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Publicly, conspiracy theories are considered a bizarre mode of thought. In the academic discourse, they are unserious statements positioned between bad imitation of scientific theory and political pathology. Therefore, their authors and consumers experience a procedure of exclusion from the community of "serious people". But there are situations in which conspiracy theories are taken seriously, and established precisely as an exclusion device. These situations are predominantly interpreted as collective endangerment or political crisis. In that case, conspiracy theories stem from the center of political power as legitimate interpretation of reality. This was realized in an extreme way in the Nazi regime. So, the present academic discourse produces the Other by reason of standing for conspiracy theories. In political crisis and authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, the Other is produced by conspiracy theories. Historically, the academic attitude is partly produced by the consequences of the other attitude, through triple "demystification" of the conspiracy panic of Nazism/Fascism, Stalinism and, in the West, McCarthyism. But, structurally, it is the attitude of conspiracy-theory panic, or mimicry in exclusion. We propose a different approach, one that will simultaneously avoid acceptance of conspiracy theories as "facts" and their reduction to a phenomenon of mass hysteria. They should be considered beyond the opposition between delusion and hidden truth. Therefore, we define them as an interpretation pattern, structured as a double phantasm with the possibility of being traversed. This definition is close to Sloterdijk's conception of Cynical Reason, according to which we can differentiate between cynical and kynical conspiracy theories. Cynical conspiracy theories speak in the name of totalitarian and authoritarian power trying to defend an organismic community, and preserve a phantasmatic structure. Kynical conspiracy theories are speaking from the position of particular, fragmentational and singular agents. From the periphery of discourse, they criticize the power elite by indicating the cleavages that are concealed by cynics. In that way, kynical conspiracy theories perform a positive function as a way of "exposing the dirty linen" of the political regime. Adapted from the source document.

Nebojsa Blanusa's Ph. D. dissertation Uloga teorija zavjera u konstrukciji politicke zbilje u Hrvatskoj 1980.-2007. (The Role of Conspiracy Theories in the Construction of Political Reality in Croatia in the 1980-2007 Period), defended at the U of Zagreb in 2009, is presented, outlining its objectives, summarizing & commenting on its three major thematic parts, listing the topics of its nine chapters, & expressing some positive evaluative remarks in the concluding paragraph. The study applies the methods of discourse analysis to investigate the presence of political conspiracy theories in Croatian public life, & the mass media in particular, & a quantitative analysis of questionnaire data to assess the extent to which Croatian citizens subscribe to the view that conspiracy theory constructs the political reality in their country. Adapted from the source document.

The paper is about the analysis of the general structure & the coherence of the historical consciousness of young people in five groups of European countries, using the results of the international study Youth and History of 1995. The analysis suggests there are two main patterns of historical thinking & the construction of historicopolitical identity that the author calls the driving force of historical progressivism and the smelting-plant of patriotism. These modernist schemes of thought, grounded in the competing perceptions of the nation, democracy & Europe, make the historical consciousness ambivalent. Regarding the coherence of historical consciousness, it is somewhat lower in the countries of Eastern Europe, which can be explained by the impact of the "neuralgic spot" of the collapse of socialism & the discontinuity in social, political & cultural aspects as expressed in the ideological cleavages of that time. In the postsocialist Central-European countries on the other hand, this coherence is the highest, the fact that the author attributes to the radical shift from the ideology of socialism & the domination of the cleavage traditionalism-Occidentalism. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

The paper analyzes the general structure & coherence of the historical consciousness of young people in five clusters of European countries, using the results of the international study Youth and History of 1995. The analysis suggests there are two main patterns of historical thinking & the construction of historico-political identity that the author calls works of historical progressivism and the forge of patriotism. These modernist schemes of thought, grounded in the conflicting perceptions of the nation, democracy & Europe, make historical consciousness ambivalent. The coherence of historical consciousness is somewhat lower in the countries of Eastern Europe, which can be explained by the impact of the "neuralgias" of the collapse of socialism & the discontinuity in social, political & cultural spheres as expressed in the ideological cleavages of that time. In the postsocialist Central-European countries on the other hand, this coherence is the highest, the fact that the author attributes to the radical shift from the ideology of socialism & the domination of the cleavage traditionalism-occidentalism. Tables, 7 Pictures, References. Adapted from the source document.

Based on a study conducted with a sample of 253 students of political science & journalism at the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb, the author examines whether emotions about leaders of Croatian political parties are structured in line with the postulates of the theory of affective intelligence by Marcus et al (2000) & its three dimensions: enthusiasm, anxiety, & aversion. The separate structuring of the dimension of repulsion or aversion with most leaders is supposed to be an expression of an enduring disapprobation of all Croatian politics. Since, according to this theory, moral disapprobation lies at the very heart of the dimension of aversion, the structuring of the emotional reactions of moral approbation are additionally analyzed, measured by scales of the emotions of respect, admiration, & trust. Results of factor analyses show that emotions about most party leaders are structured in three dimensions; emotions of moral approbation & of enthusiasm make up one dimension of the positive affect toward politicians, in line with the postulate of the primary process of their origin. However, a separate analysis of the respondents with either positive or negative attitudes toward individual leaders shows that for 5 of 15 evaluated leaders, emotions of respondents with negative attitudes are structured in four dimensions. The author is of the opinion that such structuring is the emotional basis for the process of evaluation of two groups of political opponents: the outsiders & the worthy opponents. 4 Tables, 2 Figures, 2 Graphs, 25 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author looks into the structure & explanation of the socioeconomic expectations of young people regarding Croatia's future drawing on the theoretical framework & operational model of historical consciousness & on findings of a 1995 international study of 27 European countries & a replication of the study in Croatia in 2000. The findings show that the structure of such expectations may be explained by a universal factor of sociopolitical pessimistic/optimistic expectations of Croatia's future. This structure is in line with the expectations of young people from other European states concerning the future of their respective countries. Unlike in other European states, the Croatian youth in 1995 were optimistic in their socioeconomic assessments. The same conclusion was reached in 2000, the only exception being the pupils of Serbian extraction from the Danube region; this group represents the most pessimistic group at both levels of comparison. The perceptions of the present can account for 8%-20% of the variance of the variable of the expectations of young people. There is a significant decrease in the predictive power of the ethnic-religious value orientation, while the influence of attributing material differences to injustice in the society is constant. Concerning interethnic differences in the Danube region, it seems that the opposite expectations are partly due to the identical ideological ethnocentric pattern, indicative of the perpetuation of the attitudes generated during the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. The notions of the past can explain 12%-13% of the variant of the criterion variable. In most samples, the best single predictor is the critical attitude toward democracy as a historical product, with the exception of the pupils of Serbian extraction in the Danube region; together with other predictors, this indicates that the expectations about Croatia's future of these youth are not based on the perception of democratic processes. Also, they reflect a lower level of confidence in the democratic institutions of the Republic of Croatia. 4 Tables, 2 Figures, 16 References. Adapted from the source document.