Conceptual history and conspiracy theory

Distilled down into its starkest implications, it would seemingly confront us with two options: either admit the historical variability of conspiracy theory as a phenomenon and relinquish thereby the desire to define it, or insist upon its definability and deny that the phenomenon exhibits any variability in the course of history. Jack Bratich thus adopts a meta-position that accounts for both those features that have unsettled many researchers invested in a study of conspiracy theories that aspires to be both precise and value-neutral. Bratich’s line of argument, implies that conspiracy theories, if they exist at all, only do so from the moment at which the term has emerged to designate them as such. Framing the inquiry in this manner leads to the following conclusion: in a period extending roughly from 1870 to 1970, conspiracy theory enters the conceptual vocabulary of society. A number of features of the term ‘conspiracy theory’ as it appears in the discourse deserve particular attention.