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Conspiracy & Populism: The Politics of Misinformation 1st ed. Edition Eirikur Bergmann full chapter instant download
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Conspiracy THE POLITICS OF
& Populism MISINFORMATION
Eirikur Bergmann
Conspiracy & Populism
Eirikur Bergmann
Conspiracy
& Populism
The Politics of Misinformation
Eirikur Bergmann
Centre for European Studies
Bifröst University
Borgarbyggd, Iceland
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated to my partner in life,
Aino Freyja Järvelä.
Preface and Acknowledgements
It was a beautiful, clear summer day in 2011. The sun was shining
bright where I was standing out on the deck of a ferry, sailing with a
group of family and friends to the small island of Flatey, just off the
western coast of Iceland. Soon, I started noticing my fellow passengers
becoming preoccupied with their phones, their faces turning whiter. I
dug out my device and rapidly realised that something serious was hap-
pening in Norway, on the small island of Utøya, perhaps a not so dif-
ferent isle to the one I was heading to—and, actually, not very far from
where I once myself lived in Norway. The reception on my phone was
poor, and the reports weren’t all that clear. Still, it seemed evident that
someone was massacring young members of the Norwegian Labour
party.
Over the coming hours, we learned the full details of this horrible
terrorist attack. I opened the so-called manifesto of the attacker, Anders
Behring Breivik, and read of his fears of those he referred to as cultural
Marxists, evil multiculturalists that he accused of ruining his home
country in an ongoing devious plot of turning Norway into an Islamist
society. The document was filled with many more of the most com-
monly upheld conspiracy theories of the far-right in the West.
vii
viii Preface and Acknowledgements
Just a few years later, the murderer of British Labour Party MP, Jo
Cox, justified his crime with that same rhetoric.
During the Brexit campaign in the UK, Vote Leave argued that
because of the high birth rate in Turkey, one million Muslim Turks
would soon be arriving in the UK. When criticised by many special-
ists for unfounded claims, a leading Brexit campaigner replied saying: ‘I
think the people in this country have had enough of experts.’
Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Oklahoma federal building in
1995, had been convinced that the US government was plotting a dicta-
torial communist New World Order. Many of his mates further insisted
that Nazi extermination camps never existed, that they were a hoax.
In the Netherlands, the leader of the Freedom Party, Geert Wilders,
insisted that the Dutch people were being replaced by foreign infiltrators.
In France, Marine Le Pen of the National Front maintained that Europe
was being invaded by hordes of ‘stinking’ dark-skinned migrants and
‘rat people’ flowing in a ‘river of sperm.’ In America, President Donald
Trump wrote this when justifying banning people from several Muslim
dominated countries from entering the US: ‘I think Islam hates us.’
Over in Russia, the Kremlin insisted that members of the protest
punk band, Pussy Riot, were agents in a Western led conspiracy of
emasculating the Russian state.
These were some of the events and statements—all discussed and
referenced in this book—that got me thinking about the impact of
far-right populist conspiracy theories (CTs). My previous research into
Nordic nationalism and the rise of right-wing populists in Europe also
pushed me onto the path of investigating CTs upheld in their politics,
which is the subject of this book.
This research has benefitted from interaction with many colleagues
in several academic fields. Two Europe wide academic networks have
been especially useful. Participating in the EU funded COST action,
Populist Political Communication in Europe, provided me with valua-
ble access to much of the most recent research on European populism.
And involvement in the EU funded COST action, Comparative Analysis
of Conspiracy Theories (COMPACT ), exposed me to some of the most
pristine studies of CTs. I believe my engagement in these networks, and
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
1 Introduction 1
Rise of Populist Conspiracy Theories 3
In History and All Around 5
Stigma 6
Links to Extremism 7
Moving into the Mainstream 7
Multi-disciplinary 9
Definitions and Concepts 12
Aim and Frame 13
Structure of the Book 14
References 16
xi
xii Contents
Anti-Catholic 30
Holy Grail 31
Anti-Islam 32
Bilderberg Group 33
Deep State 34
Assassinations—Dead and Alive 35
Deceptions, Disasters, Diseases and Medicine 35
False Flag Operations—And 9/11 37
Sinister Politics—The Birthers 39
Black—And White—Genocide 40
Rankings 41
References 42
4 Dissecting Populism 71
Populism 73
Nationalism 75
Fascism 79
Internationalization and Migration 79
Cultural Racism 80
Contents xiii
Index 175
Abbreviations
xv
xvi Abbreviations
MP Member of Parliament
NAFTA North America Free Trade Agreement
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NHS National Health Service of the UK
NSA National Security Agency of the United States
OEEC Organization for Economic Cooperation in Europe
PS Finns Party, True Finns, (Perussuomalaiset)
RT Russia Today, TV station
SD Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna)
UFO Unknown Foreign Object
UKIP UK Independence Party
UN United Nations
WB World Bank
WHO World Health Organization
WWI First World War
WWII Second World War
ZOG Zionist Occupation Government
1
Introduction
In his novel, Running Dog, Don DeLillo (1978) wrote of the ‘age
of conspiracy’ in American politics. Now, it seems, we are experienc-
ing the age of the populists, who in their politics have fully embraced
CTs. The merger of the two was perhaps most obviously personified
in US President Donald Trump. In their discourse analysis of cam-
paign speeches, Eric Oliver and Wendy Rahn (2016) found that in
the 2016 presidential election, Trump was far more frequently and
more extensively than any other candidate prone to apply ‘rhetoric
that is distinctive in its simplicity, anti-elitism and collectivism.’ This
seemed to sit well with his core voter base, as in the same study they
were found to also be distinctive in their nativism and their ‘high-
level of conspiratorial thinking.’ Oliver and Rahn concluded that
those in their study that held anti-elite sentiments and were mistrust-
ing of experts, correlated highly on the conspiratorial scale. Those
who saw the system as being stacked against them, were ‘far more
likely to endorse CTs of all types.’
Classical CTs of the radical-right tended, initially, to revolve around
anti-Semitic sentiments, often involving ideas of a Zionist plot of taking
over control in the world. Or of a wider New World Order conspiracy,
led by, for example, Marxists and feminists, aiming at ending the Western
dominated capitalist order. Many radical-right parties started out fighting
a communist conspiracy, but have since moved on to unravel a globalist
covert conspiracy, led by a band of domestic liberals and international
actors, for example, within cross-border organizations such as the EU,
the United Nations (UN) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Another common theme was identifying and uprooting what is referred to
as the deep-state, the idea of a covert network of bureaucrats, professional
politicians and interest agencies controlling society behind the scenes.
In recent years, nationalist right-wing populists in Europe and in
America have firmly turned their sights on Muslim migrants, with a
rapid proliferation of CTs revolving around Islamification of the West,
for example, of Sharia laws being instated in Europe and in the USA. In
many such cases, Muslim immigrants were portrayed as invaders, often
seen as soldiers in a coordinated cultural and religious quest of conquer-
ing Europe.
1 Introduction
5
Stigma
Conspiracy theories have not always been viewed as negative, and in
some places of the world they might, indeed, still not be seen as entirely
deleterious, but perhaps rather as a sensible view of the world. The same
applies to populism, which in several instances has been celebrated by
both leaders and followers. Still, neither populism nor conspiracy theory
are neutral analytical terms in contemporary political discourse in the
western world. Rather, these are pejorative markers similar to extrem-
ism, terrorism and other negative labels.
Commonly, people don’t refer to themselves as being a populist or a
conspiracy theorist. These are tags applied to others who are not deemed
rational, terms used to discredit their politics or alternative explanations
of events, which is treated as stigmatised knowledge. Conspiracy theo-
rists are thus often dismissed as offering bogus explanations and accused
of dangerous politics or world-views. In other words, these are exclu-
sionary and alienating concepts applied when ridiculing others who are
not accepted into the mainstream. Thus, as these are often terms used to
belittle or marginalise rival explanations, the examiner must be careful
when applying them to his subjects.
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craindre rien ni personne, affichait, en effet, le mépris le plus
insultant pour les vendeuses d’oracles et abreuvait de ses
sarcasmes les folles qui ajoutent créance à leurs dires.
IX