IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/fsesxx/v22y2017i3p327-344.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Believing in Conspiracy Theories: Evidence from an Exploratory Analysis of Italian Survey Data

Author

Listed:
  • Moreno Mancosu
  • Salvatore Vassallo
  • Cristiano Vezzoni

Abstract

Beliefs in conspiracy theories have attracted significant international media attention in recent years. This phenomenon has been studied in the US but while anecdotal evidence suggests it is also widespread among the Italian public, little evidence has been collected to assess it empirically. Using data from a 2016 survey, this pioneering study of the Italian case investigates the extent of diffusion of conspiracy theories among Italians and tests several hypotheses concerning individual determinants. The paper finds that conspiracism is indeed widely diffused in Italy. It is negatively associated with education and positively with religiosity, while no correlation is found with political trust. Beliefs in conspiracies are also related to rightwing orientation and support for the populist Five Star Movement.

Suggested Citation

  • Moreno Mancosu & Salvatore Vassallo & Cristiano Vezzoni, 2017. "Believing in Conspiracy Theories: Evidence from an Exploratory Analysis of Italian Survey Data," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 327-344, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:fsesxx:v:22:y:2017:i:3:p:327-344
    DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2017.1359894
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13608746.2017.1359894
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13608746.2017.1359894?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Riccardo Ladini & Nicola Maggini, 2023. "The role of party preferences in explaining acceptance of freedom restrictions in a pandemic context: the Italian case," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 99-123, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:fsesxx:v:22:y:2017:i:3:p:327-344. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/fses .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.