Conspiracy Theory and Populism

Populist movements and parties have been on the rise all over the world. Politicians who have been labelled as populists govern the world’s four largest democracies: Brazil, Indonesia, the USA and India. In Europe, too, populism is no longer restricted to the margins of politics and society. This chapter discusses the characteristics of populism and then the limited number of studies that address the relationship between the two phenomena. The loaded dichotomy between the elites and the people makes populism a particularly moralistic take on politics for which processes of othering are of central importance. The existence of a connection between populism and conspiracy theory is already suggested by the fact that the rich bodies of scholarship on both phenomena often pose and discuss similar questions. Research has highlighted that both ‘populism’ and ‘conspiracy theory’ are problematic derogatory terms that are usually rejected by those thus described.