Ep. 1 - Distrust, democracy, and conspiracy politics – with Alfred Moore

In this first episode, I speak with Dr Alfred Moore (Senior Lecturer, University of York), about his idea of ‘conspiracy politics’, and how it can help us to understand the use of conspiracy narratives by politicians. We also talk about why distrust is a necessary (but often volatile) part of democracy, and the complicated influence of Richard Hofstadter on research on conspiracism.

Dr Alfred Moore is a political theorist from the University of York, whose research covers topics including expertise and democracy, deliberative democracy – and of course, the politics of conspiracy theories. He is the author of the 2017 book, Critical Elitism: Deliberation, Democracy, and the Politics of Expertise, and previously worked at Cambridge University, where he was part of the Leverhulme Trust project ‘Conspiracy and Democracy’.

The views expressed in this series are solely those of the presenter or guest and do not reflect the opinions of WISERD or Cardiff University.

 

For Alfred's chapter on this topic, see: On the Democratic Problem of Conspiracy Politics | Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them | Oxford Academic (oup.com)