The Calliope lectures on trust and information research are an initiative made possible by the Radboud-Glasgow collaboration fund. This interdisciplinary online lecture series explores the complex dynamics of distrust and disinformation across media, politics, science, and society. Bringing together experts from fields such as communication, psychology, data science, history, and philosophy, the series examines how false narratives take root, why trust erodes, and what can be done to foster resilience and critical thinking in the face of manipulation. Join us for thought-provoking discussions that challenge assumptions and illuminate the forces shaping our collective understanding.
Calliope Lecture: The People Who Break Things by Joseph Uscinski
Thursday 12 March 2026, 3 pmThis lecture: The People Who Break Things
Abstract
This talk seeks to explain recent instances of institutional erosion in the United States and elsewhere. Human flourishing requires science, medicine, public health, education, economic markets, and democratic governance; all of these depend on stable, long-standing institutions that can develop standard operating procedures, sort fact from fiction, and implement directives. In recent years, however, political movements in the U.S. and elsewhere have organized around the destruction of society’s institutions and their knowledge-generating processes. For example, a popular U.S. movement that rejects established science, such as the germ theory of disease, has been successful at dismantling U.S. public health institutions, including the CDC and NIH, allowing once eliminated infectious diseases, like measles and whooping cough, to have a resurgence.
Drawing on 15 years of original survey data, Professor Joseph Uscinski identifies a distinct group of citizens who share a hostility toward political, scientific, and social institutions. Historically disengaged, these individuals were mobilized into a durable political coalition focused on breaking things, both with their political support and occasionally with violence. The result is a form of mass-enabled nihilism in which democratic norms are undermined not only by elites, but by citizens who actively seek institutional destruction. Professor Uscinski concludes by discussing the implications of such coalitions for democratic resilience and outlining strategies for putting the broken scientific, medical, public health, educational, economic, and democratic institutions back together.
Bio
Dr. Joseph Uscinski is a professor of political science at the University of Miami. For more than a decade, he has been polling Americans about their beliefs in conspiracy theories and other dubious ideas. Professor Uscinski has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and several books, including American Conspiracy Theories (Oxford, 2014), and Conspiracy Theories: A Primer (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), the first textbook on conspiracy theories.
The full 2025-2026 lecture series
- 13 November 2025, 15:00 CET: Yvette Linders (Modern Languages, Radboud)
- 11 December 2025, 15:00 CET: Christoph Kelp (Philosophy, Glasgow)
- 12 February 2026, 15:00 CET: Jaron Harambam (Sociology, University of Amsterdam)
- 12 March 2026, 15:00 CET: Joseph Uscinsky (Political Science, Miami)
- 16 April 2026: Juliana Schroeder (Management, UC Berkeley)
- 7 May 2026, 15:00 CET: Joachim Krueger (Cognitive Science, Brown)
- 11 June 2026: Nina Poth (Philosophy, Radboud)
- 27 July 2026: Harmen Ghijsen & Mona Simion (Philosophy, Radboud and Oxford)
Partners
- When
- Thursday 12 March 2026, 3 pm
