Conference Program

Since the mid-twentieth century, conspiracism has been predominantly interpreted within the social sciences through pathologizing paradigms, which have tended to frame it in implicitly or explicitly negative terms. From the early 2000s onward, several scholars have begun to challenge these approaches, drawing attention to their potential political weaponization and questioning the axiological neutrality of literature. Nevertheless, systematic reflection on these underlying assumptions remains limited and fragmented, potentially contributing to the reproduction of misinterpretations in subsequent research.

This study aims to provide a historical and comparative analysis of the social scientific literature on conspiracism to assess whether, and to what extent, the phenomenon has been shaped by pre-existing axiological orientations that have constrained its analytical understanding. This has limited the possibility of scholars proposing critical instruments aimed at recognizing conspiracy thinking as an inter-partitical tool for gaining electoral consent in politics.

The guiding hypothesis is that a substantial portion of literature has constructed ideal-typical models of conspiracism based on non-essential characteristics of the phenomenon, selectively emphasized through value judgments antecedent to empirical observation. This process may have contributed to the crystallization of predominantly negative paradigms and to their systematic association with other similarly stereotyped phenomena, such as populism. Our primary goal is to reconstruct the main interpretive paradigms that have emerged since the publication of “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (Hofstadter, 1965), a proper milestone of the above-mentioned negative approach to conspiracism in social science. More specifically, we aim to identify their theoretical, disciplinary, and geographical foundations, and (if any) the consequent presence and persistence of evaluative biases in literature.

Methodologically, the study adopts a quantitative approach based on a bibliometric analysis of papers in English and Italian produced in Europe and the United States. Using Bibliometrix, co-word and co-citation analyses will be conducted on datasets extracted from social science databases to identify recurring conceptual associations and dominant interpretative frameworks, as well as the most influential epistemic communities, references, and schools of thought. Further articulation of the analysis on a longitudinal and geographical basis, through the organisation of data into time intervals and geographical areas, will capture the phases of research development and conceptual evolution over time, identify regional clusters, and enable systematic comparison between regional normative and interpretative orientations.

The expected outcomes include the identification of recurring theoretical approaches and evaluative elements that can be interpreted as structural biases. The study introduces analytical frameworks designed to provide guidance and critical tools for analysing bibliographic production, to strengthen critical thinking and to foster an impartial, contextualized understanding of the use of conspiracy theories, since their deployment has significant implications for the quality of democracy and participation. By seeking to identify hypothetical value-based and epistemic biases, this study could make an important contribution to media literacy, promoting a critical view of the value-based categorization of certain social phenomena and how this is legitimized and disseminated through legacy and digital media.