Conspiracy beliefs shape political discourse, yet their individual-level drivers remain unclear. This study examines conspiratorial predispositions through a motivational lens, arguing that belief serves psychological needs alongside ideological ones.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, attention focused on executive aggrandizement as the main democratic threat in Eastern Europe. That focus, however, risks overlooking a deeper danger: the region’s longstanding problem of state capture, which has been intensified by the spread of conspiracy theories and COVID misinformation.
New survey experiments conducted just before and after the US election revealed partisan differences in how conspiracy theories affect views. The study tested whether reading conspiratorial accounts about election interference would harm trust in democratic institutions.