Russia, America, and the Conspiratorial Worldview

Stephen Norris, origins.osu.edu

Boris Efimov image from article

Excerpt:

Conspiracy theories have proliferated in both the United States and Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In Russia, they even form part of the Kremlin’s public diplomacy. Russian media depicted the election protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg (and throughout the country) in December 2011 as the product of a Western plan to undermine Russia. The 2012 Pussy Riot scandal revealed a “conspiring subversive minority.” And the press described the 2014 Euromaidan Revolution in Ukraine as a CIA plot.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismisses stories that his government has engaged in conspiratorial activities to alter elections. Yet he does so while he has also criticized the United States for conspiratorial activities in the former Soviet world. This view that Russia has faced conspiracies designed to weaken the Russian nation since 1991 has moved from the margins to the mainstream in Russia over the past two decades. ...