Democracy Works10 Touko 2021

Conspiracism finds a home on the intellectual right

Chris Beem takes the interviewer's chair this week for a conversation with political theorist Laura K. Field about her recent work that examines how the conspiracism described by Nancy Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead in their book A Lot of People Are Saying has made its way to prominent conservative intellectuals and the institutions that support them. The conversation ends with ways that listeners can take conspiracy-minded arguments with the appropriate grain of salt and perhaps disconnect from politics a little in the process.

Field is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and scholar in residence at American University. She he writes about current political affairs from a vantage point informed by the history of political thought. Her academic writing spans antiquity and modernity, and has appeared in the The Journal of Politics, The Review of Politics, and Polity. She earned a Ph.D. in political theory and public law from the University of Texas at Austin.

Additional Information

The Highbrow Conspiracism of the New Intellectual Right: A Sampling From the Trump Years

Revisiting "Why Liberalism Failed:" A Five-Part Series

Laura K. Field on Twitter

The Niskanen Center's podcasts: The Science of Politics and The Vital Center

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