Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
The American historian Richard Hofstadter intended his still-influential essay on the “Paranoid Style in American Politics,” which initiated the modern study of conspiracy theories, as a response to the mid-1950s rise of right-wing populism in the US. Reflecting on the lessons we can learn from the insights and weaknesses of Hofstadter’s timely intervention into contemporary politics, as well as the author’s three decades studying conspiracy theories, the chapter asks how current academic work, which takes place within and responds to another rise in rightwing populism, should understand and intervene in the present and prepare for the future.
Recommended Citation
Mark Fenster, Studying Conspiracy Theory after the (Current) Rise of Right-Wing Populism, in Populism and Conspiracy Theory, 344-358 (Michael Butter, Katerina Hatzikidi, Constanze Jeitler, Giacomo Loperfido, & Lili Turza eds., 2024)