Social movement theory and right-wing conspiracism
Steven L. Gardiner · 2021
Chip Berlet’s work on conspiracism has bridged the gap between academic researchers and fight-the-Right analysts and organizers. This article revisits Berlet’s “Three Models for Analyzing Conspiracist Mass Movements of the Right,” originally presented at a 1995 conference sponsored by the Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment. While his later work on far-right uses of conspiracy narratives is more developed and nuanced, this early article grapples with the various ways scholars and pundits had to that point tried to talk about them. Much of his article critiques countersubversion theory and pluralist/extremist theory, both of which tend to presume the moral order and logical coherence of status quo institutions and to equate beliefs falling outside of the “mainstream” umbrella as inherently dubious. Berlet, however, spends relatively little time addressing the ways analysts might use social movement theory, of which he approves, to understand conspiracism as a social and political phenomenon. In this article, I revisit Berlet’s early pointers to social movement theory in an attempt to highlight, in a very tentative way, how we might use such theory to understand and oppose conspiracy politics, not by convincing conspiracists they are wrong, but by providing alternatives to those who might find conspiracism attractive.