Conspiratorial thinking and foreign policy views: evidence from Central Europe

Abstract

Foreign policy analysts assume that conspiratorial thinking is linked to citizens’ foreign policy views and in particular to a preference among citizens for an alignment with Russia rather than the West. Empirical studies on the relationship between conspiratorial thinking and citizens’ foreign policy views are, however, lacking, despite a growing general academic interest in its origins and consequences . Our analysis breaks new ground by empirically evaluating the relationship between conspiratorial thinking and foreign policy preferences based on ISSP survey data for Slovakia. We find that conspiratorial thinking decreases the extent to which citizens prefer their country to be aligned with the West. The effect of conspiratorial thinking is substantively meaningful and on par with other predictors of foreign policy views.