Conspiracy theory is a belief in malevolent or hostile forces, persons or groups affecting public or private conditions or events. It largely assumes that what are observable actors or facts are not the real reasons for a phenomenon, but there are invisible elements or persons that are the drivers of a situation, known primarily to those propounding a theory.

Pakistan has a long history of conspiracy theories forming a part of the public discourse and individuals’ thinking. It has paid a heavy price for relying on conspiracy ideas for national policymaking and administration. I will come back to the discussion of Pakistan’s situation, but immediately l want to bring up the research findings about who and why people believe in conspiracy theories.

Some societies are more prone than others to conspiracy modes of thinking. Societies where beliefs in magic, voodoo, the evil-eye and miraculous happenings are widely held, conspiratorial explanations find a fertile ground. Similarly, authoritarianism and ideological conformity of both the right and left increases susceptibility to conspiracy theories. Freedom of expression and access to facts help reduce such proclivities in individuals as well as groups.

The research on the personality dispositions of believers in conspiracies is largely focussed on questions of psychological characteristics of individuals. Andreas Goreis and Martin Voracek of the University of Vienna (2019) have carried out a meta-analysis of 96 psychological studies to find common personality traits of those tending to believe conspiracy explanations. Their findings suggest that fear and anxiety as well as low feeling of control over situations show up as predictors of conspiracy beliefs.

The visible constitutional institutions are layered with invisible, but widely known, military and administrative power structures. It is not a wonder that often Pakistanis ask for ‘inside news’.

Among the social and political factors, cynicism and negative attitudes toward authority standout as contributors to conspiracy theories. Feeling disconnected from society stand out in their findings as an overarching factor in endorsing conspiracy beliefs, though they identified other reasons also.

A March 2019 article in Scientific American headlines that conspiracy theories share a cluster of psychological features. Drawing on a number of surveys as well as experimental studies, it estimates that almost a quarter of the American population tend to believe that conspiracies underlie many events. The article points out that stress, anxiety and alienation promote conspiracy ideation. The irony is that conspiracy theories increase rather than explain away the sense of powerlessness. False conspiracy theories are shown by experimental studies to be internally contradictory, based........

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