Why do conspiracies happen?

The 'Family Jewels' from the CIA in 1973- it outlined some of the programs ran by the CIA including MKUltra, infiltration MHChaos. Effectively all the skeletons in the closet. Source

The concept of conspiracy or conspiracy theory is a relatively new one in human history, and probably started with the rise of the modern nation state which many political scientists consider was born from the events of the French Revolution. Prior to the French Revolution the world was ruled by aristocratic elites and castes who ruled subjects, not citizens. The idea that a state owed a citizen certain privileges and rights, and was there to protect the citizen has become a core foundation of political legitimacy of a state. A conspiracy occurs when politicians or organisations breach these core foundations of protection, we often find they breach these foundations supposedly in defence of citizens. From this there are two ways at looking conspiracies, either they are a political mutation, an abomination of either democratic or political order borne out of certain historical contexts, the alternative to this is that conspiracies are a subtle and integral part of the state and its security apparatus. There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer to this question.

With conspiracies we see two strands of state action. Social democracies that hold elections will aim to be perceived as legitimate and ‘fair’ through elections, political parties and civil society. What runs counter to this fairness is capitalism which ultimately centralizes power and wants a maintenance of the status quo so it can continue to reap the benefits of an unequal power system. Conspiracies occur when radical groups grow and threaten this disruption of the status quo, the state will employ bodies such as the police and security organs to infiltrate and violently disrupt these movements.

They can do this in a variety of clandestine actions:

Infiltration leading to the arrest or murder of key leaders and organisers such as during COINTELPRO. Disruption using disinformation may attempt to splinter these movements or de-legitimise them to the public: such as using The Protocols of Elders of Zion as part of a move to disrupt the Bolsheviks during the Russian revolution or when fossil fuel companies funded scientists who went counter to climate change science.

Violent authoritarian states such as the Condor nations used the pretence of fighting terrorism to justify their brutal tactics against the population and violence was used as a demonstration of power. The Soviets murdered dissidents around the world with sophisticated poisons as a form of ‘theatrical vengeance’ partly as psychological warfare and a demonstration of power.

The Cold War probably saw the greatest influx of conspiracies due to a few conditions: the war of ideology and image and the rapid technological development of the post-war years.

As a war of ideology, actions had to be undertaken covertly and or in an air of ‘plausible deniability’, and alongside this came the means to achieve these more covert operations. These conditions created a perfect storm for conspiracies. The propaganda and ideological warfare meant that states could infiltrate enemy nations with hostile ideologies (often described as a fifth column). Proxy warfare meant that states like the U.S had to covertly supported fascist and authoritarian governments as part of an anti-Communist crusade, this was done so as to continue appearing legitimate as a social democracy. Given the paranoia and secrecy of the time each side, West and East funded an incredible array of experiments and technology to get the upper hand. The profusion of new science and technology with a warfare mentality led to unethical human experimentation that aimed to perfect or understand the best uses of these technologies.

Technology has always been at the forefront of state control, but in our time with the rapid pace of development technology sometimes outmanoeuvres the grasp of the state (particularly in the early stages of the internet). The internet today is an entirely different beast to what it was originally conceived of, as a free information sharing network, it now resides as one of the most important battlegrounds. State and non-state actors have either successfully captured and controlled the unregulated wilderness, it has been speculated that the majority of users of the internet probably used about four to five major websites nowadays compared to two decades previously where there were no centralised major sites. States like Russia realised in the early days of the internet that you can just poison the well (with misinformation and disinformation) to destroy the whole system of information sharing.