According to the survey YouGov-Cambridge Globalism ProjectIndia is the country where conspiracy theories gather the most support on average. However, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa are the peoples who show the greatest conviction in the theory that garners the greatest average consensus, i.e. the idea that, beyond the official governments, there is a single secret group that controls events and governs the world.
The European Commission defines conspiracy theories as narratives according to which certain events or situations are secretly manipulated by powerful forces with negative intentions. Recurring elements include an alleged secret plan, a group of conspirators and the idea that nothing happens by chance and that everything is connected.
One of the most interesting international investigations in recent years on this topic is the one conducted by YouGov in collaboration with Cambridge University, which in 2021 led to interviews of over 25 thousand people in 24 countries, asking how true they believed these 12 conspiracy theories:
- the Occult World Government, according to which there is a single group of people who secretly control events and jointly govern the world
- the 2016 US election: This is the highly controversial case that members of Donald Trump’s campaign team knowingly collaborated with the Russian government to help him win the 2016 US presidential election
- harmful vaccines, conspiracy theory that the harmful effects of vaccines are deliberately hidden from the public
- the defeat of Donald Trump, i.e. the belief that Trump lost the 2020 US presidential election due to systematic voter fraud
- the alien theory, whereby humans have had contact with aliens and this fact has been deliberately hidden from the public
- September 11th, widespread conspiracy theory according to which the United States government knowingly contributed to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States
- laboratory-created AIDS, the idea that the AIDS virus was created and spread deliberately by a secret organization
- the fake moon landing, according to which the 1969 moon landings were faked
- the non-existence of global warming: it would be a hoax invented to deceive people
- Satan-worshipping pedophiles, i.e. the conspiracy theory that a secret group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles have taken control of parts of the US government and US mainstream media
- Holocaust denial, which claims that the official account of the Nazi Holocaust is a lie and that the number of Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II was deliberately exaggerated
- the pandemic invented by the “strong powers”, whereby the coronavirus is an invention created by some powerful groups, and the virus does not actually exist.
If we take the average of these 12 theories as a reference, the country that appears to be the most conspiracy theorist is India. In particular, considering the answers “probably true” and “definitely true” together, Indians appear to be the most conspiracy-minded people regarding the topic of coronavirus (30%), global warming (32%), holocaust (35%), contact with aliens (37%) and fraud in the 2020 US elections (39%)
In other theories, India is not the country with the highest percentage of conspiracy theorists. By far the conspiracy that garners the greatest average consensus is the idea that, beyond the official governments, a single secret group controls events and governs the world. This belief is shared by as many as 72% of those interviewed in Kenya (almost 3 out of 4 inhabitants), 69% in Nigeria and 61% in South Africa, while in India it only reaches 50%.
Another theory that seems to have the most followers is the one relating to the negative effects of vaccines, which once again obtains the absolute majority of consensus in Kenya (54%, or more than 1 in 2 people believe in a conspiracy). Also in Kenya there is the highest percentage of people who believe in the conspiracy linked to Satan worshipers (37%).
South Africa, on the other hand, is the state where you most easily meet people who believe in the conspiracy theory between Donald Trump and the Russians to help him with the elections (45%) and that AIDS was invented on the drawing board (40%).
Regarding the September 11 attack, the country that most believes in the conspiracy theory is Turkey (41%), while the moon landing finds more detractors in Thailand (36%).
Denmark, on the other hand, is the country with the lowest average level of consensus on the 12 theories examined. In particular, only 3% of Danes believe that the theory that AIDS was created and spread deliberately by a secret organization and that relating to Satan worshipers is true.
There is, however, one important exception. Regarding the theory about Donald Trump and the alleged collaboration with Russia in the 2016 elections, even in the generally more skeptical countries the percentages are high. In Denmark, for example, as many as 39% believe it to be true or probably true. These results remind us that a person can be very skeptical of one theory and simultaneously accept another when it coincides with their beliefs.
This variability within the individual nation can also be seen by observing the data for Italy, which overall occupies an intermediate position for all theories: those who believe in the conspiracy fluctuate between 9% when it comes to coronavirus or holocaust to 30% when the topic is the 2016 American elections.
