Distinction between conspiracy theory and other terms

Conspiracy theories should not be confused with postulations in which a conspiracy is involved. Even though this term generates rejection, ^{Bale (2007)} points out historical examples of real conspiracies that entail, in general terms, the secret meeting of individuals to discuss a plan that will affect reality in some way. In this regard, ^{Lledó (2014)} calls them conspiracies “in the neutral sense,” characterizing them as specific, intentional, and strategic actions (as a rule, in secret or concealed to some degree in some of their stages) that are always part of a richer and more complex context than the mere attribution of a campaign designed and calculated in detail (2014).

Along these lines, Latin America has many examples in which politicians meet drug traffickers in order to secure mutual benefits and, in a neutral sense, conspire to carry them out. However, it is different to consider that each of the crimes committed in the conspirators’ area of influence depends on the fictitious meeting and that what was agreed to in secret is likely to be carried out. In other words, both conspirators could agree to jointly rule a state, but other factors, institutions, and variables would make it impossible for them to enact such an intention.

These assumptions acknowledge that some of the mechanisms that form these caravans occur in concealment, such as the attempts to organize these massive migratory movements or exploit them in order to achieve a favorable vision of migration and criticize US policy. Such initiatives are part of the confrontation of interests around the complex issue of migration policy.

However, the present article presents a number of factors that, to a greater or lesser degree and depending on their logistic or random nature, prevent the control of migrant caravans (using hierarchical, reticular, or other coordination strategies) in each of its different stages. Thus, given the monolithic cohesion attributed by conspiracy theories to the parties— whether individuals, civil society organizations, or states—the pluralism of this phenomenon (^{Bale, 2007}) is proposed as uncontrollable.

Therefore, the “theory” aspect is highlighted, rather than its “conspiratorial” one. Conspiracy theories are incorrect, especially because of their cognitive style; in many cases, their arguments are fallacious from the beginning.

What has been said up to this point discards the popular term conspiracy theory since it fails to differentiate conspiracies in the neutral sense, that is, habitual and based on facts (albeit hidden from most people), and invented conspiracies. On the other hand, we will refrain from referring to people who believe in conspiracy theories as “conspiranoids” since the colloquial term highlights the paranoid aspect of the phenomenon (the word conspiranoid is made up by “conspiracy” and “paranoia”). This perspective, however, is too restrictive because it emphasizes an assumed psychological condition among those who create or disseminate conspiracy theories and makes it difficult to understand the role of other factors, such as the importance of cognitive biases to support these theories or how they are built based on rumors or recurring lies.

Characteristics of conspiracy theories

As explained above, the three traits that characterize conspiracy theories are: the presence of cognitive biases and rumors, the rhetoric of the alternative, and altered causal relationships among the subjects and facts described by the conspiracy theory.

Dependence on cognitive biases and rumors

Both the word information and the prefix des are Latin, but their current use as a single word has its origins in the Russian dezinformation, coined in the context of the USSR and the Cold War. The term refers to the dissemination of false information and the generation of confusion or other reactions sought by the disseminator. This technique is based more on quantity than quality (^{Bertolin, 2017}). In other words, mass media allow for the copious and cheap dissemination and messages; therefore, a schematic structure is enough for conspiracy theories to propagate. This section examines the more subtle phenomenon of how conspiracy theories exploit the psychological perceptions of individuals.

Research reviewed by ^{Lledó (2014)} from the 1990s—that is, before the rise of social networks—shows that inquiry becomes frozen when conclusions confirm what the investigator desires to prove. On the other hand, if the evidence contravenes the investigator’s initial thesis, they will use a biased search method to confirm their prejudice. Social networks promote cognitive biases in a similar way, although massively. All of this has negatively affected the way people perceive and understand information about migrant caravans.

Conspiracy theorists tend to refine and stylize false stories and publish them on blogs and websites; then, they are distributed via social networks, which makes them more of a conveyor than a content generator (^{Agarwal & Bandeli, 2017}).

According to information on Facebook collected by ^{Bertolin (2017)}, in this social network, disinformation operates according to the following model. In the first place, user data are collected and stored, such as their age or the type of links they visit. Subsequently, more credible disinformation is disseminated to the user who receives it. Simultaneously, the impact is amplified by false accounts that replicate the message.

^{Sunstein and Vermeule (2009)} have studied trust in the message or the sender. To explain the way in which conspiracy theories benefit from trust, these authors use the expression “conspiracy cascade”. This metaphor is intended to highlight the connection between conspiratorial argumentation and the reputation of the speaker or disseminator. To explain this mechanism, they point out that the fragility of supposedly demonstrated facts, such as an awkwardly worded or incomplete message, can be supported by objective discourse traits in order to rectify the message and make it appear accurate.

The same authors stress that subjective aspects such as the reputation of the person enunciating the conspiracy theory or the polarization within the group that shares these messages can compensate for the conspiracy theory’s lack of a coherent argument. Therefore, the way in which these theories are transmitted should be analyzed as a whole (as a cascade).

These mechanisms show that the cognitive bias helps to reinforce prejudices and thoughts present even before the conspiracy theory, favoring a homogeneous perception and the resulting sense of unanimity that legitimizes the message. Moreover, flooding the media with both true and false information does not mean that the audience will believe anything thrown at them: the audience will judge the messages according to whether they serve their purposes or reinforce their values (^{Yurchak, 2018}).

This dialectic between disinformation and cognitive biases can strengthen the so-called “filter bubble,” in which the users’ ideological perspectives are reinforced as a result of the selective adaptation algorithm behind search engine results (^{NATO Stratcom Center of Excellence, 2017}), as expressed in a glossary published by the NATO Strategic Communications Excellence Center. The result is often an echo chamber effect, that is, the emergence of an ideological environment where ideas and opinions are amplified and reinforced by repetition, reinforcing the individual’s solipsism and favoring extremism (Ibidem); this was observed regarding conspiracy theories about migrant caravans.

These biases create cognitive blind spots (^{Lledó, 2014}) that limit the analysis of conspiracy theories’ approaches. They also reveal one of the characteristics of these theories: they are essentially monological theories, as postulated by ^{Wood, Douglas, and Sutton (2012)}. But such a trait is not only to oppose any dialogue with other individuals, a consideration that presents problems (does not every theory seek to suppress or absorb weaker theories with less explanatory power?). Rather, the monologue of conspiracy theories means something of more significance. Assuming that mass media and social networks are web technologies used for social interaction and to transform [conventional] media monologues into interactive and social dialogues (^{NATO Stratcom Center of Excellence, 2017}), conspiracy theories can be understood as an attempt to shield oneself from the dialogue by means of monologue-based techniques that reject discussion and whose statements entail supposedly definitive proof to settle a controversy.

In addition to the above, conspiracy theories feed on traditional sources, such as rumor. Their adoption is essential to human experience, especially in cases where information is ambiguous or in dangerous situations, when falling for rumors is a temptation (^{Silverman, 2016}); the author analyzed a thousand rumors from the end of World War II and highlighted the predominance of those who announced terrible situations. This effect can be observed in our present day. There are three categories of recurrent rumors in online mass media, two of them have to do with violence: wars (especially in the Middle East) and, as regards the subject matter of the present article, news related to security in the US, among them assassinations occurring in Mexico. The third category concerns economic or technological news related to changes in corporate ownership or the launch of new products (^{Silverman, 2016}).

In addition to the aforementioned rumors about terror, Silverman stresses the relevance of other rumors associated with desires and aspirations, as well as rumors charged with a bias against a social group. Other scholars focused on the issue add a fourth type associated with curiosity or intellectual challenge (^{Silverman, 2016}). These four categories of rumors (terror, desires, stigmatization, and curiosity) are sufficiently encompassing not to be overlooked in this article.

Recurring rumors are inherent to conspiracy theories. Silverman graphically characterizes the most complex type as “bomb rumors”. These expressions pose negative connotations toward their target, regardless of their veracity. Therefore, it is not enough to deny them since such denial will never negate the fact that they were enunciated using derogatory terms toward the target. Therefore, repeating a rumor, regardless of context, will detonate the rumor (^{Silverman, 2016}).

In this sense, confronting such rumors from a dialogical perspective, as if those using the bomb rumor as their argument deserved a legitimate part in the dialogue, could have the opposite effect of propagating the theories enunciated by the rumor. The rumor is propagated in a feedback loop that divides the population, as if it was a natural condition, between the detractors and the supporters of the subject matter in conflict (^{Phillips, 2018a}).

Rhetoric of the alternative

Conspiracy theories seek to reveal a supposed hidden truth, and this is shown by the use of an alternative rhetoric. As pointed out by ^{Lledó (2014)}, conspirators convey the contingent and transitory need to oppose the official version, which is presented as a monumental and fallacious hay doll (2014). Thus, ^{Taïeb (2010)} points out that those who believe in dark versions of 9/11 call themselves truthers. Supporters of an alternative truth based on conspiracy, truthers base their thesis on their skepticism concerning the terrorist attack.

Another example of a similar manipulation of language can be observed in well-known far-right digital publications. It is enough to surf the Internet and type in the following terms for any user to find that reimmigration is used instead of migrant expulsion; counter-Semitism is used to indicate that the speaker is not anti-Semitic, and white genocide is used as a synonym for increased migration as if demographic change were as abominable as an actual genocide.

Sometimes, very subtle manipulation techniques are used with such a load of ambiguity that it is difficult to distinguish between irony and the normalization of disinformation. A clear example of this ambiguity is the dog whistle technique; in popular language, it refers to the use of a euphemism or even a word that had nothing in common with the connoted word that has been given a meaning only known to those who agreed on such meaning (^{Magnummanager, 2011}).

When the silent whistle technique is successful, the message is spread not only among those who know the code—which can easily deny the actual connotation since the expression is apparently unrelated to the conspiracy theory—, but also among the unsuspecting public who repeat it, ignoring the hidden meaning attributed to it by its promoters.

For example, the use of the expression “OK” in the United States to suggest that one is a supporter of white supremacism is an example of this, so to speak, shrinking irony, which for Phillips (^2018a; ^2018b) has its roots in the behavior of the first internet “trolls”. Thus, in 2007-2011, the silent whistle technique was extensively used by 4chan, a virtual bulletin board that allowed any type of message to be disseminated without filters and brought together several subcultures whose common denominator was provocation. However, this cacophony evolved, and its ambivalence emerged, but these techniques were absorbed firstly by the media and then by extreme right-wing groups (^{Phillips, 2018a}; ^2018b).

Altered causal relationships

This mechanism is aligned with the post hoc ergo propter hoc (after that, then as a consequence of this) fallacy; the explanation has been divided into two sections. Section a) refers to the assumptions made by believers in conspiracy theories about the nature and capabilities of the subjects they blame for the facts that the theory is supposed to explain. Section b) analyzes how such facts are assembled to convince about their explanatory power.

Proposed definition of conspiracy theory

The resignification frenzy described in the previous paragraphs leads to subjectivism as the backbone of the conspiracy monologue. A conspiracy theory can be defined as a monological reasoning that, to assert empty promises of causality, exploits cognitive biases and rumors in an argumentative body of scientific ideas (in a broad sense, since terms from the social and philosophical sciences are often used freely) to alter the causal relationships of the subjects and facts in the theory by virtue of the enlightened, predestined gift of the enunciator or the believer.

A few words must be said about this “predestined” aspect of the enunciator or of those who adhere to them before moving on to analyze the subject matter in relation to migrant caravans. ^{Taïeb (2010)} rightly argues that conspiracy theories present the features of a secularized divine providence. These theories ascribe an absolute primacy to intentionality, although they have an essential difference with theology, which constructs the idea of providence based on divine will, whereas conspiracy theories attempt to convince on the basis of secularized, apparently scientific discourse (^{Taïeb, 2010}).

This section accepts this assumption, but we introduce a twist. Conspiracy theories secularize a mixture of fate and predestination rather than providence, but they do it not by way of analogy—as T^{aïeb (2010)}states in the case of providence—, but by changing a substantial trait. The twist concerns the role of those who enunciate and believe the theories. In order to understand this, the theological debate on divine providence, in which Spanish Jesuit Luis de Molina (1535-1600) attempts to combine the term with the concept of free will, is useful, despite the understandable vulgarization with which the matter is dealt with, that is, the freedom of the individual within the limits of providence.

For this Jesuit theologian, divine providence is the reason or conception of an order of things in relation to their ends that dwells in the divine mind (^{Molina, 2007}), although God can display that order by itself or by secondary causes, as dependent on the first cause (divine providence). It is in this execution that free will comes to be (^{Molina, 2007}); to solve (avoid) the problem of freedom, it is established that providence is order toward an end, although the outcome is not included. Those who are free can choose between wanting something or not (^{Molina, 2007}). In other words, when someone refuses to do good, it is not that he or she is placing themselves at another level of providence, but that providence establishes order and individual freedom does the rest since (because of the difference between the conditional will and the absolute will of God) men are free to achieve happiness, but also to sin (^{Molina, 2007}).

These considerations seem to reinforce the analogy presented by ^{Taïeb (2010)}. Nevertheless, a closer look reveals that the conceptualization of divine providence is associated with individual freedom, something that conspiracy theories demean and, ultimately, deny. For that reason, the structure of these theories is determined by the idea of fate, which Molina (2007) criticizes for its fatalistic goal. It can even be argued that people who use these theories to explain facts are a modern category of the “predestined” or special individuals subjected not only to providence but to the absolute path of salvation, utterly lacking freedom; therefore, predestination is limited to those who achieve glory (^{Molina, 2007}). Supporters of conspiracy theories secularize the traits of fatalism and predestination by investing themselves with the gift of seeing conspiracies that are almost omnipotent, conspiracies that only they can recognize. This places them at a level of power similar to that attributed to the perpetrators of conspiratorial events.

As a divisive issue, migration is part of a larger discourse

The exploitation of cognitive biases and rumors to disinform and strengthen conspiracy theories was based on a univocal interpretation of the migrant as a threat from the southern border. In this way, dynamics from the United States related to national migration policy or electoral disputes fit into a larger issue that establishes an irreducible division between nationals and foreigners, or as ^{Yurchak (2018)} points out, the stereotypes of the “true patriot” as opposed to the “foreign agent”.

In Europe, extremist websites connect these parameters with broader conspiracy theories. Thus, the October caravans were linked with possible migratory waves, allegedly devised in the Balkans, heading mainly to Hungary and from there to the rest of the western part of the continent (^{Hungary Journal, 2018}). This framework is key to spreading false news about migration and turning opposition to this phenomenon into a defining part of a nativist ideology (^{Conspiracy Watch, 2018}).

To further reinforce a discourse to organize biases and rumors at the service of the political agenda, sources of matching ideology disseminated false information on the Marrakech Pact on migration after the peak of the Central American caravan crisis (December 10-11, 2018); this pact is officially known as the “Global Pact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration”. This intergovernmental conference, which provides open guidelines for governments to address the phenomenon of migration, was pointed out as the first stone of a rambling (because of its alleged material impossibility) “world law” stating that national powers should drop their migration policies and accept migrants massively (^{Conspiracy Watch, 2018}).

In this theoretical crossroads, such rhetoric is associated with an even broader idea associated with the perception of a “conquest” of western countries by migrants (in Europe, Muslims; in the United States, Hispanics). This perception is associated with the term “white genocide” as part of a supposed “Great Replacement” of native populations by migrants. However, these hyperbolic claims are as vacuous as they are deadly, and they have resulted in political violence on both sides of the Atlantic (^{Pérez Caballero, 2014a}; ^{Conspiracy Watch, 2018}).

In this regard, the American right-wing websites characterized the Easter week caravans as a coordinated and organized infiltration effort (^{Hatewatch Staff, 2018}). At least since October 16, and explicitly on the 22nd and 23rd of that month, extremist media described these caravans as associated with infiltration (^{Shanmugasundaram, 2018}). With the upcoming elections on November 6 in the United States Senate, the migrant convoy was used as a “volatile flashpoint” in the immigration debate; the purpose was to galvanize and denigrate Democrats in the elections (^{Semple & Jordon, 2018}). Trends already seen at least since 2016 were reedited in the American elections and then in 2018, in Italy and in Brazil. These cases show how elections have begun to emerge in a context of polarization, as well as new methods and media shared by individuals, groups, or states that assume conspiracy theories to a greater or lesser extent (^{Applebaum, 2019}).

The problem with the official version

In the context of these migrant caravans, official institutions were part of or disseminators of conspiracy theories, a twist to how these theories usually emerge, as a rejection of the official version. In April 2018, the president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, began to attack Central American migrants mainly on Twitter, repeating his attacks in October, when mass caravan movements began (^{Semple, 2018}; ^{Hatewatch Staff, 2018}). The April precedents of the October caravans represented a similar set of fears associated with the masses of migrant groups that saw them as criminals, disease vectors, or agents of terror (^{Peters 2018}).

Taking advantage of the cryptic tone and double sense granted by short phrases or of the dragging effect of hashtags in the aforementioned social network (^{Bertolin & Sedova, 2017}), the official account of the US president engaged in an absurd micromanagement of the event, narrating the stages of each journey and warning of ominous dangers. In the weeks before the elections, Trump assumed a partisan discourse on caravans, as shown by his tweets for one month, from October 16 to November 16, 2018 (^{Martin, 2019}). In fact, ^{Lind (2018)} mocks Trump, calling him “TV viewer in chief,” in a play on words with Commander in Chief, as an example of “B-roll” edition in reference to images that overlap the discourse of a voice-over.

This partisanship was assumed not only by the presidency, but also by an official security institution such as the ^{United States Department of Homeland Security (2018)}. This department also produced biased information. In an official document that sought to distinguish “myth” from “fact” about caravans, this public institution presented unconfirmed claims as the official version, without specifying any sources; it alluded to infiltrations by organized crime, without specifying which organization or organizations were involved; it repeatedly stigmatized the caravan, linking it with individuals who could be seen as terrorists by the American imaginary, and it treated migrants as an undifferentiated mass. The document is plenty in rhetorical clichés, such as certain untraceable “field reports from our foreign colleagues”.

But if we carefully observe the role of these “foreign colleagues,” in other words, the presidents of the countries through which the caravan passed, we can observe a hostile discourse similar to that of the American counterpart, a result of ideological alignment, at least in the case of the Guatemalan and Honduran presidents. For instance, Guatemalan president Jimmy Morales repeated the recurring rumor of members of a terrorist organization crossing the US-Mexico border (^{Silverman, 2016}), and the claim was highlighted in a conference of Central American presidents with US representatives on the day when the migratory movement began (^{Tourliere 2018}). On the other hand, in Honduras, the government repeatedly blamed “political sectors,” with no data other than those available at the moment (^{La Prensa, 2018}). The alignment of these three presidents in regard to conspiratory discourse guaranteed media coverage.