TY - JOUR

T1 - Wissen(schaft)sskepsis

T2 - Aufklärung im verschwörungsideologischen Souveränismus

AU - Kretschmann, Andrea

AU - Rowitz, Lara

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2025.

PY - 2025/12

Y1 - 2025/12

N2 - Conspiracy theories have increasingly garnered public attention due to their alternative knowledge claims with which they oppose hegemonic political discourse. Scholarship often characterizes such theories as anti-scientific, science-skeptical, or generally denying science. However, the characteristics of conspiracy theory knowledge and their relationship to science still lack empirically saturated insights. Using the example of conspiracy ideological sovereignism in Germany—better known as Reichsbürgers—and basing this analysis on an ethnographic study, the article examines the mobilized knowledge of Reichsbürgers and researches its social meaning. The argument proposes that conspiracy ideological sovereignism, despite its production of heterodox knowledge, is not hostile to science as a whole. Rather, in its self-image and its appropriations of knowledge, it refers to the social system of (empirically verifiable) truths, namely science. This article acknowledges that even though Reichsbürgers adopt a reductionist understanding of enlightened science, these references serve as a basis for them to frame their own ideology (which includes the vision of an authoritarian regime) as irrevocable truth and thus distinct from mere belief.

AB - Conspiracy theories have increasingly garnered public attention due to their alternative knowledge claims with which they oppose hegemonic political discourse. Scholarship often characterizes such theories as anti-scientific, science-skeptical, or generally denying science. However, the characteristics of conspiracy theory knowledge and their relationship to science still lack empirically saturated insights. Using the example of conspiracy ideological sovereignism in Germany—better known as Reichsbürgers—and basing this analysis on an ethnographic study, the article examines the mobilized knowledge of Reichsbürgers and researches its social meaning. The argument proposes that conspiracy ideological sovereignism, despite its production of heterodox knowledge, is not hostile to science as a whole. Rather, in its self-image and its appropriations of knowledge, it refers to the social system of (empirically verifiable) truths, namely science. This article acknowledges that even though Reichsbürgers adopt a reductionist understanding of enlightened science, these references serve as a basis for them to frame their own ideology (which includes the vision of an authoritarian regime) as irrevocable truth and thus distinct from mere belief.

KW - Conspiracy sovereignism

KW - Enlightenment

KW - Knowledge

KW - Reichsbürger

KW - Science skepticism

KW - Sovereign citizens

KW - Soziologie

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105009795270&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11614-025-00608-3

DO - 10.1007/s11614-025-00608-3

M3 - Zeitschriftenaufsätze

AN - SCOPUS:105009795270

VL - 50

JO - Osterreichische Zeitschrift fur Soziologie

JF - Osterreichische Zeitschrift fur Soziologie

SN - 1011-0070

IS - 1

M1 - 28

ER -