: This is what they came up with in Russia, those enemies that are inside the
state from America, which America pays to destroy the country from in-
side, to reduce it spiritually. They are provocateurs. This is the opinion of
the state, and I believe that this is complete nonsense in order to mess with
people’s heads [zabit’ golovy] through TV. And our leaders, too, talked about
those who went to protests. They also said that the fifth column reached
Kazakhstan. They said, send this video to all friends of the Zhek [district res-
idential office] as you like.
M: That is, the fifth column is protesters?
P5: No, these are people who destroy the country from the inside. They even tried
to label Posner [a journalist] a fifth column. And if you get referred to as a
fifth column, it is tantamount to a death sentence. (Almaty, 18–30, mixed)
And just as cynicism impeded sympathy toward officials who claim conspir-
acies, endorsing Russian propaganda did not lead routinely to people taking
Russia’s side. A deeper structure of belief—that all powers connive, though some
may be worse than others—meant that it was possible to accept Russia’s claims
while also believing Russia was guilty of the very acts it accused its enemies of
committing. This contradiction appeared in a discussion in Kazakhstan about
the Ukraine war:
P3: I think I still hold the opinion that this was more in the interests of the USA,
and then Russia got involved and began to find its interests from there.
P1: Russia, I don’t know whether they stoked the flames or not, but if you think
about it . . .
P8: It is constantly getting worse, the war, and now they have created Palestine
south of Russia. By the way, the Ukrainians will never calm down, it will
be just like Palestine, it will blow up. If they had only thought this through,
whether this was necessary.
P1: If not for them, there wouldn’t be a war.
M: What do you think, is eastern Ukraine all about Russia?
P6: I didn’t think that Russia was involved, but the details naturally make it look
that way.
...
P3: It seems to me that, after all, it was the Russian soldiers who controlled all this.
P8: And supposedly they are all private citizens and there were no soldiers.
P3: These are all fairy tales.
M: From the majority of people today there is such an opinion that the United
States initially helped start the war, and then Russia.
P7: Russia thought it was a good idea and got involved.
P8: I agree. (Pavlodar, 18–65, mixed)
In the final analysis, Russia, an apparent geopolitical ally of Kazakhstan, was not
beyond reproach.
Conclusion
The political actors discussed in Chapters 2–5 were not operating in a vacuum.
They knew their audience and their audience knew them. Focus group
participants echoed much of what they had heard in the media, expressing belief
in a variety of conspiracy theories. They did so on mundane matters like policy-
making and business, and in more extraordinary circumstances such as wars and
revolutions. They were promiscuous in their choice of perpetrators. They named
states (the United States and Russia, for the most part), individuals (George
Soros, EU technocrats), and nonstate actors (NGOs, Masons).
Participants displayed satisfaction, even enthusiasm, when recounting con-
spiracies they were powerless to stop. This was not so much a case of heroic
martyrdom as an opportunity to enjoy the camaraderie of similarly mistreated
people who could take pride in imagining, describing, and joking about con-
spiracies. If cynicism is debilitating when it comes to engaging with politics, it
is a useful icebreaker in social situations. To take conspiracy seriously is also
a way to demonstrate savvy and avoid being perceived as a dupe. Incidentally,
when politicians promote conspiracy claims, they do so for similar reasons. Yet
the consequences of appearing too credulous differ: citizens risk losing face;
politicians risk losing power.
Participants from Georgia and Kazakhstan were similar in more ways
than they were different, indicating shared beliefs about the operation of
power: cynical, insatiable, and unrelenting. If the voices of people in Kazakhstan
are any indication, then citizens of other authoritarian states with scarce offi-
cial conspiracism are also likely to harbor conspiracy beliefs that do not receive
mention in public outlets. Evidence from such countries suggests this is indeed
the case.16 At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that Georgia and
Kazakhstan are not necessarily representative of other states in the region, much
less outside it. They occupy only two points on the relevant dimensions of this
Citizen Cynics 171
study, and they possess their own idiosyncratic historical experiences and polit-
ical cultures.
I opened this chapter by arguing that people extrapolate from their beliefs
about the self-interested elites they observe up close. Their description of global
machinations resembles the dynamics of domestic intrigue they are familiar
with: rules that are meant to be broken, shadowy alliances to reap short-term
advantage, the use of diversion and deception to conceal true intentions, and the
absence of any neutral referee to keep actors honest. A similar kind of projection
occurs when people imagine how other political systems operate. For example,
Russia often accuses the United States of hypocrisy based on the premise that it
uses democracy and rule of law as façades, masking its bullying foreign policy
and corruption.17 It follows that all regimes must operate like post-Soviet ones,
except that some—namely democracies—have a more sophisticated public re-
lations apparatus. Participants in the focus groups likewise projected their own
understanding of politics overseas, as this excerpt from Georgia attests:
P5: Everyone knows that war is a business, there is money to be made.

...
M: Are you talking about businessmen?
P3: In America Trump comes to power, in Ukraine a businessman did too.
P2: Business today rules the world.
P6: Money rules everything.
P5: They probably even start wars intentionally.
M: Are there specific people? For example you mentioned Trump.
P3: I did not say that Trump is in power, but in business. So he is a businessman
and comes to power, then wants to protect [kyrshevat’] his business. So why
do we suddenly see Trump and Ivanishvili? Before that Trump paid taxes,
and now if he comes to power he won’t pay.
P6: Right, he won’t need to, he’ll have all the power.
P3: He’ll get another law passed, and he’ll become even richer. (Tbilisi, 18–30)
Are they talking about a conspiracy theory involving Trump? Perhaps not, as
the participants in this group may have inadvertently delivered a sharper anal-
ysis of US politics than Americans themselves could provide at that time—not
because they had any special insight into the American Constitutional system,
but because politics in the United States started to look familiar to them. In the
run-up to the 2016 election, and more so after it, America’s politics witnessed a
blurring of the boundary between public affairs and private business, and the
national discourse became increasingly infused with the kind of intrigue, insin-
uation, and conspiratorial narratives that would not be out of place in Russia
in the 1990s or Georgia in the 2010s. In an interesting reversal, the experience
of the post-Soviet region over the previous 20 years could be instructive for
Americans, some of whom were appalled by the violation of longstanding norms
and unabashed promotion of conspiracy theories effected by their elected rep-
resentatives, whereas others were enthralled by them. I explore this apparent
convergence of post-Soviet politics and contemporary American democracy,
and the broader implications of conspiracy in the public discourse, in the final
chapter.
9
Disaffection, Disinformation,
and Democracy
The preceding chapters have detailed some of the revealing schemes politicians
engage in when using conspiracy to boost their political fortunes. I focused on the
post-Soviet states because they have earned a reputation for conspiracism even
though, as we saw, there were important differences among them. Unfortunately,
there have been limited efforts to understand the politics of conspiracy beyond
studies of individual countries. This book has gone part of the way toward rem-
edying that gap by comparing multiple countries, albeit within a single region.
This begs the question of how well the argument applies in other settings.
This chapter reviews the main findings of the book up to this point and then
shifts the focus beyond the post-Soviet region. I first discuss what the argument
contributes to ongoing debates in political science about how regimes spread and
manipulate information. I then consider the evolution of conspiracism in two
imperfect democracies: Turkey, which bears a surface resemblance to the cases
covered in this book, and the United States, a country with a venerable history of
popular belief in conspiracy theories. Despite being a well-established democ-
racy, recent developments indicate that conspiracy claims in the United States
have moved fully into the political mainstream. I then discuss the implications
of Russia’s export of conspiracy theories, a practice initially intended to influence
opinion in the near abroad but then expanded globally. Finally, I consider the
implications of this book’s arguments for democracy and governance today.
Taking Stock
In earlier chapters, I showed that politicians in power treat conspiracy theories

as one item on a menu of tactics, which they wield at particular moments. The
analysis revealed where and when the ground for conspiracy theories is most
fertile: around destabilizing events, amid political competition, and when seeded
by cross-border connections. A close reading showed how conspiracy claims re-
flect the sordid underside of post-Soviet political developments. I showed that
claims from the database reflect preoccupations about threats that emerge from
within the “palace” or from the “street.”
I then assessed explanations for the appearance of conspiracy claims, begin-

ning with the question of whether their overall frequency has increased over
time. (The answer: yes, but not continuously; the major break occurred between
the first and second decade.) The analysis further revealed that street events pro-
duced the most vehement reactions; that geopolitical alliances helped explain
but did not exhaust the choice of perpetrators; that political openness was a cat-
alyst for conspiracism; and that government officials became more vocally con-
spiratorial over time.
The next two chapters examined how conspiracy operates within coun-
tries. In-depth analysis revealed that outcomes are sometimes more complex
than they first appear. For example, critics point to contemporary Russia as
an exemplar of the cynical use of conspiracy claims to manipulate opinion.1
Examination of the evidence showed that this was not always the case, even
in the Putin era. The Putin regime initially invoked conspiracies reactively
but later began wielding them preemptively, after facing threats that chal-
lenged the Kremlin’s dominant narrative. In Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, and
Kyrgyzstan, political competition and geopolitical orientation made certain
narratives more appealing as a means to shore up power or signal solidarity
with Russia.
The post-Soviet states differ in important ways from the WEIRD2 countries
where most research on conspiracy theories has taken place. This book has
illuminated how conspiracy theories operate under different historical and in-
stitutional conditions from those of the United States or Western Europe; the
countries in question are middle-or low-income, semi-democratic or authori-
tarian, Orthodox or Muslim, and historically perceived as deficient in the trap-
pings of modernity.3
Yet there was nothing exceptional about the politics of conspiracy in the re-
gion. Neither culture nor psychology were especially useful in making sense of
the phenomenon at issue. Instead, the explanation centered on the maintenance
of control and the forces of contestation. It was not the most repressive states but
rather places where politics was relatively open and elections were competitive—
but freewheeling—that the incentives were greatest for politicians to make con-
spiracy claims. The suppression of information may make people suspicious, but
an excess of it provides the oxygen that conspiracy theories need to thrive.4 This
was borne out in surveys indicating that in Georgia, where leaders’ shortcomings
are exposed and their claims publicly contested, respondents were especially
predisposed to believe conspiracy theories. However, as the focus groups made
clear, participants in both countries were liable to express cynicism toward polit-
ical authority. These findings underscore the observation that people in the study
were generally receptive to conspiracy theories but suspicious of the officials who
endorsed them.
Disaffection, Disinformation, and Democracy 175
Authoritarianism, Information, and Conspiracism
The argument and evidence presented to this point have implications for sev-
eral debates in political science in several related areas. First, I argued that
conspiracism can flourish in states with competitive politics, but because the
study did not include any consolidated democracies, I could not apply the
framework to the full range of regime types. Yet some of the underlying dy-
namics I have identified might be applicable in democratic systems as well.
An implicit but necessary condition for my argument is the scarcity of es-
tablished, trusted institutions that can adjudicate political discourse and
potentially deter claims made in bad faith.5 This feature distinguishes the
post-Soviet region from most established democracies. However, some dem-
ocracies exhibit another feature that may encourage extreme rhetoric: high
levels of ideological polarization, which was a contributing, rather than pri-
mary, factor in earlier chapters. By providing inducements to demonize po-
litical opponents and appeal exclusively to one’s supporters, polarization can
erode norms against promoting disinformation while heightening distrust in
independent institutions.6 In this way, the political incentives in excessively
polarized democracies can come to resemble those in hybrid regimes, such
that conspiratorial rhetoric may be viewed as not only acceptable but even
advantageous.
Second, the findings in this book touch on the strategic use of information by
nondemocratic regimes. What some scholars have called “informational autoc-
racies” employ subtle means to generate public approval in ways that differ from
the blunt tactics of past regimes.7 Contemporary authoritarian regimes typically
seek to manipulate or restrict the flow of information.8 They can also influence
public opinion through control over the content of messages, by reporting facts
with pro-regime interpretations;9 emphasizing competence and economic per-
formance;10 and trumpeting heroic narratives to inflame nationalism and dis-
tract from mundane concerns.11 Others have proposed that the main purpose of
authoritarian propaganda is not persuasion, but signaling. When a regime puts
out patently ridiculous or false information with apparent impunity, it serves
to reinforce how unshakable the regime must be.12 In such a milieu, loyalists
are forced to engage in humiliating displays that irreversibly bind them to the
leader.13
I have described additional ways that leaders use conspiratorial propaganda
to send signals intended to aid in their political survival. One use of signaling
is to reinforce perceptions of the power of the state through the assertion of
knowledge. Although people can check the veracity of some assertions (e.g., “the
economy is thriving”) against their own experience, they have less ability to inde-
pendently verify claims about politically significant, and especially destabilizing,
events. Claiming a conspiracy is a way for actors in a position of authority to

flaunt their access to intelligence and to remind audiences of the prerogatives
of their office. Laying the groundwork for future challenges by pushing a con-
spiracy narrative is a way for regimes to signal strength through prescience, and
to avoid the humiliation of appearing oblivious.
When a signal is intended for external audiences, the relevant information is
not how (un)believable it is, but who is named in the claim. Naming an enemy
shared by other states can be used to imply the existence of a common identity
among those supposedly threatened, with the aim of securing public expressions
of support, financial assistance, or military intervention.14 This signal is likely to
be especially effective where naming the perpetrator risks burning bridges with
influential allies.15 External signaling through conspiracy differs from positive
propaganda disseminated abroad that is usually assumed to boost a country’s
soft power, as the former operates through the identification of common foes
rather than attraction based on a country’s virtues.
This book’s argument also suggests that distinctions about propaganda
based on its plausibility may be less relevant when it comes to conspiracy. First,
whether observers can distinguish plausible from “absurd” claims may depend
on the surrounding context. Given the intrinsically unverifiable nature of con-
spiracy claims, and the fact that they are wielded in political arenas where con-
spiracies are often real, it is difficult for observers on the ground to assess their
plausibility.16 Furthermore, if such a line exists, it shifts over time. If a regime
decides to sustain a conspiracy narrative to seed the ground for future claims,
ideas that would once have been dismissed—for example, that the West is en-
gaged in an ideological war against Russia through video games17—might later
be taken more seriously.18 If audiences cannot make the distinction about what
type of propaganda they are witnessing, then the signal indicating which type of
regime is spreading it, and the reputational costs that must be paid to support it,
will be lost.
Whereas rational-choice models of authoritarian resilience tend, as a sim-
plification, to view the world from the perspective of rulers, this book has
foregrounded the political milieus they inhabit. This perspective underscored
the oftentimes reactive quality of conspiracy-making, which sheds light on the
reasons that regime propaganda can fall short of its aims. First, if conspiracy
claims intended to project power are leveled under pressure, then even when
an allegation is perceived as plausible, its timing and motive may come across
as suspicious, which weakens the strength of the signal. Second, even if leaders
manage to get ahead of the competition by preemptively laying the groundwork,
the intended effect of conspiracy can become attenuated through repeated use.
This can lead to conspiracy fatigue, as new claims that would have once garnered
attention fade into the background.
Last, regimes that habitually claim conspiracy can lose credibility over time.
In certain cases, people might not value honesty in their leaders. In fact, they
may find comfort in lies, insofar as they signal the leader’s alignment with their
interests over other groups.19 However, if claims of conspiracy are repeated but
prophesies of doom fail to materialize, it can reinforce the perception that the
regime prefers to blame others rather than govern effectively. There is a fine line
between granting the ruler the benefit of the doubt owing to his power, and cyn-
ically questioning his motives.20 The erosion of credibility is a critical warning
sign for a regime that seeks to rule through voluntary compliance, and may
impel it to make more brazen and volatile moves to stay in power. The notion that
conspiracism can backfire builds on the literature relating to regime blunders,
in which actions intended to shore up power end up having the opposite effect,
whether due to shortsidedness, misperceptions, or overconfidence.21
In Russia, the incumbent regime faced the challenges of both fatigue and cred-
ibility as Putin began his third decade of rule. After having boosted his approval
rating through the “sugar high” of Crimea, his support eroded, in part due to
a weakened economy and a new round of pension reforms.22 Russians suffered
immensely during the Covid-19 pandemic, during which Putin uncharacteris-
tically devolved responsibility to governors and forced through a constitutional
referendum extending presidential term limits. Yet most Russians continued to
support the status quo based on their hope that the government would provide
them with opportunities for a better life, or simply because there was no alter-
native to Putin.23 At some point after 2014, conspiracy claims became part of
the background noise in Russia. When dissident Alexei Navalny was poisoned,
the Kremlin put out a typical barrage of alternative narratives that aimed more
to muddle than to persuade.24 Massive protests on his behalf ensued in 2021. If
the Kremlin were to engage in a new campaign of conspiracism in an effort to
restore Putin’s previous heights of popularity, citizens might be willing to believe
the allegations—depending on who was targeted—but it would be unlikely to
produce the regime-fortifying effects that such onslaughts have had in the past.
A more dramatic demonstration of how the impact of conspiracy can fade
with time can be seen in the aftermath of Belarus’s fraudulent election of 2020.
Lukashenko again faced protests and responded with his usual conspiratorial
bluster—only this time it was evident that few people believed him. Unlike in
previous episodes, the government alleged prior to the election that it was Russia,
not the West, that sought to overthrow Lukashenko.25 Only after the rigged vote,
when tens of thousands of Belarusians poured onto the streets, did it revert to
type. Drawing on familiar tropes, Lukashenko said, “The Belarusian 2020 sce-
nario is a combination of the most effective ‘color’ destabilization technologies
that have been tested in various countries.”26 He even sent positive signals to
Russia by claiming that Navalny’s poisoning was “faked.”27
For most Belarusians, allegations of external meddling fell on deaf ears while
security forces imprisoned, beat, and tortured demonstrators.28 Protests arose in
cities and small towns across the country, and state employees working in fac-
tories denounced Lukashenko. Despite a large-scale crackdown and intimations
of Russian military support, protests continued for far longer than they had in
any previous “color revolution” in the region. Lukashenko signaled his strength,
and even deployed troops to make it palpable, but these moves failed to dampen
people’s anger over economic and political stagnation, Lukashenko’s flagrant
dismissal of the coronavirus pandemic, and the regime’s general neglect of the
public’s well-being.29
How Conspiracism Emerges beyond the Post-Soviet States
Outside the post-Soviet region, notorious uses of conspiracism in mainstream

politics in the twenty-first century could be found in countries such as Venezuela,
Turkey, Hungary, Poland, and Pakistan. What do they have in common? The
details vary, but common factors include competitive, polarized politics and
weak democratic institutions. Leaders in these countries used conspiracy claims
to discredit rivals, deflect accusations, and account for events that threatened
their claim to rule.
Two cases, Turkey and the United States, are worth examining in more depth
to probe whether the factors I identified earlier have some purchase outside the
former Soviet Union. Without the exhaustive collection of official conspiracy
claims in these countries, it is not possible to do a full analysis. However, anec-
dotal evidence suggests that in both countries conspiracism migrated from the
fringes to become part of the political repertoire to a greater degree over time.
Importantly, there was latent popular conspiracism, but it did not automatically
trickle up into the political arena. Short-term shocks interacted with political
intrigue and electoral incentives to make conspiracy a more attractive rhetorical
style. These mechanisms are similar to cases discussed in earlier chapters.
Intrigue and Incitement in Turkey
In Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became more conspiratorial

as he sought to increase his power but faced resistance in doing so. Erdoğan’s
political success, beginning with the Justice and Development Party (AKP)’s
victory in 2002, paralleled his ongoing struggles against entrenched interests,
which produced a steady drumbeat of political intrigue. One rival power center
was the military, which had exercised informal control over Turkish politics and
a dominant role in the economy since the early days of the republic. Erdoğan
sought to weaken the military over his successive terms, leveraging his power of
appointments and influence over the legal system. High-ranking officers were
charged with anti-government plots with varying levels of plausibility, including
in a massive trial alleging a false flag conspiracy. As often happens, conspiracy
allegations were flung in both directions; if the charges were fictitious, then it was
Erdoğan who executed the conspiracy.30
As Erdoğan turned more authoritarian and sought to leave his party’s stamp on
Turkish society and culture, he provoked new challenges to his authority, which
he countered in part by leveling conspiracy theories. The Gezi Park protests of
2013, which opposed a large Istanbul construction project that was important
to Erdoğan and his financial backers, was a visible setback and a threat to the
party’s dominant narrative of progress through development. The extended du-
ration of the protests and the diversity of participants—especially those with lib-
eral and Western orientations—provided material for conspiracy narratives that
accorded with the regime’s goals. While endorsing heavy-handed tactics against
demonstrators, Erdoğan signaled strength by alleging a plot brought on by “in-
ternal traitors and external collaborators.”31 Officials also accused Jews—both
directly and indirectly, as the “interest rate lobby”—of seeking to use the protests
to harm Turkey.32
Later in his term, having neutralized the military as a threat, Erdoğan took
on another adversary within Turkey’s “deep state.” Fethullah Gülen, a wealthy
spiritual leader who opened hundreds of schools across Turkey, presided over
a large network of acolytes who owed allegiance to Gülen and reputedly infil-
trated the police, judiciary, and media.33 Gülen and Erdoğan had been allies
when struggling against the Kemalist old guard, but they parted ways as Erdoğan
sought greater power. In 2014, after Erdoğan became the target of corruption
allegations and members of his inner circle were arrested, he launched a con-
spiratorial propaganda campaign against his former ally. An audio recording
surfaced of Erdoğan purportedly instructing his son to move large amounts of
cash in advance of a police raid. Caught reeling by these events, he claimed the
Gülenists had created a “ ‘parallel state’ in the service of ‘dark alliances.’ ”34
The July 2016 coup attempt by a faction of army officers made this conspiracy
theory look more like reality. Then again, Erdoğan’s response, a massive purge of
accused Gülenists, fed the narrative that Erdoğan had manufactured the coup
as a pretext to purge his enemies. Was it absurd to believe that an old man living
in exile in Pennsylvania was able to activate hundreds of his followers, who had
permeated the highest echelons of the Turkish state, to bring down the presi-
dent? Was the president’s claim that hundreds of thousands of Turks were part
of a secretive network itself a conspiracy theory? Or did an opportunistic pres-
ident simply exploit the coup attempt to further concentrate power? Whatever
the truth, Erdoğan used the prerogatives of his office to establish a dominant
narrative—implicating his former ally—and to marginalize alternatives. Even if
the original charge against Gülen’s supporters for attempting the coup was sup-
portable by available evidence, the allegation that people with tenuous Gülenist
connections throughout the civil service, higher education, media, and business
were also complicit was not. That conspiracy claim was an adjunct of Erdoğan’s
effort to turn a major destabilizing challenge into the demonstration of regime
domination, as thousands of people were prosecuted and imprisoned.
Conspiracy claims in Turkey, though ultimately used by the regime to facil-
itate its accrual of power, initially emerged from political dynamics outside re-
gime control. Thanks to the intrigue that pervaded Turkish politics, internecine
conspiracy claims were the norm as long as pluralism persisted. By seeking to
eliminate competing centers of power, the AKP provoked inevitable resistance.
Justifying its response to these challenges as a defense against conspiracies threat-
ening the nation and state placed the regime in a rhetorically powerful position.
It then maintained the upper hand by weaving conspiracy claims into a broader
narrative of nationalist assertion and persecution. This narrative also provided a
structure to preempt novel crises, such as a struggling economy, which Erdoğan
could conveniently and (ostensibly) presciently blame on outsiders.35
American Conspiracism Resurgent
In comparison to Russia or Turkey, the United States, as an established democ-

racy with over 200 years of constitutional governance, stands out for the sur-
prising prominence of conspiracism in its politics. Following the 2016 election,
some commentators blamed Russia for poisoning the national dialogue, pit-
ting Americans against one another, and imposing a Kremlin stooge on the
American body politic.36 This explanation is just implausible enough to be a con-
spiracy theory. Blaming outsiders, particularly unpopular ones, is a convenient
way to avoid unpleasant introspection. But we would be on more solid ground by
looking at the indigenous origins of conspiracism in America.
The argument of this book provides some leverage to explain how US political
elites came to embrace conspiracism in the 2010s. In particular, widespread pop-
ular conspiracism that endured across generations slowly percolated to the po-
litical fringes and then rapidly moved into mainstream politics, in similar ways
to the Russian case. In the United States, however, it was political opportunism
rather than regime crisis that brought about the shift. As in competitive post-
Soviet regimes, there was an electoral motive to invoke conspiracies, in an envi-
ronment in which sufficient numbers of voters were likely to reward, rather than
punish, such rhetoric.
The United States has a streak of lay belief in conspiracy theories dating back
to pre-revolutionary times, and political leaders have periodically employed the
idiom of conspiracy to advance their agendas.37 In the twentieth century a strain
of conservative libertarianism, with the backing of business, laid the philosoph-
ical groundwork for later anti-government conspiracists. Organizations such
as the John Birch Society organized people around the imagined infiltration of
communism into the United States and government efforts to brainwash and
control citizens.38
Elected officials during the Cold War, most prominent among them Senator
Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon, amplified conspiracy claims alleging that
communists were intent on burrowing into the government.39 President Ronald
Reagan exaggerated the scale of Soviet expansion into the Western Hemisphere
and touted it as a threat to national security.40 After the Cold War ended, elites
used conspiracy less often, but extreme anti-government ideas gained a greater
popular foothold. Surveys show a steep decline in trust in American political
institutions from the 1960s to 2000.41
Several factors contributed to the mainstreaming of conspiracism in the
United States around the turn of the millennium. First, increasing polarization
created the foundations for mutual distrust. The Republican Southern strategy
had attracted racially resentful white voters and had pushed Blacks into the
Democratic Party. Geographic sorting and the diverging fortunes of urban and
rural areas gave rise not only to diverging ways of life, but also to different identi-
ties.42 Visceral distrust and beliefs about the malign character of members of the
opposing party made it possible to believe they were capable of actions beyond
the pale of conventional democratic practice.43 Partisan rancor was evident in
the most prominent American conspiracy theories of the early 2000s: the “9/11
Truthers” and the anti-Obama “Birthers.”44
Another clue to explain the phenomenon in the United States has to do
with the diverging character of the two major parties. Studies have found a
comparable level of conspiracism on the left and right throughout US his-
tory.45 However, recent events suggest that this symmetry no longer holds. It is
Republicans—elites and supportive media—who have embraced conspiracism
as a tactic for campaigning and governing. If receptivity to conspiracy theories
in Russia stemmed from people’s alienation from the state and Russia’s resent-
ment toward the West, in the United States it is critical to focus on the motiv-
ations of the voters who make up the Republican base. This segment of the
electorate felt threatened by economic insecurity and changing demographics,
and resented the cultural and economic power of urban elites. Their elected
representatives gave voice to their grievances, contributing to a myth of vic-
timhood and constructing misleading narratives about who was to blame for
their troubles.46
The final element contributing to the mainstreaming of conspiracism on the

American right, and to a lesser extent on the left, is competition—fierce, high-
stakes, and strident electoral battles premised on sincere beliefs in the other side’s
bad faith and stoked by cynical party operatives. Right-wing media, which con-
sistently reported false information or stoked racial animus toward Democrats,
played a major part in mainstreaming fringe ideas.47 The Tea Party that emerged
in opposition to President Obama endorsed and spread birtherism, and some
of its proponents were elected to Congress, representing the latest foray of
conspiracism into electoral politics.48
When Donald Trump decided to run for president, he simply picked up the
baton. He entered the political arena by pushing birtherism on Fox News. In the
campaign, he posed as an outsider taking on establishment elites and used con-
spiracy theories—about Obama, George Soros, immigrants, Benghazi, and the
FBI—not to signal strength or prescience, but to boost his populist credentials.
By deliberately violating norms, Trump signaled his disdain for established
institutions in order to appeal to an aggrieved subset of the population. The
president-elect then claimed that millions of illegal immigrants had voted for
Hillary Clinton, relying on the prerogatives of his new position to account for the
threatening fact (at least to him) that he had lost the popular vote.
The Manchurian Machiavellian
In a competitive and increasingly fierce political environment, conspiracism on

the right begat conspiracism on the left in a dynamic similar to the competi-
tive post-Soviet states around elections. Ironically, the conspiracy-touting pres-
ident was himself implicated in a possible conspiracy, one that involved Russia.
Russia is often accused of projecting—blaming the United States for acts that
Russia itself is accused of committing: overthrowing governments, assassinating
opponents, and carrying out disinformation campaigns. In 2016, we saw the re-
verse: Trump’s aggrieved opponents claimed that Russia, by subverting an elec-
tion and manipulating a puppet president, was engaged in schemes that Russians
have long accused Americans of carrying out.
The logic of the conspiracy narrative put forward by some Democrats and so-
called never-Trumpers revolved around Trump’s past business dealings, his pos-
itive comments about Russia and Putin, and his personal visits to Russia. Exhibit
A is the quote from Donald Trump Jr. from 2008: “Russians make up a pretty
disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. . . . We see a lot of money
pouring in from Russia.”49 Additional circumstantial evidence for a hidden al-
liance includes Russia’s hacking the Democratic National Committee, the
public release of emails damaging to Clinton through Wikileaks, a social media
operation from Saint Petersburg to assist Trump and divide Americans, contacts
between Russians and members of the Trump campaign including a meeting in
Trump Tower, and the Trump Organization’s years-long effort to build a tower
in Moscow, which it continued to pursue even after Trump won the Republican
nomination.50
Trump’s accusers went beyond established facts to claim that the president
was a collusive fifth column. MSNBC, and especially Rachel Maddow, covered
the “Trump-Russia” story in depth for the first two years of the Trump presi-
dency. These and other reports alleged that Trump was being blackmailed over
escapades that occurred during his 2013 trip to Moscow as described in the
so-called Steele Dossier; leverage stemming from his indebtedness to Russian
mobsters; or other forms of kompromat. Some commentators claimed he was
a Russian asset, or that he had accepted Russian help to win the election in ex-
change for policies beneficial to Russia.51 Critically, however, few Democratic
elected officials endorsed conspiracy claims about Trump. On occasion, influ-
ential Democrats like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would allude to the
Trump-Putin relationship as a joke, but prominent figures in the party did not
make it a central element of their effort to regain power.52
The conspiracy-mongering efforts of Republicans were more organized, de-
liberate, and detrimental to democracy. Over the course of Trump’s presidency,
his defenders developed an ability to rally around conspiracy claims when
Trump faced threats. This coordination was evident, for example, in the notion
of an anti-Trump “deep state,” a claim that was exhaustively promoted on Fox
News and talk radio by right-wing pundits and Republican officials to fight back
against the Mueller investigation into election interference. By the time Trump
held up military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President
Joe Biden and his son Hunter, the Republican Party had embraced a messaging
strategy of focused, repetitive conspiracism. An army of Trump supporters on
Twitter and Facebook circulated false narratives, including the claim that Biden
had advocated for the removal of a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect his son
from an investigation. During the impeachment hearings, conspiracy theories
relating to Biden, Ukraine, and leading Democrats were honed, broadcasted,
and repeated to muddy the waters about Trump’s actions or to advance a di-
versionary narrative to dominate the news cycle.53 After the 2020 presidential
election, many of the same public officials, media personalities, and right-wing
Twitter users aggressively promoted conspiracy claims about election fraud to
sow doubts among voters and impel election officials and members of Congress
to overturn the results. The effort failed in the short term but planted the seeds
for future conspiracy campaigns to boost the fortunes of the Republican Party
while undermining democracy in the process. The right’s ability to promote and
amplify unified and consistent conspiratorial messages to advance political goals
bears a striking resemblance to the Kremlin’s marshaling of the (usually state-

controlled) media and the Internet to propagate its narratives, both domestically
and beyond its borders.
Russia Exports Its Conspiracy Claims
As illiberal forms of politics gained strength around the world, mounting evi-
dence pointed toward Russia’s efforts to export its conspiracy theories, especially
to open and competitive political systems where it could shape political attitudes.
Russia’s first notable use of disinformation for tactical purposes in the Putin
era took place as part of “active measures” employed in the conflicts on its pe-
riphery.54 Following the Euromaidan events, it went further afield, taking advan-
tage of the reach of social media and algorithms that could be easily exploited.
A striking aspect of some disinformation campaigns was the promotion of
multiple, and sometimes contradictory, claims rather than a single coherent nar-
rative. For example, when the assassins who poisoned Sergei Skripal, a former
Russian spy in the United Kingdom, were identified as Russian intelligence
agents, Russian media outlets and officials “flooded the zone.”55 They speculated
that British Intelligence had carried out the attack to inflame public opinion
against Russia, that Ukrainians were involved, and that a British weapons lab
might have produced the toxin.56 During the American impeachment hearings,
Russian broadcasters and bots pushed the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was
responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016—a claim
that was then promoted by President Trump and his Republican supporters in
Congress.57
Some commentators argued that Russia’s goal was to confuse audiences and
complicate the search for truth, rather than convince people of an alternative
explanation.58 They maintained that this tactic was novel and distinctly malign,
as a way to create an alternate reality and foreclose the very possibility of dis-
cerning the truth. But this tactic was neither new nor used exclusively after 2014.
Conspiracy theories need not be logically consistent with one another. Claimants
may test and then discard a narrative before turning to a different, contradictory
account that appears more effective. The reason some incidents, such as MH17,
the Skripal poisoning, and Russian election meddling involved obfuscation,
whereas others give rise to coherent narrative campaigns, is that in the former
cases Russia was probably the guilty party. Its main priority was to deflect blame
rather than to promote an alternative account implicating a specific adversary.
In other instances, like opposition protests, the Kremlin’s narrative was more
logically consistent. The novelty of its digital-era tactics stemmed from their
scope rather than their content. The ubiquity of Russian media and economic
interdependence in the post-Soviet region had long enabled the Kremlin to in-
fluence politics there, but social media extended Russia’s reach to places where
its cultural and economic influence were weaker. Posting in local languages and
adopting the idioms and tropes of local activists enabled professional trolls to
mask their real identities and influence events on the ground.
Conspiratorial and other propaganda found fertile soil in the polarized and
distrustful democracies where Russia had important interests. In the United
States, memes comparing Hillary Clinton to the devil and posts purporting to be
from Black Lives Matter activists were widely shared. In Germany, anti-migrant
conspiracy claims found a receptive audience in the ethnic Russian population
and on the far right.59 In divided countries, people were prepared to believe the
worst about their enemies—or were at least stirred enough to share sensational
messages with their online relations. It is debatable, however, how much Russian
interference mattered where domestic political divisions were already so intrac-
table, or whether it could succeed in advancing Russian foreign policy goals.60
A more tangible effect of Russian disinformation is its propensity to stoke
controversies involving allegations of Russian meddling. For example, after the
2016 US election, evidence surfaced that Russian trolls had recruited partisans
to protest by advertising on Facebook, sometimes on opposing sides of a sensi-
tive issue. The knowledge that protests can be unknowingly incited from abroad
provides a talking point that partisans can wield to stifle legitimate dissent.
Because it is sometimes impossible to identify the actors behind social media
postings, the charge of hidden manipulation can be difficult to refute, imposing
an additional barrier for unpopular causes to win public support.61 Likewise,
the Kremlin’s tacit encouragement of the idea that Putin was able to manipu-
late Trump—with no easy way to disprove it—produced angst among US policy
makers and much of the public. The mere use of active measures enabled Russia
to get into Americans’ heads, just as it has done in Ukraine, Georgia, and other
countries where it seeks to project influence.
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done?
Democracies are ideally suited to defend against conspiracy theories, as they

rest on a foundation of transparency, independent knowledge production,
and the free and open dissemination of information. But for some of the same
reasons, democracies provide fertile ground for conspiracy theories to grow
and spread. Political theorists once believed that openness and pluralism would
enable citizens to distinguish reliable from false information and to make rea-
soned judgments in order to productively participate in social and political life.
No longer.62 Democracies have recently shown themselves to be vulnerable to
populist demagogues, whose appeal lies in amplifying their voters’ grievances

and channeling their rage against easy targets, but without addressing the root of
their problems. This is not a new phenomenon. Plato argued that regimes change
in regular cycles; as people become disenchanted with the excessive freedoms
that come with democracy, they willingly give in to tyranny.63
Are we entering an age of democratic decline owing, in part, to the ina-
bility of political systems to prevent the flow of disinformation? Rosenblum
and Muirhead argue that there is a “new conspiracism,” at least in the United
States: “No specific accusations are made, and no falsifiable assertions are ven-
tured. The ‘just asking questions tactic’ substitutes for argument, evidence, and
explanation.”64 Insofar as the new conspiracism is intended to weaken demo-
cratic institutions, it may represent a new and worrying consequence of con-
spiracy theories in the United States, although its endurance may depend on the
ability of conspiracists to hold political power.
In the grand scheme, the disdain for truth and the seduction of conspiracy are
not new in much of the world. Truth has rarely been central in politics. Political
coalitions, like social groups, are bound by more than interests. They also involve
belonging and emotion: pride, self-esteem, anxiety, and self-assertion.65 The
question is whether the balance is shifting away from—at a minimum—an effort
to govern on Enlightenment principles and toward a politics of pure tribalism, to
which conspiracy comes naturally. The strength of political institutions and the
established independent press may make long-standing democracies resistant to
efforts to rule through provocation. Yet another future is also possible, one in
which power routinely prevails over rule of law and “truth” depends on personal
and partisan loyalties.
Recent developments in democracies show that a monopoly on information
is not necessary for demagogues to succeed. The target audience is not the un-
decided public, but rather the base of supporters who are already receptive to
transgressive messages. The goal of accusers in touting conspiracies is not to
sway undecided voters, but to signal what side they are on.66 In this way, political
coalitions in the United States, Brazil, India, and the Philippines resemble Russia
in the tumultuous 1990s, rather than Russia under Putin. In a slightly altered
world, a conspiracist candidate similar to Zyuganov or Zhirinovsky might have
beaten Yeltsin in 1996 and ruled on behalf of an aggrieved plurality. Similarly,
today, a substantial minority of citizens in democracies are jaded and dissatis-
fied with the status quo.67 As stigmas have weakened, some politicians have been
able to seize the moment to campaign and then govern through conspiracy, but
the opponents of populists have usually refused to employ the same tactics, for
ethical as well as practical reasons. If, however, conspiracism becomes fully nor-
malized in democracies, several threats loom on the horizon.
First is the possibility that people act on conspiratorial claims. If conspiracy

merely signals authority, belonging, or willingness to break the rules, then it
serves as a commonplace, if unpleasant, rhetorical tactic alongside ordinary
lies, exaggeration, distortion, and character assassination. But when people take
the claims seriously and act against defenseless opponents or take up arms, the
consequences are of a different order. The 2015 assassination of Russian opposi-
tion leader Boris Nemtsov and the murder of human rights defenders may have
been inspired by the Kremlin’s rhetoric about fifth columns sponsored by the
West. Even if it was not the intention of those who spread the accusations, when
powerful figures implicate their political foes in conspiracies, their claims may
be not only believed, but also perceived as a green light to go on the attack. In the
United States, murder plots, threats of violence against elected officials, and the
storming of the national Capitol were also inspired by conspiracy claims asserted
to secure short-term political advantage.68
A second hazard of conspiracy theories from public officials concerns the
communication of scientific information. The messages that governments
send about issues such as climate change or the efficacy of vaccines can influ-
ence public opinion, with consequences for public health and the environment.
Conspiracy theories, if believed, may lead people to support counterproductive
policies and enable governments to evade accountability. This dynamic was ev-
ident during the spread of Covid-19. For example, the Trump administration
sought to redirect blame from its response to the epidemic by asserting that
the virus had escaped from a government laboratory in China, while Russian
television claimed that Bill Gates sought to profit from the vaccine.69 Other
governments promoted conspiracy theories about Covid-19 that provided cover
for unscientific treatments and negligent public health responses.70
A last, more indirect risk of sustained conspiracism is that it may enable
one side to capture power and maintain it. Here, the contrast between Russia
on one hand, and Ukraine or Georgia on the other, is instructive. Where one
side is not able to monopolize conspiracy claims that reach the mass public, it
reflects pluralism and the possibility for competitors to displace the incumbent.
By the standards of states with limited experience with democracy—including
the United States for its first 150 years—a raucous political discourse may be a
necessary evil to ensure the alternation of power. Although competing conspira-
cies do not reflect the democratic ideal, they preserve the possibility that a public
sphere can eventually emerge in which facts play a role and politicians benefit
from appealing for votes on the basis of policy ideas. The alternative—where one
side dominates the spread of information, whether it is conspiratorial, conven-
tionally propagandistic, or simply banal—is more troubling, as it entrenches the
concentration of power and prevents rival voices from being heard.
Conspiracy theories are not going away any time soon, but they are unlikely
to crowd out other kinds of rhetoric. People still have mundane concerns and are
receptive to conventional political appeals based on good governance and basic
competence. Politicians are rolling the dice when they endorse conspiracy claims,
and are therefore ambivalent about using them. Over time, even those who adopt
conspiracism as a favored discourse may find that it yields diminishing returns.
People who care about the quality of democracy cannot hope to eradicate con-
spiracy theories, but it may be possible to limit their harmful effects. Progress can
be made by investing in institutions that help citizens become better informed
and resistant to misinformation. And governments and private organizations can
work to support an independent and financially sustainable press so that those
who seek reliable information are able to find it. In the meantime, conspiracy
theories will continue to remain a part of life, and citizens will respond by tuning
them out, dismissing them, deploring them, and—sometimes—believing them.
Appendix
This Appendix includes detail about the three sources of data used in this book. It
describes the procedures for collecting conspiracy claims for the database and tests for
possible biases. It then provides details about the survey, including sampling, field reports,
and descriptive statistics. Finally, it includes the script used for conducting focus groups.
Compiling the Database

The database is composed of conspiracy claims appearing in selected media sources one
week before and one week after 42 critical events, and on 100 randomly selected days,
totaling 730 sampled days. In the following I describe the sources, sampling, and collec-
tion procedures, and rules for operationalizing conspiracy theories.
Sources
The primary list of sources comes from the Integrum database, which contains hundreds
of Russian-language sources including newspapers, news websites, information serv-
ices, and radio from across the former Soviet Union (FSU). I selected sources that vary
in regional focus, duration of coverage, ownership, and political/ideological bias. Russian
sources are most likely to include conspiracy theories from Russia, but they also cover
events across the FSU and beyond.
Most sources in Integrum are newspapers. Newspapers may seem like an odd choice
to collect conspiracy claims given that during the period in question, the vast majority
of Russians (and other countries’ citizens) obtained most of their news from television.1
However, there are three reasons newspapers are useful. First, they are the best way to
compare coverage across time and space. There is no searchable repository of television
broadcasts with the same reach from 1995 to 2014. Second, newspapers are well suited
to cover official points of view. For example, if a president’s spokesman or a member of
parliament makes a conspiracy claim, it is likely to appear in one of the many newspapers
in Integrum, as well as on television. Third, newspapers are an important supplement to
capture voices that might be excluded from television when it is controlled by the state.
In Putin’s Russia, independent or opposition views, though marginalized on the primary
television channels, could still be found in several venues: Echo of Moscow radio, TV
Rain, and newspapers such as Novaya Gazeta (liberal), Sovetskaya Rossiya (nationalist),
Argumenty i Fakty, and Kommersant (independent for some of this period). Newspapers
are the best source to provide a range of (state and opposition) conspiracy claims that are
being disseminated.2
To hedge against potential overreliance on newspapers and to compensate for the
scarcity of newspapers outside Russia and the fact that Integrum’s sources are only in
Russian, I also collected articles from BBC Monitoring, a for-profit subscription ser-
vice covering the international press.3 Its editors collect and translate news reports that
cover developments on politically relevant topics, and deliberately include different
190 Appendix
perspectives and controversies. 4 For example, BBC’s coverage includes independent and
regional newspapers, which are less likely to reflect the central government’s point of view.
In authoritarian countries where state media dominate, it seeks out reports that reflect
changes in tone or unusual developments. Managers perform quality checks by com-
paring output statistics of individual editors. At unusually busy times, BBC Monitoring
uses independent contractors to provide additional capacity.5
Like any media organization, there will be a bias in BBC Monitoring’s editorial decisions
about what merits coverage. Fortunately, its focus on political developments and sensi-
tivity to changes in the status quo dovetails with this study’s priorities, as it homes in on
events likely to be associated with conspiracy. To the extent that its coverage differs from
Integrum, it places greater emphasis on sources from outside Russia, in local languages,
and from non-official media. As such, I regard it as a supplement to, but not a substitute
for, the sources covered by Integrum.
Collection
The collection process began with searches for 21 keywords associated with conspiracy
on the specified dates. I created a list of potential keywords by having research assistants
read every article surrounding two sample events—one from the “palace” and one from
the “street”—and noting the relevant words that appeared most frequently in conspiracy
theories. Then, through a winnowing process, I pared the list to reduce false positives, or
words that might be associated with conspiracies but which would also yield a surplus
of unrelated articles (for example, agent, enemy, oligarch, deception); and minimize false
negatives, by retaining words that do not appear very often but almost always reveal a con-
spiracy claim, such as conspiratorial or fifth column. The list of keywords appears in Table
A.3 later in this Appendix.
During a first round of collection, research assistants read every article found in the
search to determine whether it met the conspiratorial criteria (see the following discus-
sion). They were instructed to use loose selection criteria, by collecting any article that
might be a conspiracy claim. In the second round, two coders independently read each
claim and provided their assessment of whether it should be included in the final data
set. They agreed approximately 85% of the time. When they disagreed, a third coder was
brought in to break the tie. In a final round of vetting, an assistant checked the database for
duplicates. Once the claims were finalized, I coded each entry by the source type, country
where the conspiracy took place, the identity and nationality of the accuser, identity and
nationality of the perpetrator, and keywords. A conspiracy claim was considered a dis-
crete observation when it involved a unique claimant making an utterance implicating
a unique perpetrator at a single point in time. If a claim was covered in more than one
source, it only appeared in the database one time.
Definition, Operationalization, and Coding

I base the identification of conspiracy claims on the following criteria: a secretive plot
involving few actors, with a nefarious motive, for which the evidence is unsubstantiated,
and which is not a description of ordinary politics but which has political ramifications.
To make determinations of what is and is not a conspiracy theory, or claim, requires
making editorial judgments about what is backed by sufficient credible evidence and what
Appendix 191
counts as “ordinary” in fraught political contexts. Making these determinations is compli-

cated, even in systems with institutionalized transparency and accountability.6
Operationalizing a concept developed in the democratic West required adjustment
when applied in settings in which abuse of power and high-level corruption are common-
place. I rejected two possible responses: drop the term “conspiracy theory” altogether, or
apply it without alteration. I opted to retain the concept, but to impose the following con-
dition: the threshold to qualify as a conspiracy theory varies according to the threshold of
plausibility.
For example, to accuse an incumbent president of colluding with local officials to stuff
ballot boxes to rig the election would be a major scandal in the United States, and if cred-
ible evidence were not provided, it would qualify as a conspiracy claim. But the same
claim would not necessarily be considered a conspiracy in Russia, Malaysia, or Bolivia,
even with the same paucity of evidence, simply because such activities are known to have
regularly occurred in the past, based on multiple credible sources of evidence. However,
collusion to assassinate a political opponent would, lacking evidence, mostly likely qualify
as a conspiracy claim in the preceding cases, whereas it would not in a setting with fre-
quent political violence, such as Somalia—unless particular aspects of the claim were
somehow unusual.
In the cases at hand, some rules of thumb applied to identify claims that look like con-
spiracies (and would be in other contexts) but would not ordinarily qualify in the former
Soviet Union:
• Election fraud does not qualify unless it involves an otherwise unrelated or external
actor, or unusual additional accusations.
• Corruption allegations must involve an otherwise unrelated and external actor or
unusual harm beyond corruption itself.
• Conflict-related claims must involve an otherwise unrelated actor or action beyond
the current encounter.
• Claims of bad behavior (violence, repression, theft, blackmail) must run counter to
the most plausible or widely accepted narrative.
• Claims of intrigue or manipulation that are typical of political activity in a given con-
text do not qualify.
Checks for Selection Bias

The database of conspiracy samples 730 days, or one-tenth of the 20-year period it covers.
As a result, it misses much: claims corresponding to events that are not included in the
database, claims that do not include one of the 21 keywords or that do not appear in one
of the selected sources, and claims that happen to fall outside of the sampled windows.
Because the database is only a sample, it should not be taken as a comprehensive ac-
count of every conspiracy claim made in this region in the years in question. Its utility
lies in providing a basis for comparison among countries and over time. Despite its lim-
itations, the methodological approach sweeps up a significant amount. The most promi-
nent and politically relevant conspiracy claims uttered in the region appeared on multiple
occasions in the initial searches. The fact that Russian conspiracy theories are neither the
overwhelming majority nor suspiciously scarce in the database suggest that the coverage
is reasonably representative. Likewise, the large number of incidental conspiracy claims
captured—greater than the number of event-related claims—indicates that the database
192 Appendix
bears some resemblance to the breadth and variety of the conspiracy claims that were ac-
tually uttered.
To check the reliability of the methodology, I show the distribution of conspiracy
claims by country (plus the North Caucasus and disputed territories) for four collection
modalities: during 15-day event windows; on random dates; from BBC Monitoring; and
on television.7 Frequencies by country correlate at a very high level, ranging from .98 to
.99. Figure A.1 graphs the number of claims side by side, showing that the distributions by
country are consistent regardless of how the data were collected.
There is also a risk that the selection of newspapers from outside Russia could bias
the collection of claims in specific ways. Allowing for the fact that the heavy reliance on
Russian sources undoubtedly contributed to the preponderance of claims from Russia,
we can also check how the inclusion of two Ukrainian, one Azerbaijani, and one Kyrgyz
newspaper may have skewed the number of claims collected in favor of those coun-
tries. It turns out that, while eliminating each source would reduce the number from
the corresponding country, the effect would be small and would not alter the ranking
of the frequency of conspiracy claims by country. For example, the two Ukrainian pa-
pers, Zarkalo Nedeli and Segodnya, contributed only 21 of 205 instances of Ukrainian
accusers, and 15 of 238 cases when it was the country of the perpetrator. Vechernyi
Bishkek provided only 19 of the 133 conspiracies that occurred in Kyrgyzstan. It also
supplied 18 of Kyrgyzstan’s 93 accusers and 11 of its 67 perpetrators. If those entries
were all removed, Kyrgyzstan would still be in fourth place. Ekho Baku contributed
6 of 53 claims that took place in Azerbaijan, along with 8 of its 57 accusers. For all
three countries, BBC Monitoring yielded more conspiracy claims than the national
newspapers did. These figures provide reassurance that the origin of media sources did
not unduly bias the sample.
I present more detail on collection methodology in the following tables. Table A.1 lists
the critical events by date and domain. Table A.2 displays all the sources used in the data-
base from Integrum, and includes their dates of coverage and ideological slant based on
400
Claims
200
0
Rus
Ukr
Bel
Mol
Geo
Arm
Az
Kaz
Uz
Kyr
Taj
Tkm
N Cauc
Disputed
Location
Events BBC Random TV
Figure A.1 Conspiracy claims by sampling method.

Appendix 193
Table A.1 Critical Events
Event Domain Date

(R = Russian, N = Near
Abroad, I = Int’l)
Dayton Accords I 11/21/1995
Russian parliamentary election R 12/17/1995
Dudayev assassination R 4/21/1996
Russian presidential election R 6/16/1996
NATO Madrid Summit I 7/8/1997
Asian financial crisis (rupiah float) I 8/14/1997
Kosovo war start I 2/28/1998
Yeltsin fires cabinet R 3/23/1998
Russia default R 8/17/1998
Primakov appointed R 9/10/1998
Tashkent bombing N 2/16/1999
NATO Washington Summit I 4/24/1999
Kosovo war end I 6/10/1999
2nd Chechnya invasion R 8/26/1999
Russia Ryazan incident R 9/22/1999
Yeltsin resignation R 12/31/1999
Kursk explosion R 8/12/2000
Serbia revolution I 10/5/2000
US presidential election I 11/7/2000
US terrorist attacks I 9/11/2001
Nord-Ost R 10/23/2002
NATO Prague Summit I 11/21/2002
Khodorkovsky arrest R 10/25/2003
Rose revolution N 11/22/2003
Kadyrov assassination R 5/9/2004
Beslan R 9/2/2004
US presidential election I 11/2/2004
Orange revolution N 12/26/2004
Russia pensioner protests R 1/15/2005
Tulip revolution N 3/24/2005
Andijan events N 5/13/2005
Failed Azer revolution N 11/8/2005
194 Appendix
Table A.1 Continued
Event Domain Date

(R = Russian, N = Near
Abroad, I = Int’l)
Failed Belarus revolution N 3/19/2006
Tandem announcement R 12/10/2007
Georgia war N 8/8/2008
Moldova protests N 4/7/2009
Bakiev overthrow N 4/7/2010
Osh riots N 6/13/2010
Bolotnaya protests R 12/4/2011
End of Euromaidan N 2/22/2014
ownership or control.8 Table A.3 lists the keywords used to guide the search, in Russian
and English. Variations of the keywords, including suffixes, appeared in the search results
for articles in Integrum and in BBC Monitoring.
Survey Methodology
The surveys were conducted face to face by the public opinion research firm ACT in
March 2017 using computer-assisted technology on tablets (CAPI). One thousand
respondents were interviewed in each country. In Georgia all interviews were conducted
in Georgian. In Kazakhstan, they were conducted in Russian or Kazakh. In both coun-
tries, questionnaires were translated from English and back-translated for consistency.
Pilot surveys were carried out at each site on 10–15 respondents.
In Georgia, sample sizes in 10 regions were selected in proportion to population size,
including 300 in Tbilisi. For the selection of target populations, a two-stage stratified
sample design was applied. In the first stage, the sample was composed of 100 units (cities/
towns/villages) in proportion to the urban/rural population of each region. In the second
stage, 10 households were selected according to the random walk principle. The individ-
uals in households were selected randomly, using the last birthday methodology. The
response rate was very high, at 95%. Another 60 surveys were terminated prior to comple-
tion. Work of interviewers was audited by telephone (30%) and GPS coordinates (12%).
(The telephone checks were observed by a representative of the author.)
In Kazakhstan, respondents were sampled in seven regions: Almaty, Akmola, Aktobe,
Pavlodar, Karaganda, East Kazakhstan, and South Kazakhstan. Ethnic Russians were
deliberately oversampled, to comprise approximately one-third of the sample. In each
region, the distribution of the sample corresponded to 70% urban and 30% rural resi-
dency. To ensure a random sample, a starting point was fixed using a random selection
scheme. The interviewer moved from the starting point to the right, according to a “jump
interval”: a sampling step of 5 was used in multi-story buildings and 3 in private homes.
Within households, respondents were selected using the last birthday methodology. The
response rate was 96%, and 104 interviews were terminated before completion. Work was
Appendix 195
Table A.2 Sources: Titles, Dates of Coverage in Integrum, and Ideological Slant
Source Starting Date of Coverage Slant
Newspapers
Kommersant 1/5/2000 Independent/opposition →
independent → increasingly
pro-Kremlin
Argumenty i Fakty-Moskva 3/21/1992 Pro-Kremlin →
independent/opposition,
nationalist
Vechernyaya Moskva 1/16/1992 Pro-government
Izvestiya 10/31/1992 Pro-Kremlin →
independent/opposition →
pro-Kremlin
Krasnaya Zvezda 1/4/1992 State/military-owned
Literaturnaya gazeta 3/4/1992 Pro-government →
conservative/nationalist
Novaya Gazeta 1/9/1992 Independent/opposition
Sovetskaya Rossiya 1/4/1992 Communist/leftist,
nationalist
Trud 1/1/1992 Pro-Kremlin
Vechernyi Bishkek 6/10/1998 Independent
Zarkalo Nedeli (Kyiv) 4/15/2004 Independent/opposition
Segodnya (Kyiv) 12/16/1997 Oligarch-owned, pro-
Yanukovych, possibly
pro-Russia
Ekho Baku 1/23/2001 Independent → increasingly
pressured by government
Information services
Itar-TASS 08/ 07/1999 State-owned, pro-Kremlin
TASS-CIS 01/ 05/2003 State-owned, pro-Kremlin
Informagenstvo CIS various Various, mostly
pro-government
Television
Vesti.ru 09/01/2005 State-owned
NTV.ru 01/ 08/2004 Pro-Kremlin
Ren.tv 01/ 09/2001 Independent
Radio
Ekho Moskvy 07/12/2000 –07/20/2016 Independent/opposition
196 Appendix
Table A.3 Keywords
третья сила Third force
пятая колонна Fifth column
сценарий Scenario
провокация Provocation
спецслужбы Special services
заговор Conspiracy
путч Putsch
революция Revolution
переворот Coup
конспирологический Conspiracy
тайный замысел Secret plot
спонсор Sponsor
кукловод Puppeteer
ставленник Henchman
интрига Intrigue
дестабилизация Destabilization
спланировано Planned
преднамеренно Deliberately
выгодно Beneficial/profitable
заказной Ordered
инсценировка Staging/dramatization
checked by telephone (30%) and GPS coordinates (10%), the former overseen by a repre-
sentative of the author. Table A.4 shows descriptive data for survey respondents in each
country.
Focus Group Script, September 2016

First, I would like to ask some questions about life in Georgia/Kazakhstan.
Part 1: Trust and Power (30 minutes)
• How much do you feel you can trust the following?

[Moderator: for each, ask why]
o Government
o Religious authorities
o Large companies
Appendix 197
Table A.4 Descriptive Statistics

Georgia Kazakhstan
N mean SD N mean SD
Age 1,000 48.1 18.1 1,000 37.9 13.7
Male 1,000 .31 .46 1,000 .41 .49
Educationa 997 3.3 1.4 1,000 3.6 1.14
Income (based 949 2.4 2.1 1,000 2.4 2.1
on 7 categories
scored from
0 to 6)
Urban 1000 .59 .49 1000 .70 .46
aScored on 1–6 scale; 1 = did not complete secondary school, 6 = completed graduate school.
o Military
o Police
o Television
• What are the biggest problems in Georgia/Kazakhstan? [Allow some answers]
• Who do you hold most responsible for [insert named problem here, one at a time]?
• Within Georgia/Kazakhstan, who do you think are the most powerful people?
• How much power do you think the following groups have to affect major political
and economic events in Georgia/Kazakhstan?
• [Moderator: for each, ask why]
o Mafia
o Oligarchs
o Clans [Kazakhstan only]
o Russians
o Jews
o Americans
o Armenians [Georgia only]
o Uzbeks [Kazakhstan only]
Part 2: Global Politics/Geopolitics (30 minutes)

Now, I would like to ask some questions about the world.
• What do you think are the biggest problems facing the world today? [Allow some
answers]
• Who do you hold most responsible for [insert named problem here, one at a time]?
• Why [for each]?
• To what extent do you trust the following: Russia, USA, EU?
• Some people think there is a major geopolitical struggle between Russia and the
US for greater influence in Georgia [+ China for Kazakhstan]. What do you think
about this?
198 Appendix
• How much power and influence do you think the following have in Georgia/
Kazakhstan:
o USA
o Russia
o UN
o EU
o China [for Kazakhstan only)
o International bankers
o Global organizations like the IMF/World Bank
o Who else has influence?
• In what ways does [insert country/org] exercise influence in Georgia/Kazakhstan?
How does it work?
• Are there people or groups in your country who are especially connected/complicit
with [above countries/orgs that participants deem influential] in negative ways?
Which people or groups? [if this is not too sensitive]
• What do you think of the following statement?
Regardless of who is officially in charge of governments, media organizations, and
companies, there is a secret group of powerful people who really control world events
like wars and economic crises.
o What do you think the goals of this group are?
o Who does this group consist of? [Moderator: Refer to previous list if no one offers
answers.]
Part 3: Word Associations (15 minutes)

I will say some words. Please say what you think it means and what comes to mind when
you hear it. Maybe give an example. [Read one at a time to allow for full discussion]
1. provocation
2. fifth column
3. third force
4. conspiracy
5. henchman
6. puppeteer
7. staging
Part 4: Opinions on Specific Events (30 minutes)

Now I will ask questions about some events that have happened recently in Georgia/
Kazakhstan or in the world, in order to get your opinions.
• Who do you think was responsible for the terrorist attacks on the US on 9/11/2001?
• Are you aware of the so-called color revolutions in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and
the protests against Putin in Russia in 2011–2012? What do you think caused those
protests?
Appendix 199
o [if not mentioned] People were fed up with corruption and sick of their leaders
and decided to rise up against them.
o The West, acting through local organizations, caused the protest to advance their
geopolitical aims.
Now I want to ask about the war in Ukraine. What do you think of the following
explanations?
• The US sponsored protests in Ukraine against Yanukovych to install a pro-West
regime.
• Russia provoked the war by backing separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Have you heard about the attempted coup in Turkey?
• What have you heard?
• [if not mentioned] President Erdoğan claims the US planned the coup. What do you
think about that?
• Some people say Erdoğan manufactured the coup as a pretext to take more power.
What do you think?
Part 5: Habits (10 minutes)

When you hear conflicting versions of events, like [mention episodes from the preceding
questions where people expressed difficulty deciding guilt], how do you try to make sense
of what happened and who did it?
• What sources of information might you use when trying to find out about what is
happening in the world?
• How often do you discuss current events or political news with friends or neighbors?
Notes
Introduction
1. Andrew Higgins and Andrew E. Kramer, “Ukraine Leader Was Defeated Even before
He Was Ousted,” New York Times, January 3, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/
01/04/world/europe/ukraine-leader-was-defeated-even-before-he-was-ousted.html.
2. “MID RF vyrazil somneniya v legitimnosti deistvii Verkhovnoy Rady,” Vesti.ru,
February 24, 2014.
3. “Uvelicheniye protestnykh aktsii v Rossii eto proiski Zapada— eto dal ponyat’
Vladimir Putin,” Ekho Moskvy, December 8, 2011.
4. Matthew Armstrong, “Russia’s War on Information,” War on the Rocks, December 15,
2014, https://warontherocks.com/2014/12/russias-war-on-information/.
5. Timothy Snyder, “Putin’s New Nostalgia,” New York Review of Books, November 10,
2014, https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/11/10/putin-nostalgia-stalin-hitler/.
6. Thomas Friedman, “Czar Putin’s Next Moves,” New York Times, January 28, 2015,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/opinion/thomas-friedman-czar-putins-next-
moves.html.
7. BBC Monitoring, “Programme Summary of Russian Ekho Moskvy Radio News 1000
gmt 19 Feb 14,” February 19, 2014.
8. BBC Monitoring, “Ukrainian Protest Leader Says Parliament Must Be Blocked until
Demands Met,” Ukrayinska Pravda, February 17, 2014.
9. “Putin khorosho otzyvayetsya o Patarkatsishvili— Eduard Shevardnadze,” Trend
Information Agency, December 17, 2007.
10. “Gde Osh pripryatan,” Kommersant, June 19, 2010.
11. Yascha Mounk, The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to
Save It (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018), chapter 1.
12. Catie Edmondson, “G.O.P. Senators, Defending Trump, Embrace Debunked Ukraine
Theory,” New York Times, December 3, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/
us/politics/republicans-ukraine-conspiracy-theory.html.
13. J. Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood, “Conspiracy Theories and the Paranoid Style(s)
of Mass Opinion,” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 4 (2014): 952–966.
Esther Addley, “Study Shows 60% of Britons Believe in Conspiracy Theories,” The
Guardian, November 2, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/23/
study-shows-60-of-britons-believe-in-conspiracy-theories
14. JoAnne Allen, “No Consensus on Who Was Behind Sept 11: Global Poll,” Reuters,
September 10, 2008, https://w ww.reuters.com/article/us-s ept11-q aeda-p oll/
no-consensus-on-who-was-behind-sept-11-global-poll-idUSN1035876620080910
202 Notes
15. Joseph E. Uscinski and Adam M. Enders, “The Coronavirus Conspiracy Boom,” The
Atlantic, April 30, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/what-
can-coronavirus-tell-us-about-conspiracy-theories/610894/.
16. Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Jack Z. Bratich, Conspiracy
Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2008).
17. Kathryn S. Olmsted, Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy,
World War I to 9/11 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).
18. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the
Holocaust (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2008).
19. Christine L. Kellow and H. Leslie Steeves, “The Role of Radio in the Rwandan
Genocide,” Journal of Communication 48, no. 3 (1998): 107–128.
20. Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012).
21. Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and
Authoritarian Populism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
22. Peter Baker, “Pressure Rising as Obama Works to Rein in Russia,” New York Times,
March 2, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/world/europe/pressure-rising-as-
obama-works-to-rein-in-russia.html.
23. Richard Hofstadter, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Harper’s Magazine
229, no. 1374 (1964): 77–86.
24. Rob Brotherton, Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories (London:
Bloomsbury, 2015).
25. Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (New York: Tim
Duggan Books, 2018), 163.
26. Peter Pomerantsev, “Russia and the Menace of Unreality: How Vladimir Putin Is
Revolutionizing Information Warfare,” The Atlantic, September 9, 2014, https://
www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-
information-warfare/379880/.
27. Eliot Borenstein, Plots against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy After Socialism (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2019).
28. Robert S. Mueller III, Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016
Presidential Election, 2019.
29. Gerard Toal, Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the
Caucasus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
30. Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine, and Ara Norenzayan, “Most People Are Not
WEIRD,” Nature 466, no. 7302 (2010): 29.
31. Exceptions include Ilya Yablokov, Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-
Soviet World (Medford, MA: Polity, 2018); Borenstein, Plots against Russia; Türkay
Salim Nefes, “Understanding Anti-Semitic Rhetoric in Turkey through the Sèvres
Syndrome,” Turkish Studies 16, no. 4 (2015): 572–587; Daniel Pipes, The Hidden
Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan,
1998); Matthew Gray, Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics
Notes 203
(New York: Routledge, 2010); Paul A. Silverstein, “An Excess of Truth: Violence,
Conspiracy Theorizing and the Algerian Civil War,” Anthropological Quarterly 75, no.
4 (2002): 643–674; Michael Butter and Maurus Reinkowski, Conspiracy Theories in the
United States and the Middle East: A Comparative Approach (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
2014); Harry G. West and Todd Sanders, Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies
of Suspicion in the New World Order (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003);
Charles L. Briggs, “Theorizing Modernity Conspiratorially: Science, Scale, and the
Political Economy of Public Discourse in Explanations of a Cholera Epidemic,”
American Ethnologist 31, no. 2 (2004): 164–187.
32. Viren Swami and Rebecca Coles, “The Truth Is Out There: Belief in Conspiracy
Theories,” The Psychologist 23, no. 7 (2010): 560–563; Oliver and Wood, “Conspiracy
Theories.”
33. Samuel A. Greene, Moscow in Movement: Power and Opposition in Putin’s Russia
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014).
34. They were selected from a broad range of Russian-language newspapers from the
region and translations of television, radio, and Internet sources from the BBC
Monitoring service. Full details can be found in Chapter 3 and the Appendix.
35. This definition is adapted from Michael Barkun, Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic
Visions in Contemporary America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013).
36. Olmsted, Real Enemies.
37. D. J. Flynn, Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler. “The Nature and Origins of
Misperceptions: Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs about Politics.”
Political Psychology 38 (2017): 127–150.
38. Andreas Wimmer, “Why Nationalism Works: And Why it Isn’t Going Away,” Foreign
Affairs 98, no. 2 (2019): 27–35.
39. This is a theme in post-2016 work on populism, fake news, and democratic ero-
sion: “What has already happened in Russia is what might happen in America and
Europe.” Snyder, Road to Unfreedom, 10. See also Julie Hemment, “Red Scares and
Orange Mobilizations: A Critical Anthropological Perspective on the Russian
Hacking Scandal,” Slavic Review 76, no. S1 (2017): S66–S80.
Chapter 1
1. Karen M. Douglas, Robbie M. Sutton, and Aleksandra Cichocka, “The Psychology

of Conspiracy Theories,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 26, no. 6
(2017): 538–542; Patrick John Leman and Marco Cinnirella, “Beliefs in Conspiracy
Theories and the Need for Cognitive Closure,” Frontiers in Psychology 4: 378 (2013).
2. John J. Haller and Michael A. Hogg, “All Power to Our Great Leader: Political
Leadership under Uncertainty,” in Jan-Willem van Prooijen and Paul A. M. van
Lange, eds., Power, Politics, and Paranoia: Why People Are Suspicious of their Leaders
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 130–149.
204 Notes
3. Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New
Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2019).
4. Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet
Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).
5. Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (London: Sage
Publications, 2018).
6. Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2008); Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict (London: Routledge, 1998);
William H. Riker, The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996).
7. Joseph E. Uscinski and Santiago Olivella, “The Conditional Effect of Conspiracy
Thinking on Attitudes toward Climate Change,” Research & Politics 4, no. 4 (2017),
https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2053168017743105; Karen M. Douglas and Robbie M.
Sutton, “Climate Change: Why The Conspiracy Theories Are Dangerous,” Bulletin of
the Atomic Scientists 71, no. 2 (2015): 98–106.
8. Wendy Z. Goldman, Inventing the Enemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin’s Russia
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
9. Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the
Holocaust (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2008).
10. Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography (New York: Free
Press, 2007), 41.
11. Hugo Antonio Pérez Hernáiz and P. Antonio, “The Uses of Conspiracy Theories for
the Construction of a Political Religion in Venezuela,” International Journal of Human
and Social Sciences 3, no. 4 (2008): 709–720; Amr Hamzawy, “Conspiracy Theories
and Populist Narratives: On the Ruling Techniques of Egyptian Generals,” Philosophy
& Social Criticism 44, no. 4 (2018): 491–504.
12. George Kennan echoed this logic in describing the sources of Soviet conduct: “There
is ample evidence that the stress laid in Moscow on the menace confronting Soviet
society from the world outside its borders is founded not in the realities of foreign
antagonism but in the necessity of explaining away the maintenance of dictatorial au-
thority at home.” George F. Kennan, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs
65, no. 4 (1987): 852–868.
13. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, “Informational Autocrats,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives 33, no. 4 (2019): 100–127; Peter Lorentzen, “China’s Strategic Censorship,”
American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 2 (2014): 402–414; Gary King, Jennifer
Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government
Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,” American Political Science Review 107,
no. 2 (2013): 326–343.
14. Haifeng Huang, “Propaganda as Signaling,” Comparative Politics 47, no. 4 (2015): 419–
444; Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in
Contemporary Syria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Erin Baggott
Carter and Brett L. Carter, “Propaganda and Electoral Constraints in Autocracies,”
Comparative Politics Newsletter (2018): 11.
Notes 205
15. Arturas Rozenas and Denis Stukal, “How Autocrats Manipulate Economic
News: Evidence from Russia’s State-Controlled Television,” Journal of Politics 81, no. 3
(2019): 982–996; Jessica Chen Weiss, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s
Foreign Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
16. Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American Conspiracy Theories
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 132. My argument, elaborated in the fol-
lowing, also involves perceptions of loss of control, but this factor has distinct origins
and different implications for those in positions of power.
17. Rosenblum and Muirhead, A Lot of People Are Saying.
18. Matthew Gray, Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics
(London: Routledge, 2010); Daniel Pipes, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of
Conspiracy (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998). Butter and Reinkowski
assembled a laudable collection of case studies on countries that are rarely considered
together. Michael Butter and Maurus Reinkowski, Conspiracy Theories in the United
States and the Middle East: A Comparative Approach (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2014).
19. Michelangelo Guida, “The Sèvres Syndrome and ‘Komplo’ Theories in the Islamist
and Secular Press,” Turkish Studies 9, no. 1 (2008): 37–52.
20. Robert Alan Goldberg, Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).
21. Stefanie Ortmann and John Heathershaw, “Conspiracy Theories in the Post‐Soviet
Space,” The Russian Review 71, no. 4 (2012): 551–564; Serguei Alex Oushakine, The
Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War, and Loss in Russia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 2011).
22. Eliot Borenstein, Plots against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy after Socialism (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2019).
23. Ilya Yablokov, Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World (Medford,
MA: Polity, 2018).
24. Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, 30.
25. Christopher Andrew, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret
History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 23.
26. I refer to “ruler” or “leader” in this and the following sections as a stand-in for the re-
gime as a whole.
27. Gerben A. Van Kleef, Astrid C. Homan, Catrin Finkenauer, Seval Gündemir, and
Eftychia Stamkou, “Breaking the Rules to Rise to Power: How Norm Violators Gain
Power in the Eyes of Others,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 2, no.
5 (2011): 500–507; Oliver Hahl, Minjae Kim, and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan, “The
Authentic Appeal of the Lying Demagogue: Proclaiming the Deeper Truth about
Political Illegitimacy,” American Sociological Review 83, no. 1 (2018): 1–33.
28. Richard Ronay, Janneke K. Oostrom, Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Samuel Mayoral,
and Hannes Rusch, “Playing the Trump Card: Why We Select Overconfident
Leaders and Why It Matters,” The Leadership Quarterly 30, no. 6 (2019), https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2019.101316. My argument differs from Huang (2015). In his
model, regimes signal strength by spreading propaganda that is “dull and unpersua-
sive.” Huang, “Propaganda as Signaling,” 422.
206 Notes
29. Wesley W. Widmaier, Mark Blyth, and Leonard Seabrooke, “Exogenous Shocks or
Endogenous Constructions? The Meanings of Wars and Crises,” International Studies
Quarterly 51, no. 4 (2007): 747–759; Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver, Ole Wæver, and Jaap De
Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
30. Charles Tilly, “War- Making and State- Making as Organized Crime,” in Peter
Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 169–191.
31. Marilynn B. Brewer, “The Importance of Being We: Human Nature and Intergroup
Relations,” American Psychologist 62, no. 8 (2007): 728–738.
32. Chen Xitong, “Report to NPC on Quelling the Counter-Revolutionary Rebellion,”
in Michel C. Oksenberg, Marc Lambert, and Melanie Manion, eds., Beijing Spring
1989: Confrontation and Conflict—The Basic Documents (New York: Routledge,
2016), 81.
33. Ronald R. Krebs, Narrative and the Making of US National Security (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
34. Arjen Boin, Paul ‘t Hart, and Allan McConnell, “Crisis Exploitation: Political and
Policy Impacts of Framing Contests,” Journal of European Public Policy 16, no. 1
(2009): 81–106.
35. Bruce Bueno De Mesquita, Alastair Smith, James D. Morrow, and Randolph M.
Siverson, The Logic of Political Survival (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
36. Milan W. Svolik, The Politics of Authoritarian Rule (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2012); King, Pan, and Roberts, “How Censorship”; Jennifer Gandhi and Adam
Przeworski, “Authoritarian Institutions and the Survival of Autocrats,” Comparative
Political Studies 40, no. 11 (2007): 1279–1301.
37. Andreas Schedler, The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting Electoral
Authoritarianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 47.
38. Laura L. Adams, The Spectacular State: Culture and National Identity in Uzbekistan
(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010); Julie Hemment, Youth Politics in Putin’s
Russia: Producing Patriots and Entrepreneurs (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 2015).
39. Suisheng Zhao, “A State-Led Nationalism: The Patriotic Education Campaign in Post-
Tiananmen China,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 31, no. 3 (1998): 287–
302; Elizabeth A. Wood, “Performing Memory: Vladimir Putin and the Celebration of
World War II in Russia,” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 38, no. 2 (2011): 172–200.
40. Susan Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007);
King, Pan, and Roberts, “How Censorship.”
41. Margaret E. Roberts, Censored: Distraction and Diversion inside China’s Great Firewall
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).
42. Michael Bernhard, “Chronic Instability and the Limits of Path Dependence,”
Perspectives on Politics 13, no. 4 (2015): 976–991.
43. Joakim Ekman, “Political Participation and Regime Stability: A Framework
for Analyzing Hybrid Regimes,” International Political Science Review 30, no. 1
(2009): 7–31.
Notes 207
44. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Broadway
Books, 2018).
45. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “Democracy’s Past and Future: Why Democracy
Needs a Level Playing Field,” Journal of Democracy 21, no. 1 (2010): 57–68.
46. See Timothy Frye, “The Perils of Polarization: Economic Performance in the
Postcommunist World,” World Politics 54 (2001): 308–337.
47. Shaul R. Shenhav, “Political Narratives and Political Reality,” International Political
Science Review 27, no. 3 (2006): 245–262; Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political
Spectacle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), c hapter 4.
48. Xavier Márquez, “Two Models of Political Leader Cults: Propaganda and Ritual,”
Politics, Religion & Ideology 19, no. 3 (2018): 265–284; Victor Chung-Hon Shih,
“‘Nauseating’ Displays of Loyalty: Monitoring the Factional Bargain through
Ideological Campaigns in China,” Journal of Politics 70, no. 4 (2008): 1177–1192;
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 1973); Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination, 350.
49. Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever; Peter Kenez, The Birth of the Propaganda
State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 1985).
50. Roberts, Censored; Daniela Stockmann and Mary E. Gallagher, “Remote Control: How
the Media Sustain Authoritarian Rule in China,” Comparative Political Studies 44, no.
4 (2011): 436–467.
51. Guriev and Treisman, “Informational Autocrats.”
52. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism; Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination.
53. Margaret Levi, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).
54. Georgy Egorov, Sergei Guriev, and Konstantin Sonin, “Why Resource- Poor
Dictators Allow Freer Media: A Theory and Evidence from Panel Data,” American
Political Science Review 103, no. 4 (2009): 645–668; Daniel Treisman, “Democracy
by Mistake: How the Errors of Autocrats Trigger Transitions to Freer Government,”
American Political Science Review 114, no. 3 (2020): 792–810.
55. Georgy Egorov and Konstantin Sonin, “Dictators and Their Viziers: Endogenizing the
Loyalty–Competence Trade-off,” Journal of the European Economic Association 9, no.
5 (2011): 903–930; Erica Frantz and Natasha M. Ezrow, “ ‘Yes Men’ and the Likelihood
of Foreign Policy Mistakes across Dictatorships” (2009), APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting
Paper, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1450542.
56. Scott Radnitz, “The Color of Money: Privatization, Economic Dispersion, and the
Post-Soviet ‘Revolutions,’” Comparative Politics 42, no. 2 (2010): 127–146.
57. Esther Webman, “Adoption of the Protocols in the Arab Discourse on the Arab−Israeli
Conflict, Zionism, and the Jews,” in Esther Webman, ed., The Global Impact of the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Century-Old Myth (New York: Routledge, 2012),
175–195.
58. Hannes Grassegger, “The Unbelievable Story of the Plot against George Soros,” Buzz
Feed News, January 20, 2019, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgrassegger/
george-soros-conspiracy-finkelstein-birnbaum-orban-netanyahu.
208 Notes
59. Marlene Laruelle, “The ‘Russian World’: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical
Imagination” (Washington, DC: Center for Global Interests, 2015).
60. Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
61. Michael Crowley and Julia Ioffe, “Why Putin Hates Hillary,” Politico, July 25, 2016,
https://www.politico.eu/article/why-putin-hates-hillary/.
62. Keith Darden, Resisting Occupation: Mass Schooling and the Creation of Durable
National Loyalties. Book manuscript (2013).
Caucasus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
64. Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in Hans Heinrich Gerth and C. Wright Mills,
eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge, 2009), 77–128.
65. James Darsey, “Joe McCarthy’s Fantastic Moment,” Communications Monographs
62, no. 1 (1995): 65–86; Michael Paul Rogin, Ronald Reagan, the Movie and Other
Episodes in Political Demonology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
66. Karen L. Remmer, “The Political Economy of Patronage: Expenditure Patterns in the
Argentine Provinces, 1983–2003,” The Journal of Politics 69, no. 2 (2007): 363–377..
67. Laurie A. Brand, Official Stories: Politics and National Narratives in Egypt and Algeria
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014).
Duggan Books, 2018); Ilya Yablokov, “Conspiracy Theories as a Russian Public
Diplomacy Tool: The Case of Russia Today (RT),” Politics 35, no. 3–4 (2015): 301–315.
Chapter 2
1. “The Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the Secretary of State,” Department
of State, Office of the Historian, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/
frus1946v06/d475.
2. Marina Abalakina‐Paap, Walter G. Stephan, Traci Craig, and W. Larry Gregory,
“Beliefs in Conspiracies,” Political Psychology 20, no. 3 (1999): 637–647; Viren
Swami, Rebecca Coles, Stefan Stieger, Jakob Pietschnig, Adrian Furnham, Sherry
Rehim, and Martin Voracek, “Conspiracist Ideation in Britain and Austria: Evidence
of a Monological Belief System and Associations between Individual Psychological
Differences and Real‐world and Fictitious Conspiracy Theories,” British Journal
of Psychology 102, no. 3 (2011): 443–463; Viren Swami and Rebecca Coles, “The
Truth Is Out there: Belief in Conspiracy Theories,” The Psychologist 23, no. 7
(2010): 560–563.
3. Viren Swami, “Social Psychological Origins of Conspiracy Theories: The Case of the
Jewish Conspiracy Theory in Malaysia,” Frontiers in Psychology 3 (2012): 280.
4. Matthew Gray, Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics
(New York: Routledge, 2010).
Notes 209
5. Shadi Gholizadeh and Derek W. Hook, “The Discursive Construction of the

1978–1979 Iranian Revolution in the Speeches of Ayatollah Khomeini,” Journal of
Community & Applied Social Psychology 22, no. 2 (2012): 174–186.
6. Türkay Salim Nefes, “Understanding Anti-Semitic Rhetoric in Turkey through the
Sèvres Syndrome,” Turkish Studies 16, no. 4 (2015): 572–587.
7. Daniel Pipes, The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy (Basingstoke,
UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998).
8. Rob Brotherton, Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories
(New York: Bloomsbury, 2015); Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, American
Conspiracy Theories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
9. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
(New York: Penguin, 2012); Douglass C. North, John Joseph Wallis, and Barry R.
Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting
Recorded Human History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
10. Viatcheslav Morozov, Russia’s Postcolonial Identity: A Subaltern Empire in a
Eurocentric World (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); Ted Hopf, “The
Evolution of Russia’s Place in the World: 1991–2011,” Demokratizatsiya 20, no. 3
(2012): 274.
11. Ayse Zarakol, After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other: “The East”
in European Identity Formation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).
12. Iain Lauchlan, “Chekist Mentalité and the Origins of the Great Terror,” in The
Anatomy of Terror: Political Violence under Stalin, ed. James R. Harris (Oxford: Oxford
13. Oleg Khlevniuk, Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2015).
15. Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of
Our Times (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
16. Vladimir Naumov and Jonathan Brent, Stalin’s Last Crime: The Plot Against the Jewish
Doctors, 1948–1953 (London: HarperCollins, 2003).
17. While the statement has been attributed to Churchill, the original source is un-
certain. “ ‘Dogfight Under a Carpet . . . ,’ ” https://richardlangworth.com/
dogfight-under-a-carpet.
18. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (Wellesley, MA: Dante University Press, 2003), 94.
19. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, “Informational Autocrats,” Journal of Economic
Perspectives 33, no. 4 (2019): 100–127.
20. Seva Gunitsky, “Corrupting the Cyber- Commons: Social Media as a Tool of
Autocratic Stability,” Perspectives on Politics 13, no. 1 (2015): 42–54.
22. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet
Russia in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
23. William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003).
210 Notes
24. Even after Stalin’s death, the KGB remained active not only in monitoring dissent but
also in spreading conspiracy theories, mostly to foreign audiences. As part of a Cold
War campaign of so-called active measures—psychological operations to undermine
an adversary, including disinformation—the KGB published fake newspaper articles,
leaked rumors to foreign media, and recruited sources in elite circles to damage trust
in institutions in the West. Among others, it spread rumors that the CIA had spread
crack in Black neighborhoods and had invented the AIDS virus. Christopher Andrew,
The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB
(New York: Basic Books, 2000).
25. Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to
Gorbachev (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 204.
26. Rósa Magnúsdóttir, Enemy Number One: The United States of America in Soviet
Ideology and Propaganda, 1945–1959 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
MA: Polity, 2018).
28. Richard Sakwa, “The Russian Elections of December 1993,” Europe-Asia Studies 47,
no. 2 (1995): 195–227.
29. Masha Gessen, The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin
(New York: Riverhead Books, 2013); Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy, Mr.
Putin: Operative in the Kremlin (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015);
David Satter, The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and
Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016).
30. Valerie Sperling, Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 9.
31. Daniel Treisman, “Presidential Popularity in a Hybrid Regime: Russia under Yeltsin
and Putin,” American Journal of Political Science 55, no. 3 (2011): 590–609.
32. I include a wide range of search terms so as to identify not only conspiracy claims, but
any suspicious or hostile rhetoric. It should be kept in mind that the uses of a word
may be misleading out of context, such as “our main enemy is the fact that we are
falling behind.”
33. Heathershaw (2012), Herzog (2014), and Uscinski and Parent (2014), in widely varied
contexts, make a similar domestic-foreign distinction when it comes to the themes of
conspiracy theories. See John Heathershaw, “Of National Fathers and Russian Elder
Brothers: Conspiracy Theories and Political Ideas in Post‐Soviet Central Asia,” The
Russian Review 71, no. 4 (2012): 610–629; Christoph Herzog, “Small and Large Scale
Conspiracy Theories and Their Problems: An Example from Turkey,” in Michael
Butter and Maurus Reinkowski, eds., Conspiracy Theories in the Middle East and the
United States: A Comparative Approach (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 194–211.
34. Because Russia’s scores changed dramatically along with its political evolution, I pro-
vide its average scores over two 10-year periods. See https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/
data-version-10/.
35. Mischa Gabowitsch, Protest in Putin’s Russia (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2017).
36. Andrew Wilson, Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 40.
Notes 211
37. Henry Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective
38. Janine R. Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern
Europe (New York: Palgrave, 2015).
39. Curt Tarnoff, US Assistance to the Former Soviet Union (Washington,
DC: Congressional Information Service, Library of Congress, 2007).
40. William H. Sewell, “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing
Revolution at the Bastille,” Theory and Society 25, no. 6 (1996): 841–881.
41. Arkady Ostrovsky, The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War
(New York: Penguin, 2015).
42. Secretary of State James Baker provided verbal assurances that NATO would not ex-
pand into East Germany or beyond. Gorbachev later complained that he was betrayed.
Joshua R. Itzkowitz Shifrinson, “Deal or No Deal? The End of the Cold War and the
US Offer to Limit NATO Expansion,” International Security 40, no. 4 (2016): 7–44.
43. Ostrovsky, Invention of Russia, 235.
44. John Dunlop, The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian
Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule (Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2014);
Alexander Litvinenko, Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB
Terror: Acts of Terror, Abductions, and Contract Killings Organized by the Federal
Security Service of the Russian Federation (Encounter Books, 2007).
Chapter 3
1. Henry E. Hale, “The Origins of United Russia and the Putin Presidency: The
Role of Contingency in Party-System Development,” Demokratizatsiya 12, no. 2
(2004): 169–194.
2. John Dunlop, The Moscow Bombings of September 1999: Examinations of Russian
Terrorist Attacks at the Onset of Vladimir Putin’s Rule (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2014).
3. Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss, “The Menace of Unreality: How the
Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money,” Institute of Modern Russia
(2014), https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/russia-putin-
revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880.
4. J. Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood, Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason
Divide Our Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 6.
5. There is also a possibility that the database would be biased in favor of larger coun-
tries. In the Appendix, I address this issue by comparing the proportions of con-
spiracy claims by country that were collected using different sources and sampling
methods; and by checking whether a disproportionate number of entries came from
newspapers based in the corresponding country. Different sampling methods, in-
cluding from local-language reports through BBC Monitoring, yield consistent rela-
tive frequencies by country.
212 Notes
6. Information on sampled events, sources, keywords, and coding can be found in the
Appendix.
7. Uscinski and Parent (2014) make a similar argument for their wide collection criteria
in the United States.
8. “Disputed territories” refers to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia, South Ossetia,
Nagorno- Karabakh, and Transnistria. I code the North Caucasus (Chechnya,
Dagestan, Ingushetia) separately from Russia because, although part of Russia, many
representatives of the region for much of this period were antagonistic toward the
Russian state.
9. This refers to people whose primary political identification is as legislators, and who
are not coded as anything else.
10. To qualify as a fifth column, the internal actor must be accused of actively collabo-
rating with or willingly accepting support from the external one.
11. Jerome Bruner, The Culture of Education (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1996), 94.
12. These elements roughly conform to the components of a narrative as described
by Margaret R. Somers and Gloria D. Gibson, “Reclaiming the Epistemological
‘Other’: Narrative and the Social Constitution of Identity,” in Craig Calhoun, ed.,
Social Theory and the Politics of Identity (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994), 37–99.
13. Molly Patterson and Kristen Renwick Monroe, “Narrative in Political Science,”
Annual Review of Political Science 1, no. 1 (1998): 316.
14. Michael Barkun, Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013).
15. Serguei Alex Oushakine, The Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War, and Loss in Russia
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010); Paul A. Silverstein, “An Excess of
Truth: Violence, Conspiracy Theorizing and the Algerian Civil War,” Anthropological
Quarterly 75, no. 4 (2002): 643–674.
16. Bruner, Culture of Education, 136, 139.
17. Conspiracy theories by definition involve some type of harm, if not to identifiable
victims, then implicitly to the public, or to the integrity of institutions.
18. “Rashengeyt,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, August 31, 1999.
19. BBC Monitoring, “Russian TV Reports on Disarray Ahead of Ukrainian Presidential
Poll,” NTV Mir, Moscow, October 26, 2004.
20. “Yuriy Kachanovskiy, Professor: Rezhim izmeny,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, July 10, 1997.
21. “Model ‘Shestoy Rasy,’ ” Sovetskaya Rossiya, May 15, 2004.
22. “Provocation” was the keyword most likely to lead to the identification of a con-
spiracy claim.
23. Lynn Ellen Patyk, “The Real Reason Russia Blames Britain for the Skripal Poisonings,”
Washington Post, April 2, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-
history/wp/2018/04/02/t he-real-reason-r ussia-blames-britain-for-t he-skripal-
poisonings/.
24. “Rossiya ne isklyuchayet novykh provokatsiy gruzinskogo rukovodstva v otnoshenii
Abkhazii i Yizhnoy Osetii—Karasin,” ITAR-TASS, August 6, 2012.
Notes 213
25. Causal emplotment is “an accounting (however fantastic or implicit) of why a narra-
tive has the story line it does.” Somers and Gibson, “Reclaiming the Epistemological
‘Other,’ ” 28.
26. Patrick J. Leman and Marco Cinnirella, “A Major Event Has a Major Cause: Evidence
for the Role of Heuristics in Reasoning about Conspiracy Theories,” Social
Psychological Review 9 (2007): 18–28.
27. “’Seychas zhe uberi etot trup’: SMI dokazali prichastnost’ Saakashvili k ubiistvu
Zhvanii,” NTV, February 26, 2014.
28. See Ilya Yablokov, Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World
(Medford, MA: Polity, 2018), 154–156.
29. These are not mutually exclusive categories, as claims can check two or more of these
boxes. For example, conspiracy claims targeting the opposition can also allege a for-
eign plot.
30. Yablokov, Fortress Russia.
31. “Opomnimsya! Pis’mo iz Vil’nyusa k rodnoy rossii ‘tot, kto dlya svoego otechestva
ne prigoden, tot i v tsarstvii bozhiem ne prigozh,’ ” Sovetskaya Rossiya, December
16, 1995.
32. “Stat’ i idti o krizise idei, very i morali,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, December 21, 1995.
33. “Podopleka iz khroma i nefti,” Literaturnaya Gazeta, April 21, 1999.
34. “Sindrom dollargazma,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, October 12, 2000.
35. “ ‘Khorosho-plokho’, ili 20 let spustya,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, October 28, 2003. This
refers to an apocryphal memo supposedly written by Eisenhower’s Secretary of State
Allen Dulles that described a plan to destroy the Soviet Union by infiltrating Western
practices and corrupting the values of its citizens. Yablokov, Fortress Russia, 61.
36. “Neizvestnyi 68-i,” Literaturnaya Gazeta, August 6, 2008.
37. “Prorok v kolese, Sovetskaya Rossiya, August 14, 2008.
38. “Obrashchenie k sograzhdanam,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, July 12, 1997.
39. “Za finansovym krizisom v Rossii stoit Soros?”Vechernyaya Moskva, August 20, 1998.
40. “O poryadochnosti,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, May 6, 2004.
41. BBC Monitoring, “Georgian Politicians Expect Russia- Backed Attempts to
Overthrow Authorities,” Georgian Television, December 24, 1999.
42. BBC Monitoring, “Georgian Opposition Denies Being Financed by Russian
Oligarchs,” ITAR-TASS News Agency, Moscow, April 12, 2009.
43. “Turkmeniya obvinyayet Rossiyu v podderzhke terroristov,” Kommersant, November
27, 2002.
44. “Vo L’vove govoryat O ‘ruke Moskvy,’ ” Segodnya (Kyiv), April 12, 2010. Lech
Kaczynski died in a plane crash near the Russian city of Smolensk on the way to a bi-
national commemoration ceremony.
45. “Dyatel rabotaet na Chubaisa,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, July 10, 1997.
46. “Rashengeit,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, August 31, 1999.
47. “Personalka,” Vechernyaya Moskva, March 16, 2000.
48. “Kompromat. Pitertsy protiv ‘piterskikh.’ Berezovskii raskachivayet lodku,”
Argumenty i Fakty, September 12, 2001.
214 Notes
49. “Kandidat v prezidenty Ukrainy Yanukovich stremitsya k sblizheniyu s Rossiyei, ego

opponent Yushchenko ubezhden, chto budushcheye strany—v Evrope,” Itar-Tass
SNG, October 31, 2004.
50. BBC Monitoring, “Ukrainian Premier’s Election HQ Denounces Opposition
Actions,” Interfax-Ukraine News Agency, Kiev, October 26, 2004.
51. BBC Monitoring, “Ukraine opposition MP says authorities to use criminals to disrupt
poll,” TV 5 Kanal, Kiev, October 29, 2004.
52. “Otstavka,” Vechernyi Bishkek, April 27, 1999.
53. BBC Monitoring, “Ukraine’s Progovernment TV Channels Accuse Opposition of
Plotting Unrest,” TV 5 Kanal, August 30, 2004.
54. “Obstrel 20 fevralya protestuyushchikh i pravookhranitelei byl organizovan
provokatorami—Klyuyev,” UNIAN Online, February 21, 2014.
55. “Kyrgyz Opposition Responds to President Akayev’s Warning of Possible Coup,”
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, BBC Monitoring, December 21, 2004.
56. “Shtab Saakashvili kloniruyet izbiratelei,” Izvestiya, December 12, 2007.
57. “V Batumi prolita pervaya krov,” Trud, May 6, 2004.
58. BBC Monitoring, “Zyuganov Calls on Electorate to Use Their Vote Carefully,” Radio
Vozrozhdeniye, June 13, 1996.
59. “V minoborony Belorussii nazvali provokatsiyei utverzhdeniya, chto voyennym
dan prikaz progolosovat’ dosrochno na prezidentskikh vyborakh, TASS-SNG,” April
13, 2006.
60. BBC Monitoring, “Russian Media Come under Pressure before Election—Paper,”
NTV, December 5, 2011.
61. “Na Zapade gotovyatsya k arestam nashikh oligarkhov,”Argumenty i Fakty, September
15, 1999.
62. BBC Monitoring, “Uzbek Leader Gives News Conference on Andijon Events—
Russian Version,” Uzbek Television First Channel, May 15, 2005.
63. This is the most common type of conspiracy theory in the United States historically,
as an expression of long-standing distrust of government. See Knight, Conspiracy
Culture.
64. “Manevr sleva napravo. Ideologiya i psikhologiya soglashatel’stva,” Sovetskaya
Rossiya, August 18, 1998.
65. “Iz yarma—pod igo,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, March 23, 2000.
66. “Izbirateli ustali . . . obozrenie ‘lgat’’ nado bylo bolee pravdopodobno,” Sovetskaya
Rossiya, March 28, 2000.
67. “Minuet noch,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, October 12, 2000.
68. “Chem vzryvali perekhod. Pokhozhe, tem zhe, chem i ‘Okhotnyi ryad,’ ” Kommersant,
August 12, 2000.
69. “Lider chechenskikh separatistov obvinil rossiiskiye spetssluzhby v prichastnosti k
teraktam v Moskovskom metro,” UNIAN, March 31, 2010.
70. “Obozreniye—Zigzagi B. Yel’tsina na Kavkaze i v Srednei Azii,” Sovetskaya Rossiya,
August 12, 1997.
71. “Zachem Berezovskomu maska demona?” Argumenty it Fakty, February 11, 1999.
Notes 215
72. BBC Monitoring, “Georgia: Visiting Members of Chechen Parliament Accuse Russia
of Provoking Fight,” Iprinda News Agency, September 25, 1999.
73. Michael R. Gordon, “Georgia Trying Anxiously to Stay Out of Chechen War,”
International Herald Tribune, November 17, 1999, https://www.nytimes.com/1999/
11/17/world/georgia-trying-anxiously-to-stay-out-of-chechen-war.html.
74. BBC Monitoring, “Georgia Denies Chechnya Freeing Georgian Hostages in Exchange
for Arms,” Kavkasia-Press News Agency, September 16, 1999.
75. BBC Monitoring, “Georgian Official Refutes Reports on Attempt to Smuggle
Weapons into Chechnya,” Interfax News Agency, September 27, 1999.
76. BBC Monitoring, “Moscow Recruits Chechen Rebels to Invade Georgia,” Kavkaz-
Tsentr News Agency, November 17, 2003.
77. “Rukovodstvo Gruzii prinyalo bespretsedentnyye shagi po ogranicheniyu
funktsionirovaniya porta i aeroporta Batumi,” ITAR-TASS, March 16, 2004.
78. BBC Monitoring, “Baluyevskii nazyvayet provokatsiyei intsident s gruzinskimi
zhurnalistami,” Trend (News of Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus), December
15, 2007.
Chapter 4
1. Jennifer Earl, Andrew Martin, John D. McCarthy, and Sarah A. Soule, “The Use
of Newspaper Data in the Study of Collective Action,” Annual Review of Sociology
30 (2004): 65–80; Roberto Franzosi, “The Press as a Source of Socio-historical
Data: Issues in the Methodology of Data Collection from Newspapers,” Historical
Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 20, no. 1 (1987): 5–16.
2. Freedom House, “Nations in Transit 2015,” https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/
files/2020-02/FH_NIT2015_06.06.15_FINAL.pdf.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 112.
4. The slope is .49 and significant at p < .001, with an adjusted r2 = .32. I do not include
the Euromaidan outlier, which can skew the results.
5. The slope is .44 and p < .001, with an adjusted r2 = .47. This includes the Euromaidan
period.
6. Adjusted r2 = .21.
7. Adjusted r2 is .05.
8. Articles that appeared on the day of the event were assumed to be reporting on
matters prior to that day, so in fact only 7 of the 15 days are coded as “after the event.”
9. Only in a case like the 9/11 terror attacks could the event truly be considered unex-
pected. I collected 27 conspiracy claims between September 4 and 18, 2001. Of these,
7 were about the attacks and 20 were about other topics. Of the incidental claims,
10 occurred on or before the 11th, and 10 occurred after. Of the related claims, all
7 occurred after; if a related conspiracy theory had appeared earlier, this fact alone
would suggest that there was a conspiracy, as the claimant must have been involved.
216 Notes
1 0. Marc L. Hutchison and Douglas M. Gibler, “Political Tolerance and

Territorial Threat: A Cross-National Study,” The Journal of Politics 69, no. 1
(2007): 128–1 42.
11. David R. Cameron and Mitchell A. Orenstein, “Post-Soviet Authoritarianism: The
Influence of Russia in Its ‘Near Abroad,’” Post-Soviet Affairs 28, no. 1 (2012): 1–44;
Taras Kuzio, “Promoting Geopolitical Pluralism in the CIS: GUUAM and Western
Foreign Policy,” Problems of Post-Communism 47, no. 3 (2000): 25–35.
12. This analysis aggregates all claimants—officials, analysts, journalists, and others—so
it captures only the general thrust of conspiracy claims originating in a given location.
Later chapters identify the role of specific actors in the propagation of conspiracy
claims.
13. Because some years have more sampled days than others, there will naturally be yearly
variation, but this variation should not affect the relative figures in Russia versus other
states. Event-related claims were excluded because they would cause some countries
but not others to show spikes in eventful years.
14. They are correlated at r = .82, p < .000.
15. r = .74, p < .000. I use Loess smoothing. It is difficult to achieve statistical significance
with other countries because the annual numbers are sometimes small.
16. r = .53, p = .09. As with the earlier analysis, event-related claims were excluded to
avoid country-specific variations.
17. r = .55, p = .07.
18. The North Caucasus actually produces the highest proportion of anti-government
claims because most claimants are militants who level accusations against the
Russian state.
19. Andrew Roth, “What Russians Think When They Hear ‘Putin’s a Killer,’” Washington
Post, February 10, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/
2017/02/10/putins-a-killer-as-seen- from-moscow/.
20. This finding is consistent with the idea that conspiracy claims are useful to signal
strength and competence. It is the embattled leaders in competitive states whose po-
sition is insecure who are most in need of demonstrating their power. By contrast,
where leaders are known to brook no opposition (“strong” by a crude measure) or
have a reputation to govern effectively (competent), they need not dabble in the con-
spiratorial arts as often.
21. Haifeng Huang, “Propaganda as Signaling,” Comparative Politics 47, no. 4
(2015): 419–444.
22. These scores are rough estimates of how influential actors are. It can be argued that
presidents should count for even more, as their informal influence far surpasses that
of other political actors. See Brian D. Taylor, The Code of Putinism (Oxford: Oxford
23. Points on the y-axis are sums of the number of claims per day weighted by influence of
the claimant.
24. In fact, the fit between weighted scores and the time trend is about twice as high as for
undifferentiated claims: .62 vs. .32.
Notes 217
Chapter 5
1. Thomas Graham, “The Sources of Russia’s Insecurity,” Survival 52, no. 1 (2010): 55–
74; Andrei P. Tsygankov, Russia and the West from Alexander to Putin: Honor in
International Relations (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
2. Lilia Shevtsova, “The Authoritarian Resurgence: Forward to the Past in Russia,”
Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2 (2015): 22–36.
3. Vladimir Gel’man, Authoritarian Russia: Analyzing Post-Soviet Regime Changes
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015).
4. Unless otherwise specified, “official” claimants in this chapter include the presi-
dent, military or spy services, other members of the executive, and MPs whose con-
spiracy claims target actors other than the three preceding categories or collusive fifth
columns. This coding assesses MPs by the content of their conspiracy claims, which is
a more accurate measure of their position than their party affiliation, whose valence
changes over time.
5. Taking the speech of non-rulers as surrogate does not imply that propaganda
campaigns are centrally directed and choreographed. It may be that the leader sets
the tone for what discourse is acceptable and devotees follow the cues.
6. Serguei Alex Oushakine, “Stop the Invasion! Money, Patriotism, and Conspiracy in
Russia,” Social Research: An International Quarterly 76, no. 1 (2009): 71–116. 106.
7. Keith Livers, “The Tower or the Labyrinth: Conspiracy, Occult, and Empire‐Nostalgia
in the Work of Viktor Pelevin and Aleksandr Prokhanov,” The Russian Review 69,
no. 3 (2010): 477–503; Boris Noordenbos, “Seeing the Bigger Picture: Conspiratorial
Revisions of World War II History in Recent Russian Cinema,” Slavic Review 77, no. 2
(2018): 441–464; Eliot Borenstein, Plots against Russia: Conspiracy and Fantasy After
Socialism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019).
8. Marlene Laruelle, “Conspiracy and Alternate History in Russia: A Nationalist
Equation for Success?” The Russian Review 71, no. 4 (2012): 565–580; Ilya Yablokov,
Fortress Russia: Conspiracy Theories in the Post-Soviet World (New York: John Wiley
& Sons, 2018).
9. Anne L. Clunan, The Social Construction of Russia’s Resurgence: Aspirations, Identity,
and Security Interests (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 53–54.
10. Charles Clover, Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016). 201–02. Yablokov (Fortress Russia, 31) calls
them public intellectuals. I use this term sparingly because, while some proponents
of conspiracy such as Alexander Dugin or Alexander Prokhanov embed their claims
within a larger philosophical framework, the label also sweeps in actors whose
contributions fall short of intellectual, according to conventional understandings of
the word.
11. Clunan, Social Construction, 68.
12. Clover, Black Wind, White Snow.
13. Arkady Ostrovsky, The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev’s Freedom to Putin’s War
(New York: Penguin, 2015), 142; Clunan, Social Construction, 72.
218 Notes
14. Embassy Moscow, “Russia-

Georgia Conflict Sitrep 4,” Wikileaks
Cable: 08MOSCOW2351_a, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW2351_
a.html.
15. Vladimir Putin, “Russia at the Turn of the Millennium,” in Vladimir Putin, First
Person: An Astonishingly Frank Self-Portrait by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin
(New York: Public Affairs, 2000).
16. Political scientists differ. Gel’man (Authoritarian Russia, 14) argues for three stages up
to 2014.
17. “Stability as social order and lack of political chaos has also been the major
self-
defining element of the Russian national narrative in the 2000s.” Dmitry
Chernobrov, “Ontological Security and Public (Mis)Recognition of International
Crises: Uncertainty, Political Imagining, and the Self,” Political Psychology 37, no. 5
(2016): 591.
18. Ora John Reuter and Thomas F. Remington, “Dominant Party Regimes and the
Commitment Problem: The Case of United Russia,” Comparative Political Studies 42,
no. 4 (2009): 511.
19. Victor Yasmann, “Analysis: Kremlin Articulates its Ideological Platform,” October 13,
2004, https://www.rferl.org/a/1055306.html.
20. Nick Paton Walsh, “ Russian Youth Group Vows to Name Fascists in Schools,”
Guardian, April 27, 2005, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/apr/27/
schoolsworldwide.russia.
21. On Putinism as an ordering concept, see Brian D. Taylor, The Code of Putinism
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
22. These are Argumenty i Fakty, Vechernaya Moskva, Izvestiya, Krasnaya Zvezda,
Literaturnaya Gazeta, Novaya Gazeta, Sovetskaya Rossiya, and Trud. They run the
gamut from extreme nationalist to liberal.
23. Claims were coded as television if they came from transcriptions of television
programs in BBC Monitoring or appeared on Vesti.ru, Ntv.ru, and Ren.tv, the web-
based counterparts of Russian television stations. In all, 136 claims were coded as tel-
evision in Russia.
24. “Editorialist” refers to authors of newspaper articles, “publicists,” or television per-
sonalities. “Expert” refers to credentialed specialists such as professors and analysts
working for think tanks or research centers who are not identified as working for the
government. It should be kept in mind, however, that their employers are often state
institutions or otherwise linked to the government.
25. “Official” claims here include all MPs because their attitudes toward the regime
cannot be inferred based on foreign conspiracy claims. Excluding all MPs does not
substantially change the results.
26. Yablokov, Fortress Russia, 109; Ostrovsky, Invention of Russia, 144; Mikhail Zygar,
All the Kremlin’s Men: Inside the Court of Vladimir Putin (New York: Public
Affairs, 2016).
27. Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Leaves the West,” Foreign Affairs 85 (2006): 87–96.
28. Timothy J. Colton, Yeltsin: A Life (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 371.
29. Boris Yeltsin, Midnight Diaries (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), 24–25.
Notes 219
30. Michael McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to
Putin (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).
31. Michael Specter, “Another Trolley Bombing in Moscow Leaves 30 Hurt,” New York
Times, July 13, 1996, https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/13/world/another-trolley-
bombing-in-moscow-leaves-30-hurt.html.
33. BBC Monitoring, “Moscow Government Regards Metro Blast as Political
Provocation,” Interfax News Agency, June 12, 1996.
34. BBC Monitoring, “Moscow Mayor Criticized at Hardline Opposition Rally for Metro
Blast Comments,” Ekho Moskvy, June 12, 1996.
35. BBC Monitoring, “Zhirinovskiy Says Metro Bombed by Groups Unsure of Election
Success,” Interfax News Agency, June 12, 1996.
36. Ostrovsky, Invention of Russia, 194–195.
37. BBC Monitoring, “Arrest of Yeltsin Campaign Aides; NTV Says Two Yeltsin
Campaign Heads Arrested on Security Chief ’s Orders,” NTV, June 12, 1996.
38. BBC Monitoring, “Alleged Coup Attempt; Chubays Comments Further on Attempted
Coup and Elections,” NTV, June 12, 1996.
39. BBC Monitoring, “Pravda Says Coup Attempt Was a Fabrication,” Pravda, June
22, 1996.
40. BBC Monitoring, “Zyuganov; Yeltsin’s Team Trying to ‘Finish Off ’ Russia, Zyuganov
Says,” NTV, June 20, 1996.
41. Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski, The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market
Bolshevism against Democracy (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press,
2001), 520.
42. BBC Monitoring, “Duma to Investigate Lebed’s Statement on Attempted Coup,
Interfax News Agency, June 19, 1996.
43. “Belaya ptitsa s chernoi otmetinoi pis’mo zelenogradskogo inzhenera po povodu
tushinskikh poryadkov general-politika zvonok,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, June 20, 1996.
44. Zygar, All the Kremlin’s Men, 104.
45. Robert Horvath, Putin’s Preventive Counter-Revolution: Post-Soviet Authoritarianism
and the Spectre of Velvet Revolution (New York: Routledge, 2013), 12.
46. Dexter Filkins, “U.S. Entangled in Mystery of Georgia’s Islamic Fighters,” New York
Times, June 15, 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/world/us-entangled-in-
mystery-of-georgia-s-islamic-fighters.html.
47. C. J. Chivers, “For Russians, Wounds Linger in School Siege,” New York Times, August
26, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/world/europe/for-russians-wounds-
linger-in-school-siege.html.
48. Gearoid Ó Tuathail, “Placing Blame: Making Sense of Beslan,” Political Geography 28,
no. 1 (2009): 4–15.
49. All translations of this speech are taken from “Excerpts from Putin’s Address,” BBC.
com, September 4, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3627878.stm.
50. Investigations revealed that the attackers were primarily from North Ossetia, not
Chechnya, and no foreign trace was ever proved.
51. See Ó Tuathail, “Placing Blame,” for a sophisticated analysis of the speech.
220 Notes
52. “Nado iskat’ ‘kuklovodov,’ ” Trud, September 8, 2004.

53. “Obraz i podobie vraga,” Novaya Gazeta, September 9, 2004.
54. “Sposobna li Rossiya obezopasit’ sebya ot terrora,” Kazinform, September 9, 2004.
55. “Terrorizm,” Argumenty i Fakty, September 8, 2004.
56. “Pod odnoi kryshei,” Sovetskaya Rossiya, September 9, 2004.
57. BBC Monitoring, “Centre of Islamic Terrorism Is in London, Claims Russian
Journalist,” Channel One TV, September 8, 2004.
58. This translation is from the Kremlin’s website. The line is often translated as “the
greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
59. Annual Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, The Kremlin,
Moscow, April 25, 2005, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/22931.
60. Brian Whitmore, “Four Scenarios For Putin 2.0,” RFE/RL, October 5, 2011, https://
www.rferl.org/a/four_scenarios_for_putin_20/24349530.ht.
61. There were rumors that Putin had planned the centralizing reforms in advance and
used the Beslan attacks as a pretext to implement them. However, Zygar’s interviews
with officials do not support that claim. Zygar, All the Kremlin’s Men, 80. Gessen also
debunks the conspiracy theory that the Russian government sought a bloody outcome
in order to justify the policy. Masha Gessen, The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise
of Vladimir Putin (New York: Riverhead Books, 2013).
62. Dov Lynch, “‘The Enemy Is at the Gate’: Russia after Beslan,” International Affairs
81, no. 1 (2005): 153. The quotations come from his translation of Putin’s speech on
September 13, 2004.
63. Horvath, Putin’s Preventive Counter-Revolution, 26.
64. Yablokov, Fortress Russia, 31.
65. “Russians Continue to Protest Social Reforms,” RFE/RL, January 16, 2005, https://
www.rferl.org/a/1056877.html.
66. Horvath, Putin’s Preventive Counter-Revolution, 51, 55.
69. “Obshchestvennost’ vyyasnila, kto stoit za aktsiyami protesta,” Kommersant, January
19, 2005.
70. “Povody dlya nedovol’stva naseleniya monetizatsiyei l’got budut ustraneny za
mesyats— takuyu zadachu postavili pered soboi partiya ‘Edinaya Rossiya; i
pravitel’stvo,” Ekho Moskvy, January 14, 2005.
71. BBC Monitoring, “Russian State Duma Speaker Says Political Forces behind Benefit
Protests,” Channel One TV, January 16, 2005.
73. “Russian Pensioners Reverse Welfare Cuts,” Global Nonviolent Action Database, https://
nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/russian-pensioners-reverse-welfare-cuts.
74. Yablokov (Fortress Russia, 188) argues that anti-West conspiracy theories became “a
‘weapon of mass destruction’ deployed by the loyal Kremlin media to destroy or sup-
press opposition in the country.”
75. Adam Taylor, “A Brief Rundown of Vladimir Putin’s Strange, Rambling Press
Conference,” Washington Post, March 4, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Notes 221
news/worldviews/wp/2014/03/04/a-brief-r undown-of-vladimir-putins-strange-
rambling-press-conference/?utm_term=.5d4c6f3f8e0e.
76. Levada Center, “Who Downed the Malaysia Boeing in Eastern Ukraine?,” October
3, 2014, http://www.levada.ru/en/2014/10/03/who-downed-the-Malaysia-boeingin-
eastern-ukraine.
77. “Lavrov: Zapad naposrednichalsya na Ukrain,” Vesti.Ru, February 19, 2014.
78. “Aleksandr Dugin: Shtaty pytayutsya ustanovit’ na Ukraine fashistskuyu diktaturu,
Vesti.ru, February 22, 2014.
79. James Kirchick, “Putin’s Imaginary Nazis,” Politico, March 31, 2014, https://www.po-
litico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/putins-imaginary-nazis-105217.
80. “MID RF o situatsii v Kiyeve: nalitso otkrovennoye nadrugatel’stvo nad
pravoporyadkom, NTV, February 18, 2014.
81. BBC Monitoring, “Russian State TV Talk Show Dedicates Olympic Special to Ukraine
Developments,” Rossiya 1 TV, February 21, 2014.
83. BBC Monitoring, “Programme Summary of Russian Channel Five ‘Seychas’ News
1230 GMT 1 Aug 14,” TRK Peterburg Channel Five TV, August 1, 2014.
84. “DNR: Ukrainskiye voiska khotyat vzorvat’ khranilishcha khlora i ammiaka,” NTV,
August 1, 2014.
85. Taylor, “A Brief Rundown.”
86. Aristotle Kallis, Nazi Propaganda and the Second World War (Basingstoke,
UK: Palgrave Macmillan., 2005); Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda
and Persuasion (London: Sage Publications, 2018).
Chapter 6
1. Scott Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in
Central Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010), 72.
2. BBC Monitoring, “Kyrgyz Opposition Responds to President Akaev’s Warning of
Possible Coup,” Nezavisimaya Gazeta, December 21, 2004.
3. Giorgi Gvalia et al., “Thinking Outside the Bloc: Explaining the Foreign Policies of
Small States,” Security Studies 22, no. 1 (2013): 98–131.
4. Stephen White and Valentina Feklyunina, Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia,
Ukraine and Belarus (New York: Springer, 2014).
6. BBC Monitoring, “Russian Radio Scoops First Interview with Ousted Kyrgyz
President,” Ekho Moskvy, March 29, 2005.
7. BBC Monitoring, “Acting Kyrgyz President Says ‘Certain Forces’ Want Bloodshed—
Full Version,” Kyrgyz Television First Channel, March 26, 2005.
8. BBC Monitoring, “Kyrgyz Speaker Says Certain Forces Interested in Further Unrest,”
Interfax News Agency, March 25, 2005.
222 Notes
9. BBC Monitoring, “Kyrgyz Opposition Power Seizure Backed from Abroad—

Bakiyev’s Chief Bodyguard,” RIA Novosti, April 13, 2010; “Za nyneshnimi sobytiyami
v Kyrgyzstane stoyat amerikanskiye spetssluzhby— eks-prezident Kyrgyzstana,”
Trend Information Agency, April 7, 2010.
10. “Yurta verkhovnogo glavnokomandovaniya,” Kommersant, April 13, 2010;
“Kurmanbek Bakiyev ne nameren ukhodit’ v otstavku, poka emu ne obespechat
bezopasnost,” Trend Information Agency, April 13, 2010.
11. Scott Radnitz, “Paranoia with a Purpose: Conspiracy Theory and Political Coalitions
in Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs 32, no. 5 (2016): 474–489.
12. “Oshskaya reznya 1990 goda. Khronologiya tragedii,” Fergananews.com, June
8, 2010.
13. Jonathan Wheatley, Georgia from National Awakening to Rose Revolution: Delayed
Transition in the Former Soviet Union (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2017).
14. BBC Monitoring, “Georgian President: Enemies’ Plans to Destabilize Country Are
Doomed,” Prime-News News Agency, February 16, 1999.
15. BBC Monitoring, “Georgian President Says Russian Bases in Georgia Supply Arms to
Chechnya,” Kavkasia-Press News Agency, September 27, 1999.
16. BBC Monitoring, “Georgian Leader Describes Car Accident Involving His Rival
as Tragic Accident,” Prime-News News Agency, March 20, 2000. Internal quotation
marks are in the original.
17. BBC Monitoring, “Pro-government MP says ‘dirty money’ used against Georgia,”
Rustavi-2 TV, December 7, 2007.
18. BBC Monitoring, “Georgian Opposition Denies Being Financed by Russian
Oligarchs,” ITAR-TASS, April 14, 2009.
19. “Putin khorosho otzyvayetsya o Patarkatsishvili— Eduard Shevardnadze,” Trend
Information Agency, December 17, 2007.
20. Toal, Near Abroad, chapter 5; Richard Sakwa, “Conspiracy Narratives as a Mode of
Engagement in International Politics: The Case of the 2008 Russo‐Georgian War,” The
Russian Review 71, no. 4 (2012): 581–609.
21. C. J. Chivers, “Georgia Offers Fresh Evidence on War’s Start,” New York Times,
September 15, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/world/europe/16georgia.
html.
22. “Is Ivanishvili a Trojan Horse for Russia’s Return to Georgia?” Voice of America,
October 3, 2012, http://blogs.voanews.com/russia-watch/2012/10/03/is-ivanishvili-
a-trojan-horse-for-russias-return-to-georgia/.
23. “Georgian Army Operation on Russian Border Leaves 14 Dead.” BBC.com, August
29, 2012, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19414138.
24. BBC Monitoring, “Programme Summary of Georgian Rustavi-2 TV ‘Kurieri’ News
1700 GMT,” Rustavi-2 TV, August 29, 2012.
25. “Prem’yer Gruzii nazval Saakashvili vragom strany,” NTV, December 26, 2014.
26. Thomas Young, “10 Maps That Explain Ukraine’s Struggle for Independence,”
Brookings, May 21, 2015, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2015/05/
21/10-maps-that-explain-ukraines-struggle-for-independence/.
Notes 223
27. Cory Welt, “Ukraine: Background, Conflict with Russia, and U.S. Policy”
(Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018), https://fas.org/sgp/crs/
row/R45008.pdf, 29.
28. “Vitse-prem’yer Ukrainy ne poddalas’ na provokatsiyu,” Kommersant, December 27, 2000.
29. BBC Monitoring, “Ukrainian Premier- Designate’s Bloc Accuses Rivals of
Provocation,” Ukrayinska Pravda website, December 15, 2007.
30. BBC Monitoring, “Daily Says Ukrainian Intelligence Bodies ‘Purged,’” Segodnya, June
19, 2010.
31. “Byt gorodka BYUT,” Segodnya, August 10, 2011.
32. “Vlast’ delayet vse, chtoby parafirovaniye Soglasheniya ob assotsiatsii s ES 19 dekabrya
ne sostoyalos’—deputat Pavlovskii,” UNIAN Novosti-Online, December 8, 2011.
33. BBC Monitoring, “Ukrainian Frontrunner’s Election HQ Deny Complicity in Blasts,”
Interfax-Ukraine News Agency, August 27, 2004.
34. BBC Monitoring, “Ukrainian Opposition Leader Accuses Authorities of Organizing
Market Blasts,” UNIAN News Agency, August 30, 2004. In the end, the identity
of the actual guilty parties is disputed. Wilson (2006, 82) claimed the authorities
hired “fake nationalist parties” to carry out the bombings. Others implicated neo-
Nazis seeking to harm immigrants. Ilya Budraitskis and Denys Gorbach, “Dreams
of Europe: Refugees and Xenophobia in Russia and Ukraine,” OpenDemocracy.net,
February 10, 2017, https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/denys-gorbach-ilya-
budraitskis/dreams-of-europe-refugees-and-xenophobia-in-russia-and-ukra/.
35. Taras Kuzio, “From Kuchma to Yushchenko Ukraine’s 2004 Presidential Elections
and the Orange Revolution,” Problems of Post-Communism 52, no. 2 (2005): 29–44.
36. “Medzhlis vystupayet protiv gotovyashchikhsya protestnykh aktsii krymskikh tatar,”
UNIAN Novosti-Online, February 16, 2007.
37. “UNP: FSB osushchestvlyayet stsenarii po otdeleniyu Kryma ot Ukrainy,” Rosbalt—
Ukraina News Agency, November 29, 2011.
38. “Na Ukraine gotovyatsya vooruzhennyye napadeniya na organy vlasti –Viktor
Yanukovich,” ITAR-TASS—SNG, November 2, 2011.
39. “Zayavleniya Yanukovicha o vooruzhennykh napadeniyakh ‘mogut svidetel’stvovat’
o planakh vlasti zakrutit’ gayki’ v strane -Yatsenyuk",” UNIAN Novosti-Online,
November 2, 2011.
40. “UDAR ubezhden, chto edinstvennym putem vykhoda iz krizisa yavlyayetsya
otstavka Yanukovicha i novyye vybory Prezidenta,” UNIAN, February 19, 2014.
41. “Vozobnovleniye stolknovenii na Maidane vo vremya peremiriya yavlyayetsya
splanirovannoi provokatsiyei protiv mirnykh protestuyushchikh—lidery oppozitsii,”
UNIAN, February 20, 2014.
42. “Belarus Vote ‘Neither Free Nor Fair.’ ” BBC.com, September 10, 2001, http://news.
bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1534621.stm.
43. Scott Peterson, “US Spends Millions to Bolster Belarus Opposition,” Christian
Science Monitor, September 10, 2001. https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0910/p7s1-
woeu.html; Olena Nikolayenko, Youth Movements and Elections in Eastern Europe
224 Notes
44. BBC Monitoring, “Belarusian President Slams West, Opposition in Televised Address
to Voters,” Belarusian Radio, September 4, 2001.
45. “Nе povtorite oshibok serbov obrashchenie k narodu belorussii,” Sovetskaya Rossiya,
September 6, 2001.
46. Belarus was the only republic to retain this familiar acronym for its security services.
47. “Belorussiya otkryla urny,” Kommersant, March 14, 2006.
48. “Aleksandr Lukashenko: belorusskoye rukovodstvo ne dopustit destabilizatsii v
strane nakanune prezidentskikh vyborov,” TASS—SNG, March 15, 2006.
49. “Belorusskaya oppozitsiya gotovit silovoi zakhvat vlasti v strane -predsedatel’ KGB
Belorussii,” TASS—SNG, March 16, 2006.
50. Alan I. Abramowitz and Steven W. Webster, “Negative Partisanship: Why
Americans Dislike Parties but Behave like Rabid Partisans,” Political Psychology 39
(2018): 119–135.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 158; John Heathershaw, “Of National
Fathers and Russian Elder Brothers: Conspiracy Theories and Political Ideas in Post‐
Soviet Central Asia,” The Russian Review 71, no. 4 (2012): 610–629.
52. Scott Radnitz, “Reinterpreting the Enemy: Geopolitical Beliefs and the Attribution of
Blame in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict,” Political Geography 70 (2019): 64–73.
Chapter 7
1. Sharipzhan Merhat, “Three Years on, Kazakh Politician’s Killing Haunts Nazarbaev
Regime,” RFE/RL, February 13, 2009, https://www.rferl.org/a/Three_Years_On_
Kazakh_Politicians_Killing_Haunts_Nazarbaev_Regime/1492719.html; Pete
Baumgartner, “On His Watch: The Dark Events of Nazarbaev’s Long Reign,” RFE/
RL, March 26, 2019, https://www.rferl.org/a/on-his-watch-the-dark-events-of-
nazarbaev-s-long-reign/29843509.html.
2. Stephen White and Valentina Feklyunina, Identities and Foreign Policies in Russia,
Ukraine and Belarus (New York: Springer, 2014).
3. Edward W. Walker, Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the Soviet Union
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 140..
Caucasus (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), c hapter 3.
5. Timothy K. Blauvelt, “Endurance of the Soviet Imperial Tongue: The Russian
Language in contemporary Georgia,” Central Asian Survey 32, no. 2 (2013): 189–209.
6. Marlene Laruelle, Dylan Royce, and Serik Beyssembayev, “Untangling the Puzzle
of ‘Russia’s Influence’ in Kazakhstan,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 60, no. 2
(2019): 211–243.
7. “Otkuda Izkhodit Ugroza Miru?” VTsIOM, July 11, 2018, https://wciom.ru/index.
php?id=236&uid=9203.
Notes 225
8. “Nauka i Obschestvo: Avtoritet i Doverie,” VTsIOM, July 27, 2018, https://wciom.ru/

index.php?id=236&uid=9225.
9. “Teoriya Zagovora Protiv Rossii,” VTsIOM, August 20, 2018, https://wciom.ru/index.
php?id=236&uid=9259.
10. “Situatsiya V Ukrainu i V Krymu,” Levada Center, March 13, 2014, https://www.
levada.ru/2014/03/13/situatsiya-v-ukraine-i-v-krymu/.
11. “Maidan and Russia-Ukraine Relations,” Levada Center, April 5, 2016, https://www.
levada.ru/en/2016/04/05/maidan-and-russia-ukraine-relations/. Multiple responses
were allowed.
12. Robert Brotherton, Christopher C. French, and Alan D. Pickering., “Measuring
Belief in Conspiracy Theories: The Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale,” Frontiers in
Psychology 4 (2014): 3. To select questions, I began from a reduced 15-item list the
authors take as representative of five themes (e.g., government malfeasance, control
of information) and eliminated those that are not commonly heard in the region, for
example, cover-ups of extra-terrestrials.
13. The difference registers at the highest level of statistical significance on every question
except terrorism, where the significance level is somewhat lower.
14. Max J. Rosenthal, “The United States Isn’t the Only Country Downplaying Climate
Change,” Washington Post, December 11, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
energy-environment/2018/12/11/united-states-isnt-only-country-downplaying-
climate-change/.
15. Paul A. Hanebrink, A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2018).
MA: Polity, 2018).
17. Evgeny Finkel and Yitzhak M. Brudny, “Russia and the Colour Revolutions,”
Democratization 19, no. 1 (2012): 15–36.
18. The latter figure is likely to be an undercount, as there may be a stigma associated with
admitting to watching Russian television in Georgia. Additionally, in both countries,
people who watch the Russian channel Sputnik in the local language may not be aware
of its provenance.
19. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the six questions on generic conspiracy the-
ories involving governments loaded onto a single factor, which I label Govct, and the
first and third questions, both relating to global plots, loaded onto a second factor.
I label this Globct.
20. Samantha Brletich, “The Crimea Model: Will Russia Annex the Northern Region of
Kazakhstan?” Geopolitics, History, and International Relations 7, no. 1 (2015): 11.
21. Bruce Pannier, “A New Wave of Ethnic Russians Leaving Kazakhstan,” RFE/RL,
February 9, 2016, https://www.rferl.org/a/qishloq-ovozi-kazakhstan-ethnic-
russians-leaving/27541817.html.
22. Because only 13% of Russians in Kazakhstan do not watch Russian television, I do not
include this group. Among other nationalities, 69% watch Russian television and 31%
do not.
226 Notes
23. R0s in Georgia score higher than Kazakhstani R2s, 2.67 to 2.42 (p < .001) on Govct,
2.83 to 2.54 on Globct (p < .001), and are a statistical tie on a mean score on all specific
claims: 2.44 to 2.48.
24. Jan-Willem van Prooijen and Paul A. M. van Lange, Power, Politics, and Paranoia: Why
People Are Suspicious of their Leaders (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
25. “Central Asia: Little Free Media, Lots of Russian Propaganda,” IWPR.net, https://
iwpr.net/global-voices/central-asia-little-free-media-lots-russian.
26. Joanne M. Miller, Kyle L. Saunders, and Christina E. Farhart, “Conspiracy
Endorsement as Motivated Reasoning: The Moderating Roles of Political Knowledge
and Trust,” American Journal of Political Science 60, no. 4 (2016): 824–844.
27. To verify that the views of citizens of these countries are as expected, a question from
the survey asked people whether they consider various actors to be a friend, an enemy,
or neutral. Relevant for these purposes are questions about Russia, the United States,
and NATO. It turns out that Georgians were more likely to consider the United States
and NATO friends, and Russia an enemy, while Kazakhstanis were more pro-Russia
but less favorably disposed toward the United States and NATO.
28. “‘Gay Propaganda’ Bill Frozen as Kazakhstan Celebrates Olympics Bid,” RFE/RL, May
27, 2015, https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-gay-propaganda-winter-olympics/
27039404.html.
29. Andrew Roth and Olesya Vartanyan, “Slow Response by Georgians to Mob Attack
on Gay Rally,” New York Times, May 20, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/
world/europe/georgian-officials-react-slowly-to-anti-gay-attack.html; Ron Synovitz,
“Georgian Dream Doubles Down on Same-Sex Marriage Ban,” RFE/RL, June 24,
2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/georgian-dream-doubles-down-same-sex-marriage-
ban/28577114.html.
30. In the LGBT treatments, the mean score when pooling the data for both countries was
3.03 for “strong” and 2.69 for “kind.” For the worker treatments, the corresponding
scores were 2.64 and 2.28.
31. Marina Abalakina‐Paap, Walter G. Stephan, Traci Craig, and W. Larry Gregory,
“Beliefs in Conspiracies,” Political Psychology 20, no. 3 (1999): 637–647.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Daniel Jolley and Karen M. Douglas, “The
Social Consequences of Conspiracism: Exposure to Conspiracy Theories Decreases
Intentions to Engage in Politics and to Reduce One’s Carbon Footprint,” British
Journal of Psychology 105, no. 1 (2014): 35–56.
33. Hannah Darwin, Nick Neave, and Joni Holmes, “Belief in Conspiracy
Theories: The Role of Paranormal Belief, Paranoid Ideation and Schizotypy,”
Personality and Individual Differences 50, no. 8 (2011): 1289–1293.
34. Daniel Jolley and Jenny L. Paterson, “Pylons Ablaze: Examining the Role of 5G
COVID‐19 Conspiracy Beliefs and Support for Violence,” British Journal of Social
Psychology 59, no. 3 (2020): 628–640; Uscinski and Parent, American Conspiracy
Theories.
35. Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999); Anita M. Waters, “Conspiracy
Notes 227
Theories as Ethnosociologies: Explanation and Intention in African American

Political Culture,” Journal of Black Studies 28, no. 1 (1997): 112–125.
36. This question was included as a measure analogous to participation in civic groups,
but rather than ask about membership in a list of formal organizations, it included
locally relevant collective activities that people in the survey are more likely to
have taken part in. It read as follows: “I will read out a list of activities. Could you
please tell me which of these activities you have been involved in during the past
six months?: attended a public meeting to discuss a social or political problem;
written a letter/signed a petition (including online petitions) about a social or po-
litical problem; made a comment online about a social or political; did volunteer
work without expecting compensation; donated money to a church/mosque; helped
someone to resolve a dispute; participated in a protest or demonstration; and cleaned
or helped clean a public space.”
37. This question asked how frequently the respondent “meet[s]‌socially with friends,
relatives or work colleagues,” with responses ranging from never to every day.
38. This question asked whether the respondent approves or disapproves of women of
their nationality marrying people of seven different nationalities, three of which
differed in the two countries. In this analysis, I only used the four groups that were on
the questionnaires in both countries: Russians, Jews, Gypsies, and Chinese.
39. “Did you vote in the last election?”
40. “When you get together with your close relatives and friends, how often do you dis-
cuss politics/current affairs?”
41. Scores ranged from 1 to 4. The means were 2.66 for Georgia and 2.33 for Kazakhstan.
I use 2.5 as the cutoff for high and low conspiracism.
Chapter 8
1. Monique M. Hennink, Focus Group Discussions (New York: Oxford University Press,
2014), 20.
2. Hennink, Focus Group Discussions, 31.
3. All focus groups in Georgia were conducted in Georgian and then translated into
Russian. In Kazakhstan, discussions were in Russian, which is commonly spoken
in Almaty and Pavlodar. This means that the study does not include people who
do not speak Russian well enough to participate. It also leaves out rural areas,
where a significant part of the population resides. All translations into English are
my own.
4. Russell Hardin, “The Street-Level Epistemology of Trust,” Analyse & Kritik 14, no. 2
(1992): 152–176.
5. Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet
Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).
6. I quote participants in discussions by referring to their randomly assigned numbers.
“M” refers to the moderator.
228 Notes
7. This refers to a documentary-style program that simulated a second Russian invasion

of Georgia.
Duggan Books, 2018), 198. The “evidence”? Russia was perceived to benefit from the
havoc and dissension in Europe prompted by the influx of refugees from Syria.
9. Masons were included on the list of potentially distrusted groups, but numerous
participants referred to the Masons unprompted.
10. This refers to the recent case of a transgender Georgian woman who had appeared on
television and whose story was an object of controversy.
11. Paul A. Silverstein, “An Excess of Truth: Violence, Conspiracy Theorizing and the
Algerian Civil War,” Anthropological Quarterly 75, no. 4 (2002): 643–674.
12. Malika Orazgaliyeva, “Kazakh President Declares June 9 as National Day of
Mourning,” The Astana Times, June 9, 2016, https://astanatimes.com/2016/06/
kazakh-president-declares-june-9-as-national-day-of-mourning/.
13. Roland Imhoff and Martin Bruder, “Speaking (Un‐)truth to Power: Conspiracy
Mentality as a Generalised Political Attitude,” European Journal of Personality 28, no.
1 (2014): 25–43.
14. Samuel A. Greene and Graeme B. Robertson, Putin v. the People: The Perilous
Politics of a Divided Russia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019); Scott
Radnitz, “Historical Narratives and Post-Conflict Reconciliation: An Experiment in
Azerbaijan,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 35, no. 2 (2018): 154–174.
15. Sarah Kendzior, “Digital Distrust: Uzbek Cynicism and Solidarity in the Internet
Age,” American Ethnologist 38, no. 3 (2011): 559–575.
16. John Heathershaw, “Of National Fathers and Russian Elder Brothers: Conspiracy
Theories and Political Ideas in Post‐Soviet Central Asia,” The Russian Review 71, no. 4
(2012): 610–629; Kendzior, “Digital Distrust.”
17. Max Bergmann and Carolyn Kenney, “War by Other Means: Russian Active Measures
and the Weaponization of Information,” Center for American Progress, June 6, 2017,
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2017/06/06/433345/war-
by-other-means/.
Chapter 9
Duggan Books, 2018).
2. This acronym (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) highlights
the fact that the preponderance of social scientific work is conducted on subjects who
are not representative of much of the world. Joseph Henrich, Steven J. Heine, and Ara
Norenzayan, “Most People Are Not WEIRD,” Nature 466, no. 7302 (2010): 29.
3. Ayse Zarakol, After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West
Notes 229
4. Paul A. Silverstein, “An Excess of Truth: Violence, Conspiracy Theorizing and the
Algerian Civil War,” Anthropological Quarterly 75, no. 4 (2002): 643–674.
5. This factor was not emphasized earlier because in all the post-Soviet states, to one de-
gree or another, institutions such as the press, the courts, and independent agencies
are undeveloped or subordinate to the executive or oligarchic interests. See Alena V.
Ledeneva, Can Russia Modernise?: Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
6. Jack Citrin and Laura Stoker, “Political Trust in a Cynical Age,” Annual Review of
Political Science 21 (2018): 49–70; Cass R. Sunstein, “The Law of Group Polarization,”
University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper 91
(1999).
7. Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman, “Informational Autocrats,” Journal of
Economic Perspectives 33, no. 4 (2019): 100– 127; Daniel Treisman, ed., The
New Autocracy: Information, Politics, and Policy in Putin’s Russia (Washington,
DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2018).
8. Scott Gehlbach and Konstantin Sonin, “Government Control of the Media,” Journal of
Public Economics 118 (2014): 163–171; Daniela Stockmann, Media Commercialization
and Authoritarian Rule in China (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
2013); Mehd Shadmehr and Dan Bernhardt, “State Censorship,” American Economic
Journal: Microeconomics 7, no. 2 (2015): 280– 307; Peter Lorentzen, “China’s
Strategic Censorship,” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 2 (2014): 402–
414; Margaret E. Roberts, Censored: Distraction and Diversion inside China’s Great
Firewall (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018); Gary King, Jennifer Pan,
and Margaret E. Roberts, “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media
Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument,” American Political Science
Review 111, no. 3 (2017): 484–501; Carolina Vendil Pallin, “Internet Control through
Ownership: The Case of Russia,” Post-Soviet Affairs 33, no. 1 (2017): 16–33.
9. Arturas Rozenas and Denis Stukal, “How Autocrats Manipulate Economic
News: Evidence from Russia’s State-Controlled Television,” Journal of Politics 81, no.
3 (2019): 982–996.
11. Samuel A. Greene and Graeme B. Robertson, Putin v. the People: The Perilous
Politics of a Divided Russia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019); Gerard
Toal, Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
12. Erin Baggott Carter and Brett L. Carter, “Propaganda and Electoral Constraints
in Autocracies,” Comparative Politics Newsletter (2018): 11–18; Haifeng Huang,
“Propaganda as Signaling,” Comparative Politics 47, no. 4 (2015): 419–444; Lisa
Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary
Syria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); Vaclav Havel, “The Power of the
Powerless,” in Vaclav Havel, ed., Open letters (London: Faber & Faber), 125–214.
13. Xavier Márquez, “Two Models of Political Leader Cults: Propaganda and Ritual,”
Politics, Religion & Ideology 19, no. 3 (2018): 265–284; Victor Chung-Hon Shih,
230 Notes
“‘Nauseating’ Displays of Loyalty: Monitoring the Factional Bargain through

Ideological Campaigns in China,” Journal of Politics 70, no. 4 (2008): 1177–1192.
14. Erik Gartzke and Alex Weisiger, “Fading Friendships: Alliances, Affinities and
the Activation of International Identities,” British Journal of Political Science
(2013): 25–52.
15. Marlene Laruelle, “Assessing Russia’s Normative Agenda in Central Asia,”
Bishkek Project 22 (2017), https://www.bishkekproject.com/memos/16; Richard
Kauzlarich, “The Heydar Aliyev Era Ends in Azerbaijan Not with a Bang but a
Whisper,” Brookings, January 13, 2015, https://www. brookings. edu/opinions/
the-heydaraliyev-era-ends-in-azerbaijan-not-with-a-bang-but-a-whisper.
16. The focus groups showed that participants rarely made such a distinction, taking se-
riously claims that external observers might disdain. The first survey experiment in
Chapter 7 found that people were less likely to favor a conspiracy theory that impli-
cated a sympathetic (and therefore implausible) perpetrator, but the difference from
attitudes toward the disliked villain was only .3 on a scale of 1–4, hardly an indication
of ridicule.
17. BBC Monitoring, “Russian TV Warns of Computer Games as Ideological War
Weapon,” Rossiya TV, April 5, 2009.
18. Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the
New Russia (New York: Public Affairs, 2014).
19. Oliver Hahl, Minjae Kim, and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan, “The Authentic Appeal of
the Lying Demagogue: Proclaiming the Deeper Truth about Political Illegitimacy,”
American Sociological Review 83, no. 1 (2018): 1–33.
20. Eric Alterman, When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and Its
Consequences (New York: Penguin, 2005).
21. Daniel Treisman, “Democracy by Mistake: How the Errors of Autocrats Trigger
Transitions to Freer Government,” American Political Science Review 114, no. 3
(2020): 792–810; David E. Broockman and Christopher Skovron, “Bias in Perceptions
of Public Opinion among Political Elites,” American Political Science Review 112, no.
03 (2018): 542–563.
22. Denis Volkov, “Why Putin Is Losing Popular Support,” Carnegie Moscow Center,
September 11, 2018, https://carnegie.ru/commentary/77211.
23. Greene and Robertson, Putin v. the People.
24. Andrew E. Kramer, “Russia Spins Alternative Theories in Poisoning of Navalny,”
New York Times, September 3, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/world/
europe/russia-navalny-novichok-theories.html.
25. “Belarus Accuses ‘Russian Mercenaries’ of Election Plot,” BBC.com, July 31, 2020,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53592854.
26. Vladimir Isachenkov and Yuras Karmanau, “Belarus Leader Lukashenko
Disparages Protests as US Plan,” Washington Post, September 16, 2020, https://w ww.
washingtonpost.com/p olitics/r ussian-s pymaster-a ccuses-u s-o f-f omenting-
belarus- p rotests/ 2 020/ 0 9/ 1 6/ 4 a815c62- f 81d- 1 1ea- 8 5f7- 5 941188a98cd_
story.html..
Notes 231
27. “Belarus President Claims Alexei Navalny Poisoning Was Faked,” The Guardian,
September 3, 2020, https://w ww.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/03/navalny-
poisoning-falsified-belarus-leader-claims-without-evidence.
28. “Belarus:SystematicBeatings,TortureofProtesters,”HumanRightsWatch,September15,
2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/15/belarus-systematic-beatings-torture-
protesters.
29. Yerzhan Tokbolat, “Belarus Protests: Beleaguered Economy Underpins Anger at
Lukashenko Government,” The Conversation, August 26, 2020, https://theconversation.
com/ b elarus- protests- b eleaguered- e conomy- u nderpins- anger- at- lukashenko-
government-145063; Yuras Karmanau, “President’s Virus Swagger Fuels Anger
Ahead of Belarus Vote,” Associated Press, August 7, 2020, https://apnews.com/
article/ a lexander- l ukashenko- b elarus- i nternational- n ews- e urope- h ealth-
f69598a2b0892925fe6217d9f00152da.
30. Gareth H. Jenkins, Between Fact and Fantasy: Turkey’s Ergenekon Investigation
(Washington, DC: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, 2009).
31. “Turkish Prime Minister Vows to Increase Police Force,” Hürriyet, June 18, 2013. https://
www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-prime-minister-vows-to-increase-p olice-
force-49006.
32. Stuart Winer, “Turkish Deputy PM Blames Jews for Gezi Protests,” Times of Israel, July
2, 2013, http://www.timesofisrael.com/turkish-deputy-pm-blames-jews-for-gezi-
protests/.
33. Hakkı Taş, “A History of Turkey’s AKP-Gülen Conflict,” Mediterranean Politics 23, no.
3 (2018): 395–402.
34. Taş, “A History,” 400.
35. Jamie Dettmer, “Turkey’s Erdogan Ramps Up Nationalist Rhetoric,” Voice of America
News, May 31, 2018, https://www.voanews.com/europe/turkeys-erdogan-ramps-
nationalist-rhetoric.
36. Zack Beauchamp, “Democrats Are Falling for Fake News about Russia,” Vox.com,
May 19, 2017, https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-
louise-mensch.
37. Peter Knight, Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America
(New York: New York University Press, 2002); Robert Alan Goldberg, Enemies
Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America (New Haven, CT: Yale
38. Matt A. Barreto and Christopher S. Parker, Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party
and Reactionary Politics in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2013), 27.
39. Richard M. Fried, Nightmare in Red: The McCarthy Era in Perspective (Oxford: Oxford
40. Michael Paul Rogin, Ronald Reagan, the Movie and Other Episodes in Political
Demonology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987).
41. Marc J. Hetherington, Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of
American Liberalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 18.
232 Notes
42. Katherine J. Cramer, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and
the Rise of Scott Walker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).
43. Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent, in American Conspiracy Theories
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 89, 126, show that extreme levels of parti-
sanship do not predict belief in conspiracy theories. Increasingly, however, partisan-
ship in the United States is associated with a range of hostile beliefs about the other
side, suggesting that their finding may no longer apply. See Erin C. Cassese, “Partisan
Dehumanization in American Politics,” Political Behavior (2019): 1–22.
44. Adam M. Enders, Steven M. Smallpage, and Robert N. Lupton, “Are All ‘Birthers’
Conspiracy Theorists? On the Relationship between Conspiratorial Thinking and
Political Orientations,” British Journal of Political Science 50, no. 3 (2020): 849–866.
45. Uscinski and Parent, American Conspiracy Theories.
46. Norman J. Ornstein, Thomas E. Mann, and E. J. Dionne, One Nation after Trump: A
Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2017); John T. Jost, Sander van der Linden, Costas
Panagopoulos, and Curtis D. Hardin, “Ideological Asymmetries in Conformity,
Desire for Shared Reality, and the Spread of Misinformation,” Current Opinion in
Psychology 23 (2018): 77–83.
47. Rob Faris, Hal Roberts, and Yochai Benkler, Network Propaganda: Manipulation,
Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2018).
48. Barreto and Parker, Change They Can’t Believe In.
49. Oren Dorell, “Donald Trump’s Ties to Russia Go Back 30 Years,” USA Today, February
15, 2017.
50. Luke Harding, Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped
Donald Trump Win (New York: Vintage Books, 2017).
51. For an overview, see Colin Dickey, “The New Paranoia,” New Republic, June 8, 2017,
https:// newrepublic.com/ article/ 1 42977/ new- p aranoia- t rump- election- turns-
democrats-conspiracy-theorists. See also Jonathan Chait, “Will Trump Be Meeting
with His Counterpart—Or His Handler?” New York Magazine, July 9, 2018, https://
nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html; Franklin
Foer, “Putin’s Puppet,” Slate Magazine, July 4, 2016, http://www.slate.com/articles/
news_and_p olitics/ c over_ story/ 2 016/ 0 7/ v ladimir_putin_has_a_plan_for_de-
stroying_the_west_and_it_looks_a_lot_like.html?.
52. Rishika Dugyala, “Pelosi on Trump: ‘With Him, All Roads Lead to Putin,’” June 8, 2020,
Politico, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/28/pelosi-putin-trump-russia-
afghanistan-342926.
53. Cat Zakrzewski, “The Technology 202: What We Learned from the First Impeachment
Trial of the Social Media Era,” Washington Post, February 6, 2020, https://www.
washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-technology-202/2020/02/06/
the-technology-202-what-we-learned-from-the-first-impeachment-of-the-social-
media-era/5e3b0f2988e0fa7f825457b5/.
54. “Active measures” refers to “covert and deniable political influence and subversion
operations, including (but not limited to) the establishment of front organizations,
Notes 233
the backing of friendly political movements, the orchestration of domestic un-

rest and the spread of disinformation.” Mark Galeotti, “Active Measures: Russia’s
Covert Geopolitical Operations,” Security Insights, no. 31 (2019), https:// www.
marshallcenter.org/sites/default/files/files/2019-09/SecurityInsights_31_Galeotti_
June2019.pdf.
55. Sean Illing, “‘Flood the Zone with Shit’: How Misinformation Overwhelmed Our
Democracy,” Vox.Com, February 6, 2020, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/
2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation.
56. Joby Warrick and Anton Troianovski, “Agents of Doubt: How a Powerful Russian
Propaganda Machine Chips Away at Western Notions of Truth,” Washington Post,
December 10, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/world/
national-security/russian-propaganda-skripal-salisbury/.
57. Editorial Board, “Of All the Defenses of Trump, This Conspiracy Theory Is the Worst,”
New York Times, December 3, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/opinion/
ukraine-2016-election.html.
58. Joel Gunter and Olga Robinson, “Sergei Skripal and the Russian Disinformation
Game,” BBC.com, September 9, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-
45454142; Snyder, Road to Unfreedom, 162–166.
59. Stefan Meister, “The ‘Lisa Case’: Germany as a Target of Russian Disinformation,”
NATO Review 5 (2016), https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2016/07/25/the-
lisa-case-germany-as-a-target-of-russian-disinformation/index.html.
60. Alex Finley, “Was Russia’s 2016 Intervention for Trump a Strategic Failure?” Vox.
Com, April 25, 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/4/25/18516471/mueller-report-
russia-hacking-trump-putin-2016-election; Nicu Popescu, Familiarity Breeds
Contempt: Why Russia Makes Mistakes on the World Stage, April 25, 2019, https://
ecfr.eu/article/commentary_familiarity_breeds_contempt_w hy_r ussia_makes_
mistakes_on_the_wor/.
61. Scott Radnitz, “Europe’s Extremists Are Not Putin’s Fault,” Foreign Policy,
February 13, 2016, https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/13/europes-extremists-are-
|not-putins-fault.
62. Larry M. Bartels and Christopher H. Achen, Democracy for Realists: Why Elections
Do Not Produce Responsive Government (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2016).
63. Plato, Plato’s Republic, ed. Benjamin Jowett (New York: Vintage Books, 1993), 328.
64. Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New
Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2019), 27.
65. Leonie Huddy, “From Group Identity to Political Cohesion and Commitment,”
in Leonie Huddy, David O. Sears, and Jack Levy, eds., Oxford Handbook of Political
Psychology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 737–773.
66. Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2018).
67. Lee Rainie, Scott Keeter, and Andrew Perrin, “Trust and Distrust in America,” Pew
Research Center, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/07/22/trust-and-
distrust-in-america/.
234 Notes
68. Jeremy W. Peters, “How Trump-Fed Conspiracy Theories about Migrant Caravan
Intersect with Deadly Hatred,” International New York Times, October 29, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/us/politics/caravan-trump-shooting-elections.html;
Ed .Pilkington and Sam Levine, “‘It’s Surreal’: The US Officials Facing Violent Threats
as Trump Claims Voter Fraud,” The Guardian, December 10, 2020, https://www.
theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/09/trump-voter-fraud-threats-violence-militia.
69. Brendan Cole, “Russian State Television Pushes Conspiracy Theory Bill Gates Is
Behind Coronavirus Pandemic,” Newsweek, May 1, 2020; David E. Sanger, “Pompeo
Ties Coronavirus to China Lab, Despite Spy Agencies’ Uncertainty,” New York
Times, May 3, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/03/us/politics/coronavirus-
pompeo-wuhan-china-lab.html.
70. Thomas Phillips, “Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro Says Coronavirus Crisis Is a Media Trick,”
Guardian, March 23, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/
brazils-jair-bolsonaro-says-coronavirus-crisis-is-a-media-trick.
Appendix
1. “Rossiya tonet v televolnakh,” Novaya Gazeta, June 20, 2014, https://novayagazeta.ru/

articles/2014/06/20/60028-rossiya-tonet-v-televolnah.
2. Earl Jennifer, Andrew Martin, John D. McCarthy, and Sarah A. Soule, “The Use of
Newspaper Data in the Study of Collective Action,” Annual Review of Sociology 30
(2004): 65–80.
3. Until 2013, it was funded by the British government. “BBC Monitoring: MPs Raise
Fears over Service’s Future,” December 20, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/
uk-politics-38372067.
I accessed BBC Monitoring through ProQuest, which subdivides the database by
theme and region. From the beginning of the sample period in 1995, I searched BBC
Monitoring International Reports. Beginning on July 20, 1998, the relevant databases
were BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union—Economic, and BBC Monitoring
Former Soviet Union—Political. They were consolidated into a single database,
Former Soviet Union, as of August 1, 2003. I also searched BBC Monitoring—Central
Asia from the date it begins, July 20, 1998.
4. This description of BBC Monitoring’s methodology is based on a Skype interview on
July 12, 2019, with a London-based editor of BBC Monitoring who previously worked
in the Kyiv bureau.
5. According to the London-based editor, BBC Monitoring maintains 10 staff in
London, 10 in Moscow, and others in Russia’s regions to cover stories that the cen-
tral media miss. It also has staff in smaller countries, including 12 in Kyiv, three in
Moldova (and one for Transdniestria). It has a bureau in Tbilisi and one in Tashkent
with 20 people covering Central Asia.
6. Butter and Knight (2016) argue that the term loses much of its meaning when theories
turn out to be true, pointing to episodes such as Watergate that take place in democra-
cies. Michael Butter and Peter Knight, “Bridging the Great Divide: Conspiracy Theory
Notes 235
Research for the 21st Century,” Diogenes, October (2016). See also David Coady, “Are
Conspiracy Theorists Irrational?” Episteme 4, no. 2 (2007): 193–204.
7. Claims on television could appear in BBC Monitoring or one of the three online tele-
vision sources in Integrum: Vesti.ru, Ntv.ru, and Ren.tv.
8. Selected sources for background research include Anna Arutunyan, The Media
in Russia (New York: Open University Press, 2009); Alexei Bessudnov, “Media
Map,” Index on Censorship 37, no. 1 (2008): 183–189; Tina Burrett, Television and
Presidential Power in Putin’s Russia (New York: Routledge, 2011); Sarah Oates,
Television, Democracy and Elections in Russia (New York: Routledge, 2006); Peter
Rutland, Business and State in Contemporary Russia (New York: Routledge, 2018);
Ivan Zasurskiǐ, Media and Power in Post-Soviet Russia (New York: Routledge, 2016).
Index
For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion,
appear on only one of those pages.
Tables and figures are indicated by t and f following the page number
Abkhazia (separatist region in Georgia), 65–66, elections (2001) in, 126

115, 133–34 elections (2006) in, 42, 62, 69f, 72t, 73,
Abramovich, Roman, 60–61 83f, 126–27
Ajara (autonomous region in Georgia), elections (2020) in, 129–30, 177–78
62, 65–66 Russia and, 6, 24, 73–76, 77f, 111–12, 112t,
Akaev, Askar, 62, 81t, 110–11, 112–14 113f, 177
Aliev, Heydar, 80, 129–30 Benghazi terrorist attack (Libya, 2012), 182
Aliev, Ilham, 80 Berdimukhammedov, Gurbanguly, 80
Andijan protests (Uzbekistan, 2005), 42, 62–63, Berezovsky, Boris, 54, 60–61, 65, 117
69f, 83f Beslan terrorist attack (Russia, 2004)
Andropov, Yuri, 59 conspiracy theories related to, 69f, 83f, 83, 85,
Applebaum, Anne, 107 86t, 100–2, 122
Armenia primary school as target of, 41, 99–
authoritarianism in, 26, 36, 37t, 78f, 79f 100, 101–2
Azerbaijan and, 38, 75 Putin and, 86t, 100–2
conspiracism in, 26, 47f, 48f, 49f, 78f, 79f, Biden, Hunter, 183–84
80f, 192f Biden, Joe, 183–84
Russia and, 6, 73–74, 75 Bolotnaya protests (Russia, 2011-12), 1–2, 42,
Asian Financial Crisis (1997-98), 23, 40, 69f, 69f, 83f, 88–89
72t, 83f Bolshevik movement, 13, 31
Aslakhanov, Aslambek, 101 Brazil, 186
Atambaev, Almazbek, 81t Brezhnev, Leonid, 12, 33
Azerbaijan Burjanadze, Nino, 81t
Aliev ruling family in, 38, 80 Bush, George W., 100, 133–34
Armenia and, 38, 75
authoritarianism in, 36, 37t, 78f, 79f, 79– Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, United
80, 129 States)
conspiracism and, 26, 47f, 48f, 49f, 69f, 73– “Dulles Plan” conspiracy and, 59
75, 78f, 79f, 79–80, 80f, 192f Euromaidan protest conspiracy theories
elections and failed revolution (2005) in, 42, and, 124–25
69f, 83f Gorbachev as subject of conspiracy theories
Russia and, 73–75 regarding, xi, 137–38, 139f, 139, 140, 141f
Russia’s conspiracy theories regarding, 57, 60
Bakiev, Kurmanbek, 81t, 114–15 Chavez, Hugo, 12, 14–15, 84
Baltic states, 6, 24, 36, 40, 47f, 94f, 132 Chechnya
Belarus apartment building bombings (1999) and,
authoritarianism in, 36, 37t, 78f, 79f, 111, 44, 60–61
112t, 125–26, 127f, 127–28, 129 assassinations in, 41
conspiracism in, 26, 47f, 48f, 49f, 69f, 72t, 74– conspiracism and, 41, 44, 62–63, 64, 65, 69f,
76, 77f, 78f, 79f, 80f, 80–81, 81t, 111–12, 83f, 100–1
112t, 113f, 125–28, 129, 177–78, 192f constitution (2003) of, 99
238 Index
Chechnya (cont.) political uncertainty and, 4–5, 14–16, 18,

First Chechen War (1994-96) and, 40, 20–21, 25–26
41, 65, 97 potential hazards associated with, 22–23
Georgia and, 65, 99, 116–17 propaganda and, 13–14
Islamism and, 62–63, 65 provocation and, 55, 61–62, 65–66, 70–71
Ryazan apartment incident (1999), 41, 44, public spectacles and, 53t, 54, 62, 63
69f, 83f setups and, 53t, 54, 63
Second Chechen War (1999-2009) and, 41, signaling function of, 17, 21–22, 73–76, 146–
44, 60–61, 65, 69f, 83f, 88, 99, 100–1 47, 175–76, 187
terrorism as aspect of conflict in, 36–37, 41, sporadic official conspiracism and, 26,
44, 64, 99–100 111, 129–30
Cheka (Soviet spy services), 31. See also KGB “street events” and, 163–66
(Soviet spy services) suspicious character of events cited in, 56,
China, 18, 19, 133, 155, 160, 165, 187 63, 64, 176
Chubais, Anatoly, 60, 86t, 96–98 sustained official conspiracism and, 21–22,
Churchill, Winston, 32 26, 85, 129–30, 134–35
Clinton, Bill, 39–41 unattributed violence and, 53, 53t, 63
Clinton, Hillary, 1–2, 182–85 Covid-19 pandemic, 3, 177, 187
Cold War, 3–4, 5–6, 28, 31–32, 181 Crimea
Collective Security Treaty Organization, 134 conspiracism regarding, 134–35, 169–70
Communist Party (Russia), 40, 63–64, 86–87, propaganda in Russia regarding, 106–8
103–4. See also Zyuganov, Gennady Putin and, 88–89, 107, 177
Communist Party (Soviet Union), 14, 36–37 Russian nationalists in, 123
conspiracism Russia’s annexation (2014) of, 43, 87, 88–89,
abuse of power accusations and, 53t, 54–55 107–8, 160
accuser categories and, 49–50, 50f, 72–73 Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in, 106
alternatives to, 32–34 United States and, 169–70
authoritarian regimes and, 4, 9, 12, 14–15, Czechoslovakia, 59
19–20, 21, 25–26, 61, 63, 77–80, 78f, 79f,
80f, 92–93, 175 Dayton Accords (1995), 40–41, 69f, 83f
collusion and, 53t, 55, 63, 124f Democratic National Committee hacking
cynicism toward government produced by, (United States, 2016), 182–83, 184
132, 153, 154–70 Democratic Party (United States), 23, 182–84
definitional qualities of, 8–9 Dudayev, Zhokar, 34, 69f, 72t, 83f
democratic regimes and, 5, 6–7, 9–10, 12, Dugin, Alexander, 101, 106
15, 25–26, 61, 63–64, 77–80, 78f, 79f, 80f, “Dulles Plan,” 59
175, 185–86 Dzhemilev, Mustafa, 123
effectiveness of, 131, 142–49, 152
false flag attacks and, 53–54, 53t, 64, Egypt, 14–15
126–27 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 2, 168, 178–80
geopolitical signaling and, 73–76 Eurasian Economic Union, 134
goals of, 52 Euromaidan protests (Ukraine, 2014)
gray zones and, 58, 64–66 conspiracy theories regarding, 62, 69f, 72t,
history of national traumas and, 29–30, 43 73, 83f, 83, 84–85, 86t, 104–8, 120, 123–25,
hybrid regimes and, 20–21, 26, 128–29, 175 124f, 125t, 134–35, 140
kompromat and, 54, 183 European Union and, 123–25
metaphorical violence and, 53t, 55 fascism accusations regarding, 1, 106, 124–
Middle East and, 12–13, 30, 46–49, 47f, 49f 25, 140
perpetrator categories and, 51f, 51 foreign intervention accusations regarding,
political participation levels among believers 106, 123–25, 124f, 125t, 140
in, 131–32, 149–51, 151f Putin and, 84, 105
political polarization and, 5, 10, 21, 175, 181 United States and, 8, 140
political rivalries and, 60–61, 70–71 Yanukovych and, 1, 123–25
Index 239
European Union Russia’s conspiracy theories regarding, 72t,

Baltic states and, 36 73, 74f, 74–75, 93, 94f, 96f
Euromaidan protests (Ukraine, 2014) Russia’s invasion (2008) of, 55, 65–66, 69f,
and, 123–25 71–73, 72t, 83f, 87, 93, 118, 128, 133–34
Georgia and, 133–34, 139, 162 separatist regions of, 24, 38, 62, 65–
LGBT rights and, 162 66, 115–16
Spain and, 29 social and political participation levels in,
Ukraine and, 43, 104–5, 106, 119–20, 121–22 149–51, 150t, 151f
Soros and, 2, 62, 162–63
false flag attacks, 53–54, 53t, 64, 126–27 United States and, 139, 159–60, 161, 165
“fifth columns” Georgian Dream political party, 118,
Belarus and, 126–27 133–34
definition of, 51 Germany, 14, 23, 159, 163, 185
Kazakhstan and, 169 Gezi Park protests (Turkey, 2013), 179
Putin Era accusations regarding, 90–92, 91f global warming, 14, 137–38, 139f, 141f
Russia’s involvement in Eurasia and, 58 Goebbels, Joseph, 1–2
Russia’s presidential election of 1996 and, 55 Golos (election monitoring group), 62
Soviet Union and, 31–32, 58–59 Gorbachev, Mikhail, xi, 40, 137–38, 139f, 139,
Trump and, 183 140, 141f
Ukraine and, 123–24 Gore, Al, 54
First Chechen War (1994-96), 40, 41, 65, 97 Grachev, Pavel, 98
Freemasons. See Masons Gryzlov, Boris, 104
FSB (Russian security services), 41, 44, 97, 117 Gülen, Fethullah, 168, 179–80
Gamsakhurdia, Zviad, 164 Hezb-e Tahrir, 62–63

Garibashvili, Irakli, 118 Hitler, Adolf, 14, 64, 158
Gates, Bill, 187 Hungary, 2, 178
Georgia Hussein, Saddam, 14–15, 84
anti-LGBT attitudes in, 146, 162–63
Chechnya and, 65, 99, 116–17 Illuminati, 52
conspiracism in, 46–49, 47f, 48f, 49f, 59–60, India, 186
62, 65–66, 75–76, 77f, 79–81, 80f, 81t, 111, information operations, 53t, 54, 63
112, 112t, 113f, 115–19, 129, 132, 136–37, Ioffe, Julia, 107
136t, 137f, 138–39, 140, 141f, 142, 143–51, Iraq, 14–15, 84, 100
145f, 148f, 151f, 153–70, 192f ISIS, 165–66
cynicism toward government in, 154–70 Israel, 101
elections (2000) in, 117 Ivanishvili, Bidzina, 118, 160–61, 171
elections (2012) in, 118 Ivashev, Leonid, 101
European Union and, 133–34, 139, 162
foreign policy alignments of, 6, 7–8, 24, 73– Jehovah’s Witnesses, 162, 163
74, 111–12, 112t, 115, 117, 119, 133–34 Jews
hybrid nature of regime in, 6, 26, 36, 37t, 79– contemporary conspiracy theories in Eurasia
80, 111, 112t, 119, 129, 132 regarding, 94f, 138, 139f, 141f
independence (1991) of, 133–34 Nazi conspiracy theories regarding, 3–
international nongovernmental 4, 14, 23
organizations in, 110, 139 Protocols of the Elders of Zion and, 5–6, 23
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and, 43, Russian anti-Semitism and, 5–6, 59, 140
75, 93, 133–34 Stalin’s conspiracy theories regarding,
Putin as subject of conspiracy theories in, 14, 31–32
62, 117 Turkey and, 179
Rose Revolution (2003) in, 2, 42, 57, 69f, 72t, John Birch Society, 181
99, 102–3, 117, 139, 164–65 Justice and Development Party (AKP,
Russian television news in, 140, 141f Turkey), 178–80
240 Index
Kaczynski, Lech, 59–60 Tulip Revolution (2005) in, 42, 69f, 72t, 73,
Kadyrov, Ahmed, 41, 69f, 72t, 83f 83f, 112–14
Kadyrov, Ramzan, 41 United States and, 74–75, 114–15
Karimov, Islam, 42, 62–63, 80 Uzbekistan and, 2
Kazakhstan
anti-LGBT attitudes in, 146 Lavrov, Sergei, 106
authoritarianism in, 7–8, 36, 37t, 78f, 79f, Lebed, Alexander, 86t, 98
79–80, 132–33, 156 Lenin, Vladimir, 13
China and, 133, 155, 160, 165 Leontyev, Mikhail, 101
“color revolutions” in Eurasia and, 164 LGBT rights, 88–89, 146–48, 148f, 162–63
conspiracism in, 47f, 48f, 49f, 78f, 79f, 79–80, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), 87
80f, 136–37, 136t, 137f, 138–39, 140–51, Libya, 24, 182
141f, 145f, 148f, 151f, 153–70, 192f Litvinenko, Alexander, 8
corruption in, 155 Lopota incident (Georgia, 2012), 118
cynicism toward government in, 154–70 Lukashenko, Alexander, 80–81, 81t, 116, 126–
economic development in, 132–33 28, 129–30, 177–78
ethnic Russians in, 140–42, 141f, 143, 154 Luzhkov, Yuri, 97–98
Russia and, 6, 7–8, 24, 73–74, 134, 160, 164
Russian television news in, 140–42, 141f, Machiavelli, Niccolo, 32
143, 169 Maddow, Rachel, 183
social and political participation levels in, Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 downing (2014),
149–51, 150t, 151f 84, 105, 106–7, 140, 184–85
terrorist attacks in, 166 Markov, Sergey, 62, 103
United States and, 160, 169 Masons
Kennan, George, 28–29, 31 contemporary conspiracy theories regarding,
Kennedy, John F., xi, 42 137–38, 139f, 141f, 162, 166–67, 168, 170
KGB (Soviet spy services), 16–17, 33, 38–39, 59 European Union and, 162
Khodorkovsky, Mikhail, 41, 69f, 70f, 83f global and transhistorical plots
Khrushchev, Nikita, 33, 123 attributed to, 52
Klyuyev, Andriy, 125t ISIS and, 166
Kokoity, Eduard, 81t McCarthy, Joseph, 181
kompromat (compromising material), McFaul, Michael, 57
54, 183 Medvedev, Dmitry, 42, 81t, 83, 88, 92–93
Korzhakov, Alexander, 96–97 Merkel, Angela, 4, 163
Kosovo, 40–41, 43, 69f, 72t, 83f Middle East, 12–13, 30, 46–49, 47f, 49f
Kuchma, Leonid, 81t, 102–3, 120, 122 Mikhailov, Aleksander, 101
Kulov, Felix, 2, 61 Milinkievich, Alexander, 126–27
Kursk nuclear submarine disaster (Russia, Milosevic, Slobodan, 40–41, 126
2000), 41, 69f, 72t, 83f, 102 Moldova
Kyrgyzstan conspiracism in, 26, 46–49, 47f, 48f, 49f, 77–
conspiracism in, 46–49, 47f, 48f, 49f, 62, 74– 78, 78f, 79f, 80f, 81t, 192f
76, 77f, 78f, 79f, 79–81, 80f, 81t, 110–15, elections and failed revolution (2009) in, 42,
112t, 113f, 127f, 127–29, 192f 69f, 72t, 73, 83f
election (2005) in, 112–14 foreign policy alignments of, 6, 73–74
ethnic clashes (2010) in, 114–15, 128 hybrid nature of regime in, 6, 36, 37t, 78f, 79f
hybrid nature of regime in, 26, 36, 37t, 78f, Romania and, 75
79f, 79–80, 112t, 129 separatist conflicts in, 38
international nongovernmental Moscow (Russia)
organizations in, 110 airplane bombings (2004) in, 99
regime change (2010) in, 42 Bolotnaya protests (2011-12) in, 1–2,
Russia and, 74–76, 111–12, 112t, 42, 88–89
113f, 114–15 metro station attacks in, 64, 97–98, 99
Tajikistan and, 114–15 theatre siege (2002) in, 41, 99, 102
Index 241
Trump business dealings in, 182–83 Plato, 185–86

Mueller investigation (United States, 2017- Poland, 46, 47f, 59–60, 94f, 178
19), 183–84 Poroshenko, Petro, 81t
Muirhead, Russell, 186 Portugal, 136, 136t
Prague Spring (1968), 59
Napoleon Bonaparte, 30 Primakov, Yevgeny, 40, 69f, 83f
Nashi (Russian youth organization), 88 Pristina Airport siege (Kosovo, 1999), 40–41
Navalny, Alexei, 177 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 5–6, 23
Nazarbaev, Nursultan, 132–33, 156–57 Pussy Riot, 88–89
Nazi Germany, 1–2, 3–4, 14, 23 Putin, Vladimir
Nemtsov, Boris, 187 anti-LGBT legislation and, 88–89
Nixon, Richard, 181 authoritarian nature of rule of, 37–38, 84,
Niyazov, Sapurmurad (Turkmenbashi), 36– 88–89, 92–93, 102
37, 80 Beslan terrorist attack (2004) and, 86t, 100–2
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) Bolotnaya protests (2011-12) and, 1–2,
conspiracy theories regarding, 39, 110, 138, 42, 88–89
141f, 170 conspiracy theories promoted in Russia
in Georgia, 110, 139 under, 1–2, 4, 60–61, 80–81, 81t, 84–85,
in Kyrgyzstan, 110 89–96, 89t, 90f, 91f, 92f, 100, 108, 129–30,
in Russia, 39 174, 177
Soros’s support for, 129 conspiracy theories regarding, 62, 64, 90–91,
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 91f, 117
Baltic states’ accession into, 40 Covid-19 pandemic and, 177
conspiracy theories involving, 5–6, 58–59, Crimea annexation (2014) and, 88–89,
126, 129 107, 177
former Warsaw Pact countries’ accession Euromaidan protests in Ukraine (2014) and,
into, 40 84, 105
Georgia and, 43, 75, 93, 133–34 Federal Assembly annual addresses of, 34, 35t
Kosovo campaign (1999) by, 40–41 Libya War (2011) and, 24
Russian domestic politics and, 87 oligarchs targeted by, 41, 88
summits (1997-2008) of, 40, 43, 69f, 83f presidential election (2000) and, 41
Ukraine and, 43, 75, 119–20 presidential election (2004) and, 99
Nuland, Victoria, 107 presidential election (2012) and, 42
protests against economic reforms (2005) of,
Obama, Barack, 2, 39, 160, 181–82 42, 103–4
Orange Revolution (Ukraine, 2004), 42, 61, Rose Revolution and, 99, 102–3
69f, 72t, 73, 83f, 83, 89, 102–3, 110, 120, Saakashvili and, 99, 102–3
121, 122 Second Chechen War and, 41, 44, 60–61, 88,
Orban, Victor, 2 99, 100–1
Osh ethnic clashes (2010), 69f, 72t, 73, 83f security services background of, 34, 84, 88
Ó Tuathail, Gearóid, 100 on the Soviet Union, 102
Otunbaeva, Roza, 81t Tandem Agreement (2008) and, 42, 69f,
Our Ukraine coalition, 122 83f, 83, 88
US presidential election (2016) and, 88–89
Pakistan, 178 Victory Day parades and, 19
Party of Regions (Ukraine), 120–21 Yanukovych and, 102–3
Patarkatsishvili, Badri, 62, 117
Patiashvili, Jumber, 117 Qaddafi, Muammar, 24
Patyk, Lynn Ellen, 55 al-Qaeda, 3, 101
Pavlovsky, Gleb, 102–3
Pelosi, Nancy, 183 Rahmon, Emomali, 129–30
perestroika reforms (Soviet Union), 6, 134 Reagan, Ronald, 181
The Philippines, 186 Republican Party (United States), 2, 23, 181–84
242 Index
Right Sector Party (Ukraine), 106 Kyrgyzstan and, 74–76, 111–12, 112t,
Romania, 46–49, 49f, 75 113f, 114–15
Romanov Dynasty, 30–31 parliamentary elections (1995) in, 69f, 83f
Rosenblum, Nancy, 186 parliamentary elections (2011) in, 62, 88–89
Rose Revolution (Georgia, 2003) pension reform protests (2005) in, 42, 69f,
anti-corruption and, 42 83f, 83, 85, 86t, 103–4
conspiracy theories related to, 2, 57, 69f, 72t, presidential election (1996) in, 33, 40, 55, 60,
83f, 99, 102, 164–65 62, 69f, 71–73, 72t, 83f, 85, 86t, 96–98, 102
international nongovernmental presidential election (2000) in, 41, 69f, 83f
organizations and, 110, 139 presidential election (2004) in, 69f, 72t,
Putin and, 99, 102–3 83f, 99
Shevardnadze’s resignation and, 117 presidential election (2012) in, 42
United States and, 99, 165 Second Chechen War (1999-2009) and, 41,
Russia. See also Soviet Union 44, 60–61, 65, 69f, 83f, 88, 99, 100–1
anti-LGBT legislation in, 88–89, 146 separatist movements in Georgia supported
anti-Semitic conspiracies in, 5–6, 59, 140 by, 115–16, 133–34
Armenia and, 6, 73–74, 75 state control of media in, 23, 37–38, 41,
authoritarian nature of regime in, 36, 37t, 88, 89–90
84–85, 88–89, 92–93, 102 Tandem Agreement (2008) and, 42, 69f,
Belarus and, 6, 24, 73–76, 77f, 111–12, 112t, 83f, 83, 88
113f, 177 US presidential election (2016) and, 182–
Bolotnaya protests (2011-12) in, 1–2, 83, 185
42, 88–89 Yugoslavia wars (1990s) and, 40–41
conspiracy theories about Georgia advanced Rwanda, 3–4
in, 72t, 73, 74f, 74–75, 93, 94f, 96f Ryazan apartment bombing (Russia, 1999), 41,
conspiracy theories about Ukraine advanced 44, 69f, 83f
in, 72–73, 72t, 74f, 74–75, 93, 94f, 96f, 102–
3, 104–8, 134–35 Saakashvili, Mikheil
Covid-19 pandemic and, 177 conspiracy theories promoted by, 59–60,
Crimea annexed (2014) by, 43, 87, 88–89, 81t, 117–18
107–8, 160 elections (2012) and, 118
debt default (1998) by, 40, 59, 69f, 83f Lopota incident (2012) and, 118
disinformation campaigns in foreign Putin and, 99, 102–3
countries promoted by, 184–85 Rose Revolution and, 164
disorientating transition to post-Soviet era Russian conspiracy theories regarding, 101
in, 16, 33, 40, 86–87, 108 Russia’s invasion of Georgia (2008) and, 118
First Chechen War (1994-96) and, 40, separatist regions in Georgia and, 65–66
41, 65, 97 United States and, 133–34
First World War and, 30–31 Saudi Arabia, 166
foreign governments as subject of conspiracy Schedler, Andreas, 19
theories in, 91f, 91–92, 93 Second Chechen War (1999-2009), 41, 44, 60–
frequency of conspiracy theories blaming, 61, 65, 69f, 83f, 88, 99, 100–1
46–49, 49f, 58 September 11 terrorist attacks (United States,
frequency of conspiracy theories happening 2001), 3, 39, 68, 69f, 83f, 138–39, 142,
in, 46, 47f 158–59, 181
frequency of conspiracy theories originating Serbia, 40–41, 69f, 70f, 70–71, 73, 83f, 126
in, 46, 48f Shanghai Cooperation Organization, 134
Georgia invaded (2008) by, 55, 65–66, 69f, Shevardnadze, Eduard, 2, 81t, 99, 115–17, 133–
71–73, 72t, 83f, 87, 93, 118, 128, 34, 161, 164–65
133–34 al-Sisi, Abdel Fattah, 14–15
history of national trauma in, 30, 84–85 Skipalsky, Alexander, 125t
Kazakhstan and, 6, 7–8, 24, 73–74, 134, Skripal, Sergei, 184–85
160, 164 Snyder, Timothy, 4
Index 243
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksander, 59 Tandem Agreement (Russia, 2008), 42, 69f,

Soros, George 83f, 83, 88
conspiracy theories regarding Asian Tashkent bombing (Uzbekistan, 1999), 69f, 83f
Financial Crisis and, 23 Tea Party (United States), 182
conspiracy theories regarding Georgia and, Tiananmen Square protests (China, 1989), 18
2, 62, 162–63 Troyeshchyna Market explosion (Kyiv,
conspiracy theories regarding LGBT rights 2004), 122
and, 162–63 Trump, Donald
conspiracy theories regarding Russia Biden conspiracy theories promoted
and, 23, 59 by, 183–84
nongovernmental organizations supported birtherism conspiracy promoted by, 2, 182
by, 129 conspiracism regarding election of, 39, 182–
Republican Party conspiracy theories and, 23 84, 185
Trump’s conspiracy theories regarding, 2, 182 Covid-19 pandemic and, 187
South Ossetia (separatist region in Georgia) Georgians’ views of, 171
Beslan terrorist attack (2004) and, 101–2 Soros conspiracies promoted by, 2, 182
conspiracism and, 55, 81t Ukraine and, 2, 183–84
Russia-Georgia war (2008) and, 43, 65– 2020 election and, 3–4
66, 118 Trump Jr., Donald, 182–83
Russian support for autonomy movement Tulip Revolution (Kyrgyzstan, 2005), 42, 69f,
during 1990s in, 115, 133–34 72t, 73, 83f, 112–14
Sovetskaya Rossiya, 58–59, 65, 89–90, 89t, 90f, Turkey
98, 126 conspiracism in, 173, 178, 179–80
Soviet Union. See also Russia coup attempt (2016) in, 167–68, 179–80
Bolshevik movement and the origins election (2002) in, 178–79
of, 13, 31 Gezi Park protests (2013) in, 179
civil war (1917-22) following formation of, 31 military in, 178–79
collapse (1991) of, 33, 40, 58–59, 86–87, post-World War I settlement and, 15–16
102, 133–34 United States and, 168
“enemies of the people” classification in, 31 Turkmenistan
foreign policy orientation of, 28 authoritarianism in, 6, 36–37, 37t, 78f, 79f
military withdrawal from Eastern Europe conspiracism in, 26, 46, 47f, 48f, 59–60, 78f,
(1989) by, 40 79f, 80f, 80, 192f
perestroika reforms in, 6, 134 Russia and, 59–60, 73–74
propaganda and, 6, 33, 155 Tymoshenko, Yulia, 120–22
Reagan’s exaggerated claims regarding, 181
regime legitimacy in, 33 UDAR Party (Ukraine), 123–24
Second World War and, 31 Ukraine
spy services in, 16–17, 31, 33, 38–39, 59 conspiracism and, 1, 2, 46–49, 47f, 48f, 49f,
Spain, 29 74f, 75–78, 77f, 80–81, 81t, 106, 111, 112,
Stalin, Joseph, 1–2, 6, 14, 31–32, 33 112t, 113f, 119–25, 129, 138–39, 192f
Steele Dossier, 183 Crimea annexation by Russia (2014) and, 43,
Sukhorenko, Stepan, 126–27 87, 88–89, 107–8, 160
Surkov, Vladislav, 88 European Union and, 43, 104–5, 106, 119–
Sweden, 136, 136t 20, 121–22
fascism-related conspiracism and, 1, 106,
Tajikistan 124–25, 138–39, 139f
authoritarianism and, 26, 36, 37t, 78f, 79f foreign policy alignments of, 6, 24, 73–74,
civil war (1992-97) in, 38, 42 111–12, 112t, 119–20, 121–22
conspiracism in, 26, 46, 47f, 48f, 49f, 78f, 79f, hybrid nature of regime in, 26, 36, 37t, 111,
80f, 192f 112t, 119, 122, 129
Kyrgyzstan and, 114–15 international nongovernmental
Russia and, 38, 73–74 organizations in, 110
244 Index
Ukraine (cont.) Venezuela, 12, 14–15, 84, 178

Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 downing (2014) Voronin, Vladimir, 81t
and, 84, 105, 106–7, 140, 184–85
North Atlantic Treaty Organization and, 43, White Army (Russian civil war), 31
75, 119–20 Wikileaks, 182–83
Orange Revolution (2004) in, 42, 61, 69f, 72t,
73, 83f, 83, 89, 102–3, 120, 121, 122 Yabloko Party (Russia), 103–4
presidential election (2004) in, 54–55, 61, Yanukovych, Viktor
62, 102–3 conspiracy claims advanced by, 81t, 123
regional divisions in, 119–20 conspiracy claims regarding, 68, 106,
Russia as subject of conspiracy claims in, 122, 123–24
120, 121 corruption and, 123
Russia’s conspiracy theories regarding, Euromaidan protests (2014) and, 1, 123–25,
72–73, 72t, 74f, 74–75, 93, 94f, 96f, 102–3, European Union economic agreement
104–8, 134–35 rejected by, 43, 104–5
Trump and, 2, 183–84 flight to Russia (2014) by, 1, 8, 43, 68, 69f,
United States and, 2, 8, 119–20, 125–26, 84, 125
140, 183–84 Party of Regions and, 120–21
Umarov, Doku, 64 presidential election of 2004 and, 61, 102–
United Kingdom, 49f, 74f, 94f, 101, 136, 3, 119–20
136t, 184 purging of intelligence services by, 121
United Russia Party, 88, 102, 104 Putin and, 102–3
United States Tymoshenko and, 120–21
Afghanistan War and, 158–59 Yatsenyuk, Arseniy, 123
American exceptionalism and, 15–16 Yeltsin, Boris
attack on Capitol in 2021 in, 3–4, 187 Asian Financial Crisis and, 40
conspiracism in, 47f, 58–59, 180–84, 186, 187 cabinet maneuvers by, 40, 69f, 72t, 83f
Covid-19 pandemic and, 3 Clinton and, 39
Georgia and, 139, 159–60, 161, 165 conspiracism among rivals for political
Kazakhstan and, 160, 169 influence around, 37, 60–61, 96–98
Kyrgyzstan and, 74–75, 114–15 conspiracy theories promoted in Russia
presidential election (2000) in, 69f, 72t, 83f under, 81t, 89–92, 89t, 90f, 91f, 92f,
presidential election (2004) in, 69f, 72t 98, 129–30
presidential election (2016) in, 88–89, 171– conspiracy theories regarding, 63–64, 90–
72, 180, 182–84, 185 91, 91f
presidential election (2020) in, 3–4, 183–84 First Chechen War and, 97
Russia’s conspiracy theories regarding, 64, health problems of, 34, 40
74f, 74–75, 93, 94f, 95f, 99, 100, 101, 103, market economic reforms introduced by, 39
105–6, 118 nationalist critics of, 87
September 11 terrorist attacks (2001) in, 3, presidential election of 1996 and, 33, 40, 55,
39, 68, 138–39, 142, 158–59, 168, 181 60, 96–98, 186
Turkey and, 168 Pristina Airport siege (1999) and, 40–41
Ukraine and, 2, 8, 119–20, 125–26, resignation from presidency of, 41, 64,
140, 183–84 69f, 83f
Uzbekistan Yugoslavia, 40–41, 47f, 58–59, 126. See also
Andijan protests (2005) in, 42, 62–63, 69f, 83f Kosovo; Serbia
authoritarianism in, 6, 36, 37t, 78f, 79f, 129 Yushchenko, Viktor, 61, 81t, 102–3, 120,
conspiracism in, 26, 47f, 48f, 49f, 78f, 79f, 80f, 122–23
80, 192f
Hezb-e Tahrir and, 62–63 Zakharchenko, Vitaliy, 125t
Kyrgyzstan and, 2 Zhirinovsky, Vladimir, 87, 97–98, 103, 106
Russia and, 73–74 Zyuganov, Gennady, 33, 60–61, 62, 86t, 87,
Tashkent bombing (1999) in, 42, 69f, 83f 96–98, 103

Scott Radnitz - Revealing Schemes The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and The Post-Soviet Region

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Revealing Schemes

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

List of Figures  vii

3.1. Where conspiracies occur  47

2.1. Keywords in Putin’s Addresses to the Federal Assembly  35

Joseph Uscinski at the University of Miami. As this event occurred while my

Data collection was a collective endeavor. It took a dozen research assistants

On February 21, 2014, months of protests in the streets of Ukraine’s capital,

They Are All Around Us

Conspiracy theories are enjoying a moment in the spotlight. They seem to be

Politics, Not Personality

In contrast to approaches that focus on the characteristics of people who be-

Russia and Its Neighbors: Fertile Conspiratorial Soil?

How to Study the Politics of Conspiracy

This book makes headway on these questions in several ways. To explain

adjudicate. Name-​calling, hyperbole, mockery, character assassination, and lies

What Conspiracy Theories Mean

However, the normalization of conspiracy theories in public discourse

What Lies Ahead

Chapter 9 concludes by discussing what this book contributes to scholarly re-

From popular culture we have an image of the conspiracy theorist in power as

of personality conducive to demagoguery. We should therefore entertain the

Conspiracy Claims as Propaganda

Another characteristic of conspiracy claims is that they connect two elem-

total subservience.”10 Analysts also draw a link between destructive governance

economic development, or a culture of victimization.18 In Turkey, the “Sevres

Maintaining the Facade of Control

It is important to take into account the preceding insights relating to history,

it is useful to explore how regimes seek to influence political realities by shaping

The Virtues of Signaling

The decision to deploy a conspiracy theory may be intended not to convince

The Political Context of Conspiratorial Politics

The character of political regimes is a second factor affecting conspiracy claims,

Conspiracism under Authoritarianism

(a) to keep horizontal threats at bay, authoritarian rulers need to convey an

Authoritarians are also vulnerable to public displays of intrigue or backstabbing,

Conspiracism with Competition

prerogatives of their office to dominate the media, mobilize state employees to

Sustaining Conspiracy Claims

When Conspiracism Falters

There are several potential hazards to regimes that rely excessively on

Conspiracism in Regional and Global Context

Circumstances and Choices

These surrounding conditions—​perceived threats from below, competition from

When it comes to advancing a narrative, a variety of actors may speak for

Putting the Pieces Together

Sporadic official conspiracism, in which conspiracy theories are mostly ab-

Like Country, Like People?

Russia: A Troubled Patient?

If there is a poster child for a country cursed by history, it is post-​Soviet Russia,

Alternatives to the Rhetoric of Conspiracy

exhibits symptoms will depend on a variety of environmental factors, partly

If there is any political figure that appears to embody conspiracism, it is Russia’s

Table 2.1 Keywords in Putin’s Addresses to the Federal

Governance-​related Words Number of Mentions

Instead of looking only at the past to explain present-​day conspiracism, we

Table 2.2 Regime Scores for Post-​Soviet States, 1995–​2014

Elections Media Democracy

List of Figures vii

3.1. Where conspiracies occur 47

2.1. Keywords in Putin’s Addresses to the Federal Assembly 35

adjudicate. Name-calling, hyperbole, mockery, character assassination, and lies

These surrounding conditions—perceived threats from below, competition from

If there is a poster child for a country cursed by history, it is post-Soviet Russia,

Governance-related Words Number of Mentions

Instead of looking only at the past to explain present-day conspiracism, we

Table 2.2 Regime Scores for Post-Soviet States, 1995–2014

interpreted. These claims tell a story—actually, several—about politics, but re-

To create a database of conspiracy claims, I relied on a selection of post-Soviet

espionage, planned acts of subversion, or the all-encompassing “provocation.”

A fourth type of claim involves non-elites alleging a conspiracy by government

staff responded, “The so-called beating of Georgian journalists is nothing more

Figure 4.4 Diffusion of anti-West conspiracy claims.

Figure 4.8 Proportions of anti-government conspiracy claims by country.

After pro-European protesters in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv prevailed in ousting

Event Date Nature Accusers Event-Related Dominant