ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the functions and specificities of conspiracy thinking in East Central Europe and what role they play in shaping political systems, what their ideological features are, and how they add to political instability in the region. It is argued that paranoid style is becoming mainstream all over the Western world – but East Central Europe is a contemporary champion of this tendency, as conspiracy theories in countries like Hungary, Poland, and Romania are not only marginal explanations for the social-political world, but inherent parts of its political systems. They serve multiple purposes such as mobilizing against the ones in power, but also stabilizing the positions of the ruling elites via scapegoating the “enemies of the people” as well as initiating changes in the democratic institutional system and adding to systemic instability.
