The Logic of Conspiracy Thought

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 542-569
Author(s):  
Luis Roniger ◽  
Leonardo Senkman ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Agenda ◽  
Information Diffusion ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
Conspiracy Narratives

This article analyzes the logic of conspiracy theories, stressing that it would be erroneous to assume that such theories about collusions and intrigues are irrational in nature. On the contrary, they operate on a logic that is no less coherent than scientific discourse, although it differs from the latter in its verification and discard methodology as well as in its mobilizing role. Being part of a larger research that explains the recurrent spread of conspiracy narratives in one region of the world, elucidating their historical and contemporary conditions of crystallization, the article claims that such research agenda has universal appeal, particularly in an era of institutional distrust and changes in the structure of information diffusion.

Of Power and Peril

2021 ◽  
pp. 12-27
Author(s):  
Scott Radnitz
Keyword(s):  
Political Competition ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
The World ◽  
Conspiracy Narratives ◽  
Over Time

This chapter provides an explanatory framework for why regimes promote conspiracy claims, based on the insight 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. It conceptualizes conspiracy theories as a form of propaganda and summarizes theories about conspiracism in politics. The author argues that claiming conspiracy can signal knowledge and prescience, and details three factors associated with the production and circulation of conspiracy claims: destabilizing events, political competition, and cross-border connections and alignments. Regimes may use conspiracy claims intermittently or may construct broad conspiracy narratives and strategically disseminate them over time, but there are potential hazards for regimes that rely excessively on conspiracism. Finally, the chapter outlines the features of three conspiratorial modes: sporadic official conspiracism, competitive conspiracism, and sustained official conspiracism.

Ringtone

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Doz ◽  
Keeley Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Mobile Communications ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Senior Managers ◽  
The World ◽  
Things Fall Apart ◽  
The Doors

In less than three decades, Nokia emerged from Finland to lead the mobile phone revolution. It grew to have one of the most recognizable and valuable brands in the world and then fell into decline, leading to the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft. This book explores and analyzes that journey and distills observations and lessons for anyone keen to understand what drove Nokia’s amazing success and sudden downfall. It is tempting to lay the blame for Nokia’s demise at the doors of Apple, Google, and Samsung, but this would be to ignore one very important fact: Nokia had begun to collapse from within well before any of these companies entered the mobile communications market, and this makes Nokia’s story all the more interesting. Observing from the position of privileged outsiders (with access to Nokia’s senior managers over the last twenty years and a more recent, concerted research agenda), this book describes and analyzes the various stages in Nokia’s journey. This is an inside story: one of leaders making strategic and organizational decisions, of their behavior and interactions, and of how they succeeded and failed to inspire and engage their employees. Perhaps most intriguingly, it is a story that opens the proverbial “black box” of why and how things actually happen at the top of organizations. Why did things fall apart? To what extent were avoidable mistakes made? Did the world around Nokia change too fast for it to adapt? Did Nokia’s success contain the seeds of its failure?

scholarly journals Just world beliefs, personal success and beliefs in conspiracy theories

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Furnham
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Composite Measure ◽  
Just World Beliefs ◽  
Just World ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
Personal Ideology ◽  
Personal Success

AbstractDo those who believe in conspiracy theories feel less happy and healthy than others? Do they believe the world is simply unjust? This study was concerned with how demographic factors, personal ratings of success, personal ideology (political and religious beliefs) and Just World Beliefs are related to Conspiracy Theories. In total, 406 participants completed two questionnaires: Just World scale (Rubin & Peplau, 1975) and Conspiracy Theories Inventory (Swami et al., 2010) and provided various personal details. The Just World Scale yielded two scores: Just and Unjust beliefs. Participants also reported on their health, happiness and success and a reliable composite measure of well-being was computed. A regression showed younger males, with Unjust World beliefs and politically right-wing views, were more likely to endorse Conspiracy Theories. The discussion revolved around explaining individual differences in accepting these theories. Implications and limitations are discussed.

From the Colonial to Feminist IR: Feminist IR Studies, the Wider FSS/GPE Research Agenda, and the Questions of Value, Valuation, Security, and Violence

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (04) ◽  
pp. 739-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. Agathangelou
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Security Studies ◽  
Global Political Economy ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Ir Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Forms Of Violence

International relations (IR) feminists have significantly impacted the way we analyze the world and power. However, as Cynthia Enloe points out, “there are now signs—worrisome signs—that feminist analysts of international politics might be forgetting what they have shared” and are “making bricks to construct new intellectual barriers. That is not progress” (2015, 436). I agree. The project/process that has led to the separation/specialization of feminist security studies (FSS) and feminist global political economy (FGPE) does not constitute progress but instead ends up embodying forms of violence that erase the materialist bases of our intellectual labor's divisions (Agathangelou 1997), the historical and social constitution of our formations as intellectuals and subjects. This amnesiac approach evades our personal lives and colludes with those forces that allow for the violence that comes with abstraction. These “worrisome signs” should be explained if we are to move FSS and FGPE beyond a “merger” (Allison 2015) that speaks only to some issues and some humans in the global theater.

scholarly journals The conceit of activism in the illiberal university

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110034
Author(s):  
Bruce Macfarlane
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Stance ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
The University ◽  
Popular Image

The popular image of activism in the university involves students and academics campaigning for social justice and resisting the neo-liberalisation of the university. Yet activism has been subtly corporatised through the migration of corporate social responsibility from the private sector into the university, a trend that may be illustrated by reference to the growing influence of research ‘grand challenges’ (GCs). Attracting both government and philanthro-capitalist funding, GCs adopt a socio-political stance based on justice globalism and represent a responsibilisation of academic research interests. Compliance with the rhetoric of GCs and the virtues of inter-disciplinarity have become an article of faith for academics compelled to meet the expectations of research-intensive universities in chasing the prestige and resources associated with large grant capture. The responsibilisation of the efforts of researchers, via GCs, erodes academic ownership of the research agenda and weakens the purpose of the university as an independent think tank: the essence of the Humboldtian ideal. The conceit of corporate activism is that in seeking to solve the world’s problems, the university will inevitably create new ones. Instead, as Flexner argued, it is only by preserving the independence and positive ‘irresponsibility’ of researchers that universities can best serve the world.

scholarly journals Making sense of personal and global problems: an analysis of the writings and lectures of Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 344-349
Author(s):  
Tommy Ramstedt
Keyword(s):  
Belief System ◽  
School Shootings ◽  
Talk Shows ◽  
Personal Health ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Elite Group ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
Theory View

Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde (b. 1939) is a well-known figure in the Finnish alternative spiritual milieu. She is an author and lecturer on parapsychology and ufology and has been a guest on several talk shows in the Nordic countries. The topics discussed by Luukanen-Kilde range from the psychic abilities of mankind to visitations from extraterrestrial beings. Since the mid-1980s Luukanen-Kilde has developed conspiracy theories about an elite group governing the world in secret. Luukanen-Kilde is a bestselling author and draws audiences of several hundreds to her talks. Her conspiracy theory view of the world offers explanations for all kinds of personal, national, as well as global problems and disasters. Personal health problems, tragic incidents such as school shootings, economic crises and unemployment, earthquakes and floods can, according to her belief system, all be attributed to a single cause; namely to the actions of a clandestine, malevolent group. The popularity of Luukanen-Kilde’s books and lectures can be seen as an example of how people in late modernity are seeking alternative interpretations of themselves and of world events. 

scholarly journals A Sociology of Foreign Aid and the World Society

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liam Swiss
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
World Society ◽  
World Society Theory ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
New Research ◽  
Society Research

This article highlights an emerging research agenda for the study of foreign aid through a World Society theory lens. First, it briefly summarizes the social scientific literature on aid and sociologists' earlier contributions to this research. Next, it reviews the contours of world society research and the place of aid within this body of literature. Finally, it outlines three emergent threads of research on foreign aid that comprise a new research agenda for the sociology of foreign aid and its role in world society globalization.

scholarly journals Human as a phenomenon of unity of corporeal and spiritual in various-system languages (based on the material of euphemisms in the English and Buryat languages)

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-66
Author(s):  
Oyuna Tsydendambaeva ◽  
Olga Dorzheeva
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
The Body ◽  
Linguistic Expression ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common

This article is dedicated to the examination of euphemisms in the various-system languages – English and Buryat that contain view of the world by a human, and the ways of their conceptualization. Euphemisms remain insufficiently studied. Whereupon, examination of linguistic expression of the key concepts of culture is among the paramount programs of modern linguistics, need for the linguoculturological approach towards analysis of euphemisms in the languages, viewing it in light of the current sociocultural transformations, which are refer to euphemisms and values reflected by them. The subject of this research is the euphemisms in the English and Buryat languages, representing the semiosphere “corporeal and spiritual”. The scientific novelty consists in introduction of the previously unexamined euphemism in Buryat language that comprise semiosphere “corporeal and spiritual” into the scientific discourse. The analysis of language material testifies to the fact that in various cultures the topic of intimacy and sex is euphemized differently. The lexis indicating the intimate parts of the body is vividly presented in the West, while in Buryat language – rather reserved. The author also determines the common, universal, and nationally marked components elucidating the linguistic worldview of different ethnoses and cultures.

scholarly journals What Does “Education” Mean: Cultural Values in Educational Language

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-53
Author(s):  
Mark Honegger
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Cultural Perspectives ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

This article will advocate for the use of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) Theory to research cultural values in Education. It will demonstrate how NSM research can be conducted as it provides explications for the word education. NSM is a research agenda that has identified 65 semantic primes, words that are found in every language of the world and which cannot be defined in terms of any simpler words. If you try to break down a semantic prime like good, you might describe it in terms of words like “positive, pleasing, valued,” all of which turn out to be more complex than good itself. Because primes cannot be decomposed and are universal to every language and every culture, they provide a basis for carrying out cross-linguistic comparisons of meaning and for identifying the cultural perspectives that inform our language and its thought structures. More complicated words, the bulk of any language, are social constructs that are culturally laden, providing deep insights into the way a society thinks.

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