Author: Violette Mens

The recent academic conference held in Tallinn from September 25 to 27, 2024, brought together scholars to discuss the intricate interplay between populism, conspiracy theories, and the ongoing war against Ukraine. This gathering was part of PACT´s (Populism and Conspiracy Theory), last transfer conference and not only shed light on the rising prominence of conspiracy theories in contemporary politics but also examined their implications within democratic frameworks. While not directly linked to my own research topic, these discussions sparked valuable and modern questions, easily translatable to any field of contemporary research. Below is a summary of a few key discussions and findings from the event.

On the first day, Scott Radnitz opened the conference with a thought-provoking presentation titled “The Mainstreaming of Conspiracy.” He argued that while belief in conspiracy theories may not be increasing, their normalization within political discourse is evident. Candidates, parties, and movements now feel comfortable endorsing these theories, often using them as tools for transgression, authenticity, and to shape political identity.

Radnitz posited that conspiracy theories serve more as reflections of societal critiques than as factual assertions. Politicians like Trump and Putin exemplify this phenomenon, as they harness conspiratorial rhetoric to resonate with voters’ frustrations. However, he cautioned that while conspiracy theories may gain traction, they can alienate certain voter segments, illustrating the complexity of their appeal in various contexts, such as Kyrgyzstan and pre-invasion Ukraine.

In the following panel, chaired by Massimo Leone, scholars explored the symbolic links between populism and conspiracy theories. Giacomo Loperfido examined the Italian 5 Stars Movement, revealing its evolution from an informal collective against established parties to a more structured entity. This transformation illustrates how populist movements can both embrace and expel radical ideas as they seek legitimacy.

Simona Stano analyzed how figures such as Bill Gates have become scapegoats within conspiracy narratives, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The intertwining of conspiracy theories with social media, celebrity endorsements, and memes demonstrates how certain narratives take root in public consciousness, creating powerful archetypes of ‘elite’ villains.

Itai Siegel‘s research into the Netherlands highlighted the struggles of democratic actors confronting conspiracy rhetoric. Through interviews with civil servants, he found that responses varied significantly, revealing a duality in approach: some aimed to understand the underlying motivations of conspiracy believers, while others adopted a more rigid stance, viewing conspiracy theories as extremist threats. This illustrates the challenge democracies face in addressing conspiratorial thinking without undermining democratic principles.

As discussions continued, the focus shifted to the impact of propaganda on polarization. The second panel examined how conspiracy theories act as multimodal drivers of division within societies. A collaborative study by researchers from the University of Amsterdam explored how Russian disinformation has been appropriated by Dutch conspiracy communities, revealing a complex interplay of literal and cultural translations of propaganda.

In this panel, I had the opportunity to hear my colleague Heidi Piva‘s presentation on radicalization processes in European Telegram groups, on which she wrote an interesting blog post.

On the second day, the focus shifted to the relationship between populism, denialism, and trust in democratic institutions. Research by Susana Salgado and colleagues revealed that supporters of populism are more likely to express distrust in political systems and exhibit belief in conspiracy theories. This connection raises questions about the future of democracy in contexts where distrust and conspiracy thinking become normative.

Massimo Leone’s innovative discourse on “stochastic populism” compared the nature of timekeeping to knowledge creation, emphasizing the need for constant calibration in understanding truth and reality. His insights on the role of technology, particularly AI, in amplifying electoral noise added a contemporary layer to discussions on trust and governance.

The final panels explored the ramifications of conspiracy theories within the context of the Russian war against Ukraine. Scholars such as Andreas Ventsel and Daria Khlevnyuk discussed how historical narratives and conspiracy thinking have shaped Russian nationalist rhetoric surrounding the conflict. They illustrated the strategic use of conspiracy theories to justify aggressive actions and frame the conflict within a broader historical context.

Oksana Belova-Dalton and Anastasiya Astapova examined the dynamics of conspiracy theories among Russian-speaking communities in Estonia, highlighting how the war has exacerbated existing divisions and fostered a climate of mistrust.

To conclude, the Tallinn conference illuminated the profound effects of conspiracy theories on contemporary politics, particularly in the context of populism and conflict. As conspiratorial thinking becomes more mainstream, it poses significant challenges for democratic societies striving to maintain integrity and trust. Understanding the narratives that shape public perception will be crucial in addressing the complex relationship between politics, identity, and belief systems in an increasingly polarized world. 

While the discussion rang the end note of the PACT project, it´s food for thought will long outlive it as it served as a critical and nuanced reminder of the need for vigilance in protecting democratic values against the tide of conspiracy-driven rhetoric. As scholars and practitioners continue to analyze these dynamics, the implications for the future of democracy remain ever more pressing.

During his inaugural speech for the chair of “Moral questions and political challenges in contemporary societies” at the College de France, on the 30^th of March 2023, Didier Fassin offered a reflection on the place of social sciences in times of crisis^[1]. This seemed of high interest as radicalization constitutes one of the current readings of the situation as “crisis”. I will try to summarize his speech here while drawing some parallels with the questions of the field of radicalization studies. 

Didier Fassin is a doctor of medicine, but also of sociology and anthropology. He is now a member of the College de France, but he has worked in Hong Kong and Princeton, more specifically on crises and public health, which allowed him to become the first social scientist to receive the Nomis Distinguished Scientist Award. More generally, his entire career has revolved around a political, scientific and moral commitment to highlighting inequalities, whether in access to health, education or freedom. 

This book focuses on the theme of ‘crisis’, a commonly used word that needs further analysis. As he notes, ‘historians, anthropologists or sociologists don’t ask how things should be, but how they actually are’ (p.9). Fassin begins by comparing the lives of two French thinkers, Claude Levi-Strauss and Marc Bloch, both Jews who lived during the Second World War. The former chose to go to the United States, where he concentrated on his study of kinship structures and eventually became famous, while the latter joined the French Resistance and was tortured and shot by the Gestapo in 1944. Both wrote about the war, but one after the events and the other during them. 

These two examples illustrate the variety of situations that social scientists encounter “at the moment of danger” (p.18). For Fassin, they show how personal and professional trajectories are strongly influenced by choices, dispositions, contexts and circumstances. He argues that even if the current context is less dramatic than that experienced by Bloch and Strauss, we are currently living in a time of multiple crises, should they be climatic, democratic, of global governance or international relations. 

Returning to Anatole Bailly’s definition, he notes that the word “krísis” in Greek refers to “the act of distinguishing, of separating, and the act of deciding, of judging” (p.20), thus combining an analytical and a normative sense. He speaks of a “critical phase” that requires a “critical evaluation”. For him, there is an important link between the words “crisis” and “critic”, both coming from the same origin and one requiring the other. This is very important for the social sciences, since the designation of a “crisis” “tends to suspend or even disqualify the critical sense, in the name of the need to intervene without delay” (p.21). As an example, it is possible to come back to the last attacks in Europe, should they be “islamist” or from the far-right. As said by Emmanuel Valls, French prime minister in 2016, after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, “To explain is to try to excuse a little”^[2]. 

Back to a more theoretical debate, according to Fassin, both Koselleck and Foucault see, in their own way, the signature of (western) modernity in the crisis. However, he claims that they both offer an ethnocentric vision of the concept of “crisis”, which invisibilizes non-occidental and minority populations (racialised, gendered…) and the fact that the Western critique is strongly linked to colonial and imperial expansion. Even today, Fassin notes, Western societies and the “white elite” still seem to be the only ones able to “claim a true radicalism of thought” (p.23). He shows how, in the vein of Edouard Said, even the criticism of colonialism and oppression remains the privilege of the “privileged”. 

For the author, this reality creates a huge aporia in the thought on crises, amputating to a large extent even the social sciences, and especially the French ones, of the valuable insights of women, minorities and non-Western populations. For him, W.E.B. Du Bois’s question “What does it feel like to be a problem?” is more relevant than ever in understanding the experience of black and Muslim minorities in Europe. Regarding radicalization studies, this question could also be an interesting starting point to a discussion on causal explanations of the phenomenon.  

Returning to our main topic, Fassin quotes Habermas, who states that a crisis always contains an objective and a subjective component. He explains: “It is not enough for society to have a problem; it must also be understood as such […] What we call ‘crisis’ is always a social construct. Whether it is based on facts or not, it needs agents to legitimise it”. (p.26-29). 

Here, Fassin takes the example of the 2015 migration crisis, which saw one million asylum seekers arrive in Europe and Austral Africa. While the former was highly publicised and considered “dramatic”, the latter went completely unnoticed. Similarly, the US incarceration crisis, which saw millions of young black men imprisoned, was only criticized when white men started to get affected.  

These two examples allow the author to show that, in general, “countries in the South rarely have the authority to impose their own crisis discourse, which can only legitimately come from countries in the North” (p.30).

For the social sciences, therefore, a critique of the crisis consists in highlighting “the abusive use of authority to declare crises without objective reality” (p.31) and “identifying these deprivations of authority that lead to critical situations not being recognized” (p.31).

Indeed, the identification of a situation as a “crisis” is never neutral; it has effects, such as the tightening of border controls for the migration crisis and the normalization of the mistreatment of refugees. It is therefore important for researchers to analyze what the recognition or denial of crises allows or, on the contrary, what it hides. What are the logics of power at work, the strategies used by those in power to impose their vocabulary and interpretations, the tactics deployed by those without a voice to try and resist?

In fact, a “language of crisis” (p.32) is regularly encountered, tending to create affectivity, often fear or empathy, and a temporality of urgency. This urgency produces a consensus around decisionism, which “justifies bypassing the usual legislative, judicial or administrative procedures” (p.33). This is also what seems to be happening in numerous countries where the crisis discourse around radicalization justifies exceptional and sometimes anti-democratic means.

This is where the social sciences have a role to play, as “Naming the crisis, often creates the risk of denying ourselves the opportunity to think it” (p.33), especially as a crisis can often hide another one. 

For example, the 2020 covid crisis revealed the “unequal values of life” in the sense that it focused on the importance of defending human life, often overlooking those of prisoners or exiles. Likewise, the American “war on terror” completely hide the link between the attacks and previous American actions in the Middle East.

However, that doesn´t mean that the researcher’s positionality is easy. Indeed, they may be called upon by authorities and organizations to provide their expertise, while at the same time wanting to expose problems that are sometimes linked to these same institutions. For Fassin, “the dividing lines between these different positions and nuances are much more blurred than we thought we could define on the basis of a superficial reading of Max Weber’s supposed ‘axiological neutrality'” (p.35). 

 For the author, it is now central to reflect on the impact of the “public life of the social sciences” (p.39), where academics are called upon to comment on events, participate in commissions, advise institutions…. 

This is all the more true as public statements can have direct consequences for the researcher. Fassin recalls the criticism by French and American politicians of some researchers’ findings in recent years, but also, more sadly, the imprisonment and murder of researchers by authoritarian regimes. There is a high risk, he argues, that academics will self-censor or at least avoid sensitive topics. 

Fassin concludes by saying that “moral questions” are always linked to “political challenges” and that it is now time for the researcher to plunge into them, “without being swallowed in the ocean of opinions, nor blinded by the shock of events” (p.44), as written by Claude Lefort.

For our topic, this book seems full of lessons and perspectives, evoking both the political strategies linked to the description of an event as a “crisis” and the importance of the researcher’s positionality. It urges us to remain vigilant, especially about what seems to be “ a given”.   

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^[1] Fassin, D., 2023, Sciences sociales par temps de crise, Editions du Collège de France.

^[2]  https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/la-revue-de-presse/expliquer-c-est-excuser-4707811

On 22 March 2024, the Islamic State of Khorassan, linked to the former Syrian state, carried out a bombing at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow. The attack killed almost 150 people and injured 300^[1]. In the following days, France announced its decision to raise the level of the emergency plan to “bombing urgency”, the highest level, only two months after it was first downgraded to level 2, “increased security – risk of attack”, since the 2015 attacks^[2] in the Bataclan concert hall.

According to French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, “the Islamist terrorist threat is real, it is strong” and “it has never diminished”. It is therefore surprising that the level of urgency was lowered in January. It is also puzzling that it was raised again after the events in Moscow. 

Considering that the Islamic State of Khorassan has been getting stronger since the Taliban came to power in 2021, and that other geopolitical events could also have triggered a French response, such as the increase in tensions in Israel/Palestine or the problems in sub-Saharan Africa, why was the level of the antiterrorism plan raised specifically in the wake of the Moscow attacks? 

Rather than directly answering this question, which is a matter of internal politics, we will show how the similarities between the French Bataclan attack and the Moscow one have been used to justify an increase in security measures, increase that seems to be getting more common, regardless of human right violations.

To provide some historical and legal context, the three emergency levels are part of the Vigipirate plan^[3] which was created in 1991 after the Gulf War and was used regularly until the London bombings of July 2005, where it remained at the “red” level until the colour code was abandoned in 2014.

The plan is to be used when the State has serious reasons to believe that an attack could take place in the near future. It applies to a wide range of sectors, including public gatherings, cyber security, transport, health, and even the food chain. While the lowest level implies a “permanent state of security” for all national actors^[4], including citizens, the higher levels allow the closure of roads and the suspension of public transport. 

After the 2015 Bataclan attacks, this plan was used extensively, especially in conjunction with the “state of emergency”. Created during the Algerian war, it allows prefects to prohibit the movement of people or vehicles in certain places and to refuse entry to anyone who might pose a “threat to security and public order”. The government can dissolve associations and the minister of internal affairs can place anyone who might be considered a threat under house arrest. Following the 2016 attacks, there was an increase in the number of measures taken, with 2,000 house raids between 14 and 30 November 2016, and 150 house arrests in the first week and 300 by 1 December 2016^[5].

Given this, it is surprising that of the 670 house searches that resulted in administrative proceedings, only 25 revealed acts that could be considered terrorist in nature. This situation, added to the long and extensive use of the Vigipirate plan, has raised concerns, especially at the international level, about the legality and the risk posed by these measures. 

For example, in 2017, Amnesty International^[6] called for an end to the “state of emergency”, stating that it had “led to a series of human rights violations” and had produced “very few tangible results”. There has also been growing criticism in the international media following the reinforcement of the Vigipirate plan in 2020, with concerns about increased police violence and fears of corruption and the deployment of military forces in the country.    

While Gabriel Attal claimed in front of the National Assembly that “we have to prepare for every scenario, we have to exclude none. We must be everywhere, all the time”^[7], we can still question the extensive use of counter-terrorism measures by French policymakers and their more or less direct link to a real and clear terrorist threat. 

Indeed, as Ní Aolain^[8] writes, “it is generally accepted that certain terrorist acts and the actions of terrorist organisations can create the necessary and sufficient conditions to reach a threshold likely to trigger a state of emergency” (Ní Aolain, 2018). However, the lack of a clear definition of terrorism added to the legal practice of many states tends to standardise “the use of exceptional national security or emergency measures to combat terrorism” (Ní Aolain, 2018). This leads her to speak of “de facto” or “secret” emergency practices and situations in which “exceptional” measures are slowly institutionalised and thus become “normal”. 

Ní Aolain claims that “the notion of a permanent state of emergency seems to be better accepted by the public, thus enabling the authorities […] to adopt repressive measures” (Ní Aolain, 2018). Looking more closely at the case of France, the author explains that the “state of emergency” ended in November 2017, but the adoption of the “law to strengthen internal security and the fight against terrorism” a month earlier could be understood as a kind of normalisation of the state of exception.

While the European Convention on Human Rights claims that exceptional measures restricting liberty can be taken in “times of war and other dangers threatening the life of the nation”, we have to keep in mind Peoples’s observation that “states can be the biggest threat to the liberty, human rights, and lives of their citizens” (Peoples, 2010)^[9]. 

Lindekilde^[10] also speaks of “state radicalisation”, where a state slowly descends into increasingly repressive measures, which might make sense in the case of France. However, this scenario is not exclusive to France – as Peoples explains, since 9/11 “the ‘normal’ state of affairs in the US has become one where the ‘significant risk of terrorist attacks’ is permanent” (Peoples, 2010). This culture of fear, which can also be found in Europe, leads to a “climate of suspicion”, especially towards certain social groups (Mavelli, 2016). 

As a result, “security has become increasingly synonymous with surveillance and control, rather than maintaining human rights and the rule of law” (Peoples, 2010). Mavelli^[11] therefore concludes that “the outcome has been not governing despite terrorism, but ‘governing through terrorism’” (Mavelli, 2016). For the author, the impossibility of reducing the risk of attack to zero has led politicians to implement a form of “precautionary risk management” based more on imagination than on scientific knowledge per se.

In conclusion, we can infer that France’s swift response to the Russian attacks in March 2024 is not just a normal geopolitical event. Rather, by bringing closer the Moscow bombing and the 2015 Bataclan attack, it uses the classical security repertoire of democratic states, with the calling for a state of emergency. However, democracies can´t maintain this state for long as it could create a popular rebellion. Therefore, French politicians seem to have constructed, in the past ten years, a new legal system with an increased attention to security issues, sometimes questioning the freedom and human rights of its population.

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^[1] https://www.iris-france.org/184925-attentat-a-moscou-la-russie-face-au-terrorisme-islamiste/

^[2] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/russie/attaque-terroriste-pres-de-moscou/direct-deux-jours-apres-l-attentat-terroriste-pres-de-moscou-une-journee-de-deuil-national-en-russie_6444061.html

^[3] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Vigipirate

^[4] https://www.somme.gouv.fr/Actualites/VIGIPIRATE-Urgence-attentat#:~:text=Le%20niveau%20urgence%20attentat%20peut,de%20la%20gestion%20de%20crise

^[5] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89tat_d%27urgence_en_France

^[6] Amnesty International, Dangerously Disproportionate: The Ever Expanding Security State in Europe, 2017.

^[7] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/faits-divers/terrorisme/terrorisme-apres-l-attaque-a-moscou-faut-il-craindre-la-resurgence-en-france-d-un-risque-d-attentat-prepare-depuis-l-etranger_6450646.html

^[8]Ní Aolain, F., 2018, « L’exercice contemporain des pouvoirs d’urgence : réflexions sur la permanence, la non-permanence et les ordres juridiques administratifs », Cultures & Conflits, vol. 112, no. 4, pp. 15-34.

^[9]Peoples, C., Vaughan-Williams, N., 2010, Critical Security Studies. An introduction, Routledge.

^[10]Lindekilde, L., 2016, “Radicalization, de-radicalization, and counter-radicalization”, in Jackson, Routledge Handbook of Critical Terrorism Studies, Routledge.

^[11]Mavelli, L., 2016, “The governmentality of terrorism: uncertainty, risk management, and surveillance”, in Jackson, Routledge Handbook of Critical Terrorism Studies, Routledge.