Editing Conspiracy theory (section)

==Politics==
[[File:911worldopinionpoll Sep2008.png|thumb|upright=1.75|A [[Opinion polls about 9/11 conspiracy theories|2008 poll]] found that majorities in only 9 of 17 countries believed that [[al-Qaeda]] carried out the [[September 11 attacks|9/11 attacks]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/535.php|title=International Poll: No Consensus on Who Was Behind 9/11|work=WorldPublicOpinion.org|publisher=[[Program on International Policy Attitudes]]|location=[[University of Maryland, College Park]]|date=10 September 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110705222905/http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/535.php|archive-date=5 July 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>]]

The philosopher [[Karl Popper]] described the central problem of conspiracy theories as a form of [[fundamental attribution error]], where every event is generally perceived as being intentional and planned, greatly underestimating the effects of randomness and unintended consequences.<ref name="SciAm2013"/> In his book ''[[The Open Society and Its Enemies]]'', he used the term "the conspiracy theory of society" to denote the idea that social phenomena such as "war, unemployment, poverty, shortages&nbsp;... [are] the result of direct design by some powerful individuals and groups".<ref>{{cite book|last=Popper|first=Karl|author-link=Karl Popper|title=Open Society and Its Enemies, Book II|year=1945|publisher=Routledge and Kegan Paul|location=London|chapter=14}}</ref> Popper argued that [[totalitarianism]] was founded on conspiracy theories which drew on imaginary plots which were driven by paranoid scenarios predicated on [[tribalism]], [[chauvinism]], or [[racism]]. He also noted that conspirators very rarely achieved their goal.<ref name="dohloo">{{cite web|url=http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/books/popper_open_society.html|title=Extracts from "The Open Society and Its Enemies Volume 2: The High Tide of Prophecy: Hegel, Marx and the Aftermath" by Karl Raimund Popper (Originally published 1945)|publisher=Lachlan Cranswick, quoting Karl Raimund Popper|access-date=5 September 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060903232539/http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/books/popper_open_society.html|archive-date=3 September 2006|url-status=live}}</ref>

Historically, real conspiracies have usually had little effect on history and have had [[unforeseen consequence]]s for the conspirators, in contrast to conspiracy theories, which often posit grand, sinister organizations or world-changing events, the evidence for which has been erased or obscured.<ref name="Cumings1999" /><ref name="SciAmShermer">{{cite journal|last1=Shermer|first1=Michael|title=The Conspiracy Theory Detector|url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-conspiracy-theory-director/|journal=Scientific American|year=2010|volume=303|issue=6|page=102|doi=10.1038/scientificamerican1210-102|bibcode=2010SciAm.303f.102S|access-date=14 July 2021|url-access=subscription}}</ref> As described by [[Bruce Cumings]], history is instead "moved by the broad forces and large structures of human collectivities".<ref name="Cumings1999">{{cite book|last=Cumings|first=Bruce|title=The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. II, The Roaring of the Cataract, 1947–1950|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|location=Princeton, NJ|year=1999}}{{page needed|date=September 2011}}</ref>

===Arab world===
{{Main|Conspiracy theories in the Arab world}}

Conspiracy theories are a prevalent feature of [[Arab]] culture and politics.<ref name=Gray>{{cite book|title=Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World|author=Matthew Gray|isbn=978-0-415-57518-8|year=2010|publisher=Routledge}}</ref> Variants include conspiracies involving colonialism, [[Zionism]], superpowers, oil, and the [[war on terrorism]], which is often referred to in Arab media as a "[[war against Islam]]".<ref name=Gray/> For example, ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'', an infamous [[hoax]] document purporting to be a Jewish plan for world domination, is commonly read and promoted in the Muslim world.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/26/world/anti-semitic-elders-of-zion-gets-new-life-on-egypt-tv.html|title=Anti-Semitic 'Elders of Zion' Gets New Life on Egypt TV|last=Wakin|first=Daniel J.|date=26 October 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=26 August 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140816063157/http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/26/world/anti-semitic-elders-of-zion-gets-new-life-on-egypt-tv.html|archive-date=16 August 2014|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/pdfdocs/KSAtextbooks06.pdf|title=2006 Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060823125127/http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/pdfdocs/KSAtextbooks06.pdf|archive-date=23 August 2006}} Report by Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House. 2006</ref><ref>[https://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB113046423225782130 "The Booksellers of Tehran"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170410052122/https://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB113046423225782130 |date=10 April 2017 }}, ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'', 28 October 2005</ref> [[Roger Cohen]] has suggested that the popularity of conspiracy theories in the Arab world is "the ultimate refuge of the powerless".<ref name=Cohen/> Al-Mumin Said has noted the danger of such theories, for they "keep us not only from the truth but also from confronting our faults and problems".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/stalinsky200405060835.asp|title=A Vast Conspiracy|date=6 May 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004220251/http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/stalinsky200405060835.asp|archive-date=4 October 2013|work=National Review|author=Steven Stalinsky}}</ref> [[Osama bin Laden]] and [[Ayman al-Zawahiri]] used conspiracy theories about the United States to gain support for [[al-Qaeda]] in the Arab world, and as rhetoric to distinguish themselves from similar groups, although they may not have believed the conspiratorial claims themselves.<ref name="Gray158-159">{{cite book|author=Matthew Gray|title=Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BpxdBwAAQBAJ|date=12 July 2010|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-136-96751-1|pages=158–159}}</ref>

===Turkey===
{{Main|Conspiracy theories in Turkey}}

Conspiracy theories are a prevalent feature of culture and politics in [[Turkey]]. Conspiracism is an important phenomenon in understanding Turkish politics.<ref name=tinfoil>{{cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/12/the-tin-foil-hats-are-out-in-turkey/|title=The Tin-Foil Hats Are Out in Turkey|date=12 September 2016|work=[[Foreign Policy]]|author=Mustafa Akyol|access-date=10 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170109063325/http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/12/the-tin-foil-hats-are-out-in-turkey/|archive-date=2017-01-09|url-status=live}}</ref> This is explained by a desire to "make up for our lost [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] grandeur",<ref name=tinfoil /> the humiliation of perceiving Turkey as part of "the malfunctioning half" of the world,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/turkey-erdogan-election-kurds/563240/|title=How Nietzsche Explains Turkey|date=21 June 2018|work=[[The Atlantic]]|author=Selim Koru|access-date=2018-06-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180621221333/https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/turkey-erdogan-election-kurds/563240/|archive-date=2018-06-21|url-status=live}}</ref> and a "low level of media literacy among the Turkish population."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://osi.bg/downloads/File/2018/MediaLiteracyIndex2018_publishENG.pdf|title=COMMON SENSE WANTED – Resilence to 'post-truth' and its predictors in the new media literacy index 2018|date=March 2018|publisher=Open Society Institute – Sofia|author=Marin Lessenski|access-date=2018-04-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180403150737/http://osi.bg/downloads/File/2018/MediaLiteracyIndex2018_publishENG.pdf|archive-date=2018-04-03|url-status=dead}}</ref>

There are a wide variety of conspiracy theories including the [[Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory]],<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Marc David Baer|date=2013|title=An Enemy Old and New: The Dönme, Anti-Semitism, and Conspiracy Theories in the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/|journal=Jewish Quarterly Review|volume=103|issue=4|pages=523–555|doi=10.1353/jqr.2013.0033|s2cid=159483845|via=Project MUSE|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263206.2021.1950691|doi=10.1080/00263206.2021.1950691|title=The journal ''İnkılâp'' and the appeal of antisemitism in interwar Turkey|date=2022|last1=Lamprou|first1=Alexandros|journal=Middle Eastern Studies|volume=58|pages=32–47|url-access=subscription}}</ref> the [[International Jewish conspiracy#Turkey|international Jewish conspiracy theory]], and the [[war against Islam conspiracy theory]]. For example, [[Islamism|Islamists]], dissatisfied with the [[modernity|modernist]] and [[secularism|secularist]] reforms that took place throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, have put forward many conspiracy theories to defame the [[Treaty of Lausanne]], an important peace treaty for the country, and the republic's founder [[Mustafa Kemal Atatürk|Kemal Atatürk]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=In Turkey, conspiracy theories about the Peace Treaty of Lausanne run riot|url=https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2023/03/in-turkey-conspiracy-theories-about-the-peace-treaty-of-lausanne-run-riot/|website=The Skeptic|access-date=17 May 2024|date=29 March 2023|archive-date=2 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230702083157/https://www.skeptic.org.uk/2023/03/in-turkey-conspiracy-theories-about-the-peace-treaty-of-lausanne-run-riot/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Lozan Antlaşması'nın 100. Yılında Komplo Teorileri ve Gizli Maddelerin İzinde|url=https://yalansavar.org/2023/07/25/lozan-antlasmasinin-100-yilinda-komplo-teorileri-ve-gizli-maddelerin-izinde/|website=Yalansavar|access-date=17 May 2024|language=Turkish|date=25 July 2023|archive-date=6 August 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230806150445/https://yalansavar.org/2023/07/25/lozan-antlasmasinin-100-yilinda-komplo-teorileri-ve-gizli-maddelerin-izinde/}}</ref> Another example is the [[Sèvres syndrome]], a reference to the [[Treaty of Sèvres]] of 1920, a popular belief in Turkey that dangerous internal and external enemies, especially [[Western world|the West]], are "conspiring to weaken and carve up the Turkish Republic".<ref>{{cite book|last=Göçek|first=Fatma Müge|title=The Transformation of Turkey: Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era|page=105|year=2011|publisher=I.B.Tauris|location=London|isbn=9781848856110}}</ref>

===United States===
{{Main|Conspiracy theories in United States politics}}

The historian [[Richard Hofstadter]] addressed the role of [[paranoia]] and conspiracism throughout [[History of the United States|U.S. history]] in his 1964 essay "[[The Paranoid Style in American Politics]]". [[Bernard Bailyn]]'s classic ''[[The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution]]'' (1967) notes that a similar phenomenon could be found in North America during the time preceding the [[American Revolution]]. Conspiracism labels people's attitudes and the type of conspiracy theories that are more global and historical in proportion.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bailyn|first=Bernard|title='The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution|publisher=[[Harvard University Press]]|location=Cambridge|id=ASIN: B000NUF6FQ|isbn=978-0-674-44302-0|year=1992|orig-year=1967}}{{page needed|date=September 2011}}</ref>

Harry G. West and others have noted that while conspiracy theorists may often be dismissed as a fringe minority, certain evidence suggests that a wide range of the U.S. believes in conspiracy theories. West also compares those theories to [[hypernationalism]] and [[religious fundamentalism]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order|author=Harry G. West|publisher=Duke University Press Books|pages=4, 207–08|display-authors=etal}}</ref><ref>[[Michael Shermer|Shermer, Michael]], and Pat Linse. ''Conspiracy Theories''. Altadena, CA: Skeptics Society, n.d. Print.</ref> Theologian Robert Jewett and philosopher [[John Shelton Lawrence]] attribute the enduring popularity of conspiracy theories in the U.S. to the [[Cold War]], [[McCarthyism]], and [[Counterculture of the 1960s|counterculture]] rejection of authority. They state that among both the left-wing and right-wing, there remains a willingness to use real events, such as Soviet plots, inconsistencies in the [[Warren Commission|Warren Report]], and the [[September 11 attacks|9/11]] attacks, to support the existence of unverified and ongoing large-scale conspiracies.<ref>Jewett, Robert; John Shelton Lawrence (2004) [https://books.google.com/books?id=VE2k18ScPnQC&q=%22conspiracy%20theories%22 ''Captain America and the Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418133818/https://books.google.com/books?id=VE2k18ScPnQC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=%22conspiracy%20theories%22 |date=18 April 2019 }} Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing p. 206.</ref>

In his studies of "American political demonology", historian [[Michael Paul Rogin]] too analyzed this paranoid style of politics that has occurred throughout American history. Conspiracy theories frequently identify an imaginary subversive group that is supposedly attacking the nation and requires the government and allied forces to engage in harsh extra-legal repression of those threatening subversives. Rogin cites examples from the Red Scares of 1919 to McCarthy's anti-communist campaign in the 1950s and, more recently, fears of immigrant hordes invading the US. Unlike Hofstadter, Rogin saw these "countersubversive" fears as frequently coming from those in power and dominant groups instead of from the dispossessed. Unlike Robert Jewett, Rogin blamed not the counterculture but America's dominant culture of liberal individualism and the fears it stimulated to explain the periodic eruption of irrational conspiracy theories.<ref>{{cite book|last=Rogin|first=Michael Paul|title=Ronald Reagan, the Movie and Other Episodes in Political Demonology|year=1988|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-06469-0|page=7}}</ref> The [[Watergate scandal]] has also been used to bestow legitimacy to other conspiracy theories, with [[Richard Nixon]] himself commenting that it served as a "[[Rorschach test|Rorschach ink blot]]" which invited others to fill in the underlying pattern.<ref name="knight-2003"/>

Historian Kathryn S. Olmsted cites three reasons why Americans are prone to believing in government conspiracy theories:

# Genuine government overreach and secrecy during the Cold War, such as [[Watergate]], the [[Tuskegee syphilis experiment]], [[Project MKUltra]], and the CIA's [[assassination attempts on Fidel Castro]] in collaboration with mobsters.
# Precedent set by official government-sanctioned conspiracy theories for propaganda, such as claims of German infiltration of the U.S. during World War II or the debunked claim that [[Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations|Saddam Hussein played a role in the 9/11 attacks]].
# Distrust fostered by the government's spying on and harassment of dissenters, such as the [[Sedition Act of 1918]], [[COINTELPRO]], and as part of various [[Red Scare]]s.<ref>Olmsted, Kathryn S. (2011). [https://books.google.com/books?id=u7Sd5vyOOtEC&pg=PA8 ''Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190418133815/https://books.google.com/books?id=u7Sd5vyOOtEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA8 |date=18 April 2019 }}. Oxford University Press, p. 8.</ref>

[[Alex Jones]] referenced numerous conspiracy theories for convincing his supporters to endorse [[Ron Paul]] over [[Mitt Romney]] in the [[2012 Republican Party presidential primaries]] and [[Donald Trump]] over [[Hillary Clinton]] in the [[2016 United States presidential election]].<ref>{{Cite news|last=Friedersdorf|first=Conor|date=29 October 2011|title=Ron Paul, Conspiracy Theories, and the Right|work=[[The Atlantic]]|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/12/ron-paul-conspiracy-theories-and-the-right/250638/|access-date=30 August 2020}}</ref><ref>Stack, Liam (3 October 2016). [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/us/politics/alex-jones.html "He Calls Hillary Clinton a 'Demon.' Who Is Alex Jones?"] ''[[The New York Times]]''</ref> Into the 2020s, the [[QAnon conspiracy theory]] alleges that Trump is fighting against a [[Deep state in the United States|deep-state]] [[cabal]] of child sex-abusing and Satan-worshipping [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrats]].<ref name="Nature 2021"/><ref name="Crossley 2021"/><ref>{{cite journal|last=Bracewell|first=Lorna|date=21 January 2021|title=Gender, Populism, and the QAnon Conspiracy Movement|journal=[[Frontiers in Sociology]]|volume=5|pages=615727|doi=10.3389/fsoc.2020.615727|doi-access=free|pmc=8022489|pmid=33869533|s2cid=231654586}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author-last=O'Donnell|author-first=Jonathon|date=September 2020|title=The deliverance of the administrative state: Deep state conspiracism, charismatic demonology, and the post-truth politics of American Christian nationalism|editor1-last=Stausberg|editor1-first=Michael|editor1-link=Michael Stausberg|editor2-last=Engler|editor2-first=Steven|editor2-link=Steven Engler|journal=[[Religion (journal)|Religion]]|volume=50|issue=4|pages=696–719|doi=10.1080/0048721X.2020.1810817|s2cid=222094116}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Roose|first=Kevin|date=3 September 2021|orig-date=4 March 2021|title=What Is QAnon, the Viral Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html|url-status=live|location=[[New York City]]|work=The New York Times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210919060514/https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html|archive-date=19 September 2021|url-access=limited|access-date=25 September 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last=Bowman|first=Emma|date=4 February 2021|title=Why QAnon Survives After Trump|url=https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963861418/why-qanon-survives-after-trump|url-status=live|publisher=[[NPR]]|location=[[Washington, D.C.]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905103408/https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963861418/why-qanon-survives-after-trump|archive-date=5 September 2021|access-date=25 September 2021}}</ref>