Professor Scott Radnitz will discuss results from recent surveys and focus groups in Kazakhstan and Georgia, as part of a larger project on conspiracy theories and politics in post-Soviet space. He will show evidence of widespread shared beliefs that the operation of power is cynical, insatiable, and unrelenting. However, people are ambivalent when it comes to weighing the plausibility of specific conspiracy claims. Beliefs are influenced in part by regime type and foreign alignments. The analysis touches on larger questions of disinformation, political engagement, and "post-truth" politics.

Scott Radnitz is an Associate Professor at the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies and the Director of the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies