When Democracies Disappoint: A Cross-National Quantitative Study Investigating the Impact of Democratic Quality on Political Conspiracy Beliefs and the Role of External Political Efficacy in This Relationship

Sammanfattning

The rise of the internet, social media, and populist leaders in recent years has turned attention towards conspiracy theories, making them appear as phenomena which are becoming increasingly widespread. Although conspiracy beliefs have not necessarily increased over time, their growing visibility has emphasized the negative consequences associated with belief in them, such as heightened political violence. These dangerous consequences necessitate a thorough understanding of their causes, so that more effective solutions can be created to address them. While past research has focused extensively on the individual-level causes of all conspiracy beliefs, asserting that they are responses to unmet psychological needs, structural-level causes, particularly the effect of democratic quality on topic-specific conspiracy beliefs, have been overlooked. Therefore, drawing on an adapted version of Compensatory Control Theory (CCT) alongside political and democratic concepts, this study investigates how democratic quality impacts political conspiracy beliefs, and whether this effect operates through individual perceptions of external political efficacy. To answer these questions, this study uses multiple linear regression and a mediation analysis on individual-level survey data from six democracies, analyzing responses from the 2023 Comparative Conspiracy Research Survey (CCRS) in combination with democratic quality scores from the Varieties of Democracy (VDEM) dataset. The results of the analysis indicate that low democratic quality is one of the strongest factors associated with political conspiracy belief, and that this relationship can be partially explained by low feelings of external political efficacy. These findings suggest that the causes of conspiracy beliefs are topic-specific and arise from many levels. With this understanding, more targeted and effective solutions can be developed.