Dealing with conspiracy narratives in the close social environment. A practical handbook to help the helpers, December 2023

This paper aims at supporting practitioners in the social services sector as well as practitioners in general who have family members and friends affected by conspiracy narratives. It provides background knowledge on the underlying functionality of conspiracy narratives and their possible links to violent extremism. Additionally, it gives advice to practitioners on effective strategies for dealing with such narratives.

The paper also provides a summary of a toolkit, published by RAN Practitioners in July 2023, on how to deal with conspiracy narratives with your family and friends. Conspiracy narratives can pose a threat to liberal democracies, as observed in numerous Member States of the European Union. Long before the COVID-19 pandemic and throughout human history, conspiracy narratives have fuelled conflict, hate and violence, leading to, for example, witch hunts, pogroms, genocides and terrorism.

Conspiracy narratives in the European Union today can still foster violence, but more often they contribute to eroding trust in democratic governing institutions and scientific state-of-the-art knowledge.