Conspiracy theory as a demand for government intervention: Performative rhetoric and mobilization against “U.N. Agenda 21” in local planning

This paper advances a cultural sociology of conspiracy theorizing in democratic politics. The goal is to explain cultural dynamics that enable social movements to mobilize conspiracy theory to influence government decision-making. It examines a U.S. populist-nationalist movement against sustainability planning in the 2010s, documented through qualitative-historical case studies of seventy-seven community mobilizations. The movement alleged that sustainability planning was driven by a dangerous (though unfounded) U.N. “Agenda 21” plot to undermine Americans’ rights and freedoms. Drawing on cultural sociology of conspiracy theorizing, performance, and social movements as well as discourse studies, this paper conceptualizes movement conspiracy theorizing as performative political rhetoric. Findings reveal that movement participants translated conspiracy theory into a targeted demand for government intervention by using a repertoire of rhetorical forms: confrontational argumentation, expert decoding, dramatic storytelling, and subtle signaling. Through discursive expressions that are legible and appropriate in institutional politics, movement actors legitimized their conspiratorial demands and their own political authority. Findings indicate that the expressive culture of participatory democracy can normalize misinformation as a basis of government decision-making, which contributes to the erosion of democratic norms.