Conspiracy thinking and place-based consciousness

Abstract

Conspiracy beliefs are increasingly associated with various crises of democracy. While social scientists have mainly treated the topic with an eye to asymmetries in conspiracy support across the political spectrum, ideological explanations of conspiracy endorsement have lately come to be questioned. In response, we turn to the societal conflicts that underlie conspiracy theories’ threat to democracy and social cohesion. Focusing on a re-emerging division in society-the rural-urban divide-we identify overlap in the factors that promote both rural-urban intergroup conflict and conspiracy thinking. Against this background, we theorize systematic differences in conspiracism between rural and urban dwellers along growing levels of place-based attachments and grievances. To study our conjecture, we rely on original survey data from five European countries and conduct descriptive and moderation analyses. Findings suggest that ruralites are more receptive to conspiracy theories than urbanites and even outpace the latter in levels of conspiracy thinking as place-based grievances escalate. We discuss implications for the health of democracy.