ABSTRACT
Most analysis of the Middle East is complicated by contention, not least of all when the subject is something like conspiracism. This is not helped by the pejorative sense with which conspiracy theories are commonly still viewed in the West, and in the Middle East as well, or by the complexities of viewing and analysing the politics of the region while sitting in the West. Not least of all, to take the approach that this book does – that conspiracism is a complex phenomenon, the result of numerous political sources – is also delicate and intricate: it involves the combination of various approaches and the negotiation of political culture analysis, which is in itself contentious,1 not least because of the risks of introducing the Orientalist reductionism that Edward Said so perceptively identified in earlier Western scholarship about the Middle East.2 It also risks disappointing anyone who seeks a single, simple explanation for conspiracism in the Arab world. There simply is not a single theoretical approach to it that provides answers that are sufficiently detailed and sophisticated to account for the prevalence and range of conspiracy theories and conspiracist actors that are to be found in the region. This chapter argues that a combination of explanations is required to
achieve any real understanding of conspiracism in the contemporary Arab world. Perhaps not surprisingly, the largest amount of theoretical material about conspiracism to be found is focused on the US. The US has a long history of conspiracy thinking and discourse, and the evolution of conspiracism from the fringes of US political discourse to a mass, popular level demonstrates not just an historical evolution towards its emergence as part of mainstream political culture, but also its power as a collective narrative and as an influence on behaviour. Concomitant with the growth of US conspiracism and its increased popularity has been an expanding academic discourse on it, and the development of explanatory frameworks that are more willing to situate and integrate it into the social sciences.3 At the same time, but especially in the past few decades, an increasing amount of attention has been paid to other parts of the world, though not a great deal on the Arab world as yet. What follows is an outline of some of the main theoretical bodies of lit-
erature on the subject. The argument found here is that simplistic or
reductionist explanations should be discounted, as they offer little in the way of answers, and usually are simply manifestations of academic laziness at best, or bias at worst. Other explanations, most developed outside the Arab world and many focused on US conspiracism, are more helpful. In this sense, while this chapter, like the book, is not a comparative study, it does draw on material from beyond the Arab world where appropriate. Despite the risks inherent in applying theories about one part of the world to another, very different region, the fact remains that there is utility and effectiveness in those explanations that stress as sources of conspiracism social dislocation or marginalization, problems in the state-society relationship, or sociological dynamics such as these within and between social forces and other sub-state groups. Entertainment also is worth noting as a source and dynamic of conspiracism. What follows is not meant to be a tour d’horizon of all the theories about conspiracy theories – even if it may appear to be bordering on that, given the amount of literature that must be covered – but rather, its aim is to make the arguments above while, in the process, familiarizing the reader with some of the main theoretical works on conspiracism. This sets the foundation for the discussion in subsequent chapters, where the applicability and utility of the arguments made in this book will be further developed.
