Conference Agenda

This study delves into the complex and increasingly relevant relationship between populism and conspiracy theories, phenomena that have markedly influenced modern socio-political dialogue. While they are individually distinct, their intersections weave intricate narratives within the fabric of political and social spheres, particularly accentuated in the era of digital information. The existing literature, though extensive, often overlooks the subtle and multifaceted dynamics of their interaction.

Populism, with its foundational rhetoric of representing 'the common people' against 'the elites,' frequently intersects with conspiracy theories, which promote narratives of covert control by powerful factions. Although they operate distinctly within the political milieu, their convergence creates unique phenomena warranting deeper investigation.

This research utilizes Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and data from the European Social Survey to explore how individuals perceive and interact with populist and conspiracy theory narratives. By examining these perceptions, the study aims to untangle and illuminate the complex attitudes shaping this interplay.

Conspiracy beliefs are increasingly prevalent in public discourse, with the associated societal disinformation posing major challenges for contemporary democracies. Right-wing populism and correlated attitudes have been argued to predict a conspiracy mentality. Particularly, a Manichean outlook that divides the world between the corrupt elites and the virtuous people is associated with dismissing official or institutional accounts of events. In fact, right-wing populist leaders worldwide have been garnering support by questioning their political system´s trustworthiness and transparency. Furthermore, these right-wing populist leaders and their parties, who defend a nativist interpretation of social identity based on religious, ethnic and racial grounds and reject globalization and its institutions - are rising in Europe, as demonstrated by recent polls and electoral contests. And yet, analysis of high-quality data that can shed light on the relationship between populist attitudes at the public level and conspiracy beliefs is a rarity, especially beyond the dominantly studied US case.

In this paper we examine whether attitudes associated with right-wing populism - support for majoritarian forms of democracy; opposition to protecting minority rights; and support for authoritarian leaders - help predict belief in three different types of conspiracies: general conspiracy ideation, science conspiracy ideation and Covid-19 conspiracies. To do this, we analyze data from 30 countries in the 2020-2022 European Social Survey data. The variety of democratic quality, political trust, economic prosperity and the success of populist parties in these countries enables us to take into account important contextual variations with the results having important theoretical and policy implications.

Vaccine hesitancy, defined as the refusal to receive a vaccine despite its availability, represents a significant obstacle in maintaining optical public health. Research has associated the contemporary rise in vaccine hesitancy with the spread of misinformation in social media, although the contours of this relationship may be different across national contexts. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study, I revisit the relationship among conspiracy beliefs, lack of trust in institutions, populist narratives of "corrupt elites", and vaccine hesitancy. In particular, the data from Round 10 of the European Social Survey and its COVID-19 module allow for further specification of the statistical relationships using a variety of demographic and attitudinal variables as controls, moderator, and mediator variables, and for exploring the cross-national variation using contextual factors.

The rapid global dissemination of the COVID-19 virus led to a surge in conspiracy theories (CTs) and misinformation, creating challenges for public health efforts. This research, based on the newest European Social Survey (ESS10) data from 26 countries (September 2020 – September 2022), delves into the intricate dynamics of individuals' belief in COVID-19-related CTs, considering education, religiosity, trust in scientists, and political orientation at the individual level, and vaccination rates as well as Cumulative excess deaths as country-level contextual covariates.

To recognise the hierarchical structure of ESS10 data (with respondents nested within countries) and to test the effects of all explanatory variables, demographics, and the relationship between contextual country-level data and the aggregate values of the outcome variable (i.e., the overall fraction of respondents believing in CTs), we implemented multilevel logistic regressions (assuming random intercepts between countries). In addition, to check whether the observed effects of education, religiosity, trust in scientists, and political orientation are robust on the model specification and do not depend on the specificity of the multilevel approach, we implemented four by-country regressions (separately for each covariate) on 26 different subsets from each country.

Our results highlight a notable variation in CT support across Europe, with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Balkans exhibiting elevated levels of belief in CTs. Historical and socio-cultural factors, such as diminished confidence in governmental bodies, contribute to the fertile ground for conspiracy narratives in these regions.

In addition, we found that religiosity weakens and trust in scientists strengthens the effect of education, while the impact of political orientation is not straightforward. The result also demonstrates a significant negative correlation between the aggregate country-level data of the respondents supporting CTs and the level of vaccination and cumulative excess deaths in Europe. We concluded with a recommendation for health policy that effective public health strategies and campaigns are insufficient when based solely on people's education, as individuals' beliefs moderate the effect of education.

Herd behavior, or information cascade, is an important phenomenon in many areas of economics, e.g. investments or immigration decisions. Less investigated is herd behavior in the context of deciding whether to vaccinate against COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly around the world, causing almost 7 million deaths and substantial economic losses. The deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine has altered the course of the pandemic, saving tens of millions of lives around the world. This paper investigates the effect of herd behavior on the willingness to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and contributes to the literature in three ways. First, our data were collected when vaccinations were already available, whereas in previous research individuals were required to imagine that a vaccine against COVID-19 was available for anyone who wanted it, as well as to assume what the other individuals’ behavior would be. Making a decision when the vaccine is actually available, and when one sees that others, and how many others, are getting the vaccine may yield different results than when the decision is based on hypothetical assumptions. Second, this study is based on rich data from 20 countries, whereas other studies were based on one country or on a limited sample. Third, our data were collected over a year and a half, thus covering a wide range of shares of vaccinated individuals in a population, and enabling us to explore the impact of herd behavior at different levels of vaccination.

We make use of the 2021/2022 wave of the European Social Survey combined with data from the organization Our World in Data and measure the herd variable as the change in the share of the vaccinated population in the week preceding the respondent’s interview. Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, health status, COVID-19 illness history, and pandemic-related features, the results show that the information cascade significantly increases vaccination intentions. This suggests that the decision on whether to vaccinate is affected by the behavior of others. Moreover, we find a U-shaped association between the herd effect and the share of the population that is vaccinated; in the beginning, the information cascade significantly increases the willingness to get vaccinated. As the share of vaccinated people increases, the positive effect is reduced, possibly because the individual is getting used to seeing vaccinated people around him or her, so it is less effective. When the share of the vaccinated population is high enough, the effect of the herd increases back to the original level, perhaps because of social norms- people feel obliged to vaccinate when almost everyone is vaccinated. Finally, we find that the herd effect on the vaccination decisions of young people, people in poor health, and immigrants is higher than for others.

The results are strengthened by several robustness checks, in which we consider alternative durations of time for the herd variable, shift its measurement, consider various levels of the share of the vaccinated population, and limit the investigated period.