Conspiracy theories have become a mainstream cultural phenomenon. This paper considers the role they play in extremist groups and counterterrorism work. It presents the first ever analysis of conspiracy theories in the ideology and propaganda of fifty extremist groups: religious, far-right and left, eco, anarchic and cult-based.

It is argued that conspiracy theories are a ‘radicalising multiplier', which feed back into the ideologies, internal dynamics and psychological processes of extremist groups in three ways. Firstly, they create demonologies of ‘the enemy’ that the group defines itself against. Secondly, they delegitimise voices of dissent and moderation. And thirdly, they encourage a group or individuals to turn to violence, because it acts as rhetorical devices to portray violence as necessary to ‘awaken’ the people from their acquiescent slumber. More broadly, conspiracy theories drive a wedge of distrust between governments and particular communities which can hinder community-level efforts to fight violent extremism.

It is, however, difficult for government to tackle conspiracies. The paper calls for government institutions to be more open, investment to enable young people to think critically and recognise propaganda, and for civil society to play a proactive role.

This paper is the first in a series of policy papers on emerging
themes in extremism and terrorism by Demos. These papers focus
on under-researched dimensions of extremism, and do not present
an exhaustive answer, but suggest new avenues of study. Future
papers include the role of women and gender in extremist
movements, and methods to de-glamorise al-Qaeda.
This paper examines the role of conspiracy theories in extremist
groups. Numerous studies have considered a variety of factors that
encourage extremism: ideology, grievance, poverty, religion, and
social networks. The role of conspiracy theories, defined as accounts
of events as the deliberate yet concealed product of a powerful few,
regardless of the evidence, has been ignored. This study is the first
attempt, as far as we are aware, to research this subject and should
be viewed as such.
We have conducted new analysis of the literature, ideology and
propaganda of over fifty extremist groups from across the spectrum:
religious, far-right and left, eco, anarchic, and cult-based. The
groups are or were active over the past 30 years, and are drawn
mainly from the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States.
We have focused primarily on extremist groups that have become
violent 1 although we have included a small number of extreme
groups that hold socially problematic views, such as those based on
racial supremacy.

Our analysis shows that conspiracy theories are widely prevalent
across this extremist spectrum, despite the vast differences in the
extremist ideologies themselves. For far right groups, the concept of
Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG) – that a small cabal of Jews
controls world governments – is central to both ideology and
propaganda. For al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups, the
conspiracy tends to be a generalised Judeo-Christian-Capitalist
quest to destroy Islam. Far left and anarchist groups propagate a
Marxist-inspired bourgeois conspiracy of ‘international financiers’,
or ‘global elites’, which they sometimes believe is leading toward a
‘New World Order’ of a unitary, totalitarian world government.

Cults, on the other hand, tend to believe in conspiracies that are
targeted against their specific group or movement. It is striking that
there is considerable overlap and fusion between many of these
conspiracies, even across groups that exist at opposite ends of the
ideological spectrum. 2
Sometimes the boundary between a well-defined conspiracy and a
general account of events and power where society develops
structures of control to favour the powerful over the weak is fuzzy.
Indeed, some conspiracy theories can in some cases have a grain of
truth to them, or be based on some facts, and then be wildly
exaggerated. Many far left groups for example believe in a Marxist
structuralist view of the world, where financiers, international
bankers, or multilateral institutions hold unaccountable, inordinate
power to maintain the status quo. Sometimes this world-view tips
into a more precise conspiracy with clear, nefarious human
intention, sometimes it stops just short. Sometimes there may even
be some grounds for such a belief. The consequences, however, are
often the same: pointing to forces beyond our control, articulating
an enemy to hate, sharply dividing the group from the non-group
and, sometimes, legitimizing violence.

I finally got to the end of the Century of the Self. It was a quite interesting documentary, although I was aware of a lot of this already, it still helped.