New World Order (conspiracy theory)

{{Short description|Conspiracy theory regarding a totalitarian world government}}
{{About|the conspiracy theory|the use of the term in international politics|New world order (politics)}}
{{pp-vandalism|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
[[File:Great Seal of the United States (reverse).svg|thumb|200px|The reverse side of the [[Great Seal of the United States]] (1776). The Latin phrase ''[[novus ordo seclorum]]'', appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and on the back of the [[U.S. one-dollar bill]] since 1935, translates to "New Order of the Ages",<ref name="Lewis and Short">[[Lewis and Short]], ''A Latin Dictionary''</ref> and alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States of America is an independent nation-state; conspiracy theorists claim this is an allusion to the "New World Order".<ref name="GreatSeal.com" />]]

The '''New World Order''' ('''NWO''') is a term used in several [[conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]] which [[hypothesizes|hypothesize]] a secretly emerging [[totalitarian]] world government.<ref name="Camp 1997">{{cite book|author=Camp, Gregory S.|title=Selling Fear: Conspiracy Theories and End-Times Paranoia|publisher=Commish Walsh|date=1997|asin=B000J0N8NC}}</ref><ref name="Berlet and Lyons 2000">{{Cite book|author=Berlet, Chip|author-link=Chip Berlet|author2=Lyons, Matthew N.|title=Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort|url=https://archive.org/details/rightwingpopulis00berlrich|publisher=Guilford Press|date=2000|isbn=1-57230-562-2|url-access=registration}}</ref><ref name="Goldberg 2001">{{cite book|author=Goldberg, Robert Alan|title=Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America|publisher=Yale University Press|date=2001|isbn=0-300-09000-5|url=https://archive.org/details/enemieswithincul00gold_0}}</ref><ref name="Barkun 2003">{{cite book|author=Barkun, Michael|title=A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America|publisher=University of California Press; 1 edition|date=2003|isbn=0-520-23805-2|title-link=A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America}}</ref><ref name="Fenster 2008">{{cite book|author=Fenster, Mark|title=Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture|publisher=University of Minnesota Press |edition=2nd |date=2008|isbn=978-0-8166-5494-9}}</ref> The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a [[Shadow government (conspiracy theory)|secretive]] power [[elite]] with a [[Globalism|globalist]] agenda is conspiring to eventually achieve [[world domination]] and rule the world through an [[authoritarian]] one-[[world government]]—which will replace sovereign [[nation-states]]—and an all-encompassing [[propaganda]] whose ideology hails the establishment of the New World Order as the culmination of history's progress. Many influential historical and contemporary figures have therefore been alleged to be part of a [[cabal]] that operates through many [[front organizations]] to orchestrate significant political and financial events, ranging from causing systemic crises to pushing through controversial policies, at both national and international levels, as steps in an ongoing plot to achieve world domination.<ref name="Camp 1997"/><ref name="Berlet and Lyons 2000"/><ref name="Goldberg 2001"/><ref name="Barkun 2003"/><ref name="Fenster 2008"/>

Before the early 1990s, New World Order conspiracism was limited to two American countercultures, primarily the militantly anti-government right, and secondarily the part of [[fundamentalist Christianity]] concerned with the [[eschatological]] end-time emergence of the [[Antichrist]].<ref name="New Internationalist 1 2004">{{cite journal|author=Berlet, Chip|title=Interview: Michael Barkun|date=September 2004|url=http://www.publiceye.org/antisemitism/nw_barkun.html|journal=[[New Internationalist]]|access-date=1 October 2009|author-link=Chip Berlet}}</ref> Academics who study conspiracy theories and religious extremism, such as [[Michael Barkun]] and [[Chip Berlet]], observed that [[right-wing populist]] conspiracy theories about a New World Order not only had been embraced by many seekers of [[stigmatized knowledge]] but also had seeped into [[popular culture]], thereby fueling a surge of interest and participation in [[survivalism]] and [[American militia movement|paramilitarism]] as many people actively prepare for [[apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] and [[millenarianism|millenarian]] scenarios.<ref name="Berlet and Lyons 2000"/><ref name="Barkun 2003"/> These political scientists warn that [[mass hysteria]] over New World Order conspiracy theories could eventually have devastating effects on American political life, ranging from escalating [[lone-wolf terrorism]] to the rise to power of authoritarian [[ultranationalist]] [[demagogue]]s.<ref name="Berlet and Lyons 2000"/><ref name="Barkun 2003"/><ref>{{cite news|first2=Pete |last2=Williams|first1=Andrew |last1=Blankstein|title=Sources: Alleged LAX gunman had 'new world order' conspiracy tract|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/sources-alleged-lax-gunman-had-new-world-order-conspiracy-theory-f8C11514443|access-date=10 July 2014|work=NBC News|date=1 November 2014}}</ref>

==History of the term==
{{Main|New world order (politics)}}

===General usage (pre-Cold War)===
During the 20th century, political figures such as [[Woodrow Wilson]] and [[Winston Churchill]] used the term "[[new world order (politics)|new world order]]" to refer to a new period of history characterized by a dramatic change in world political thought and in the [[balance of power in international relations|global balance of power]] after [[World War I]] and [[World War II]].<ref name="Knock2019">{{cite book|author=Thomas J. Knock|title=To End All Wars, New Edition: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_rluDwAAQBAJ|year=2019|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-19192-8}}</ref> The [[interwar period|interwar]] and [[Aftermath of World War II|post-World War II]] period were seen as opportunities to implement [[idealism (international relations)|idealistic]] proposals for [[global governance]] by collective efforts to address worldwide problems that go beyond the capacity of individual [[nation state|nation-states]] to resolve, while nevertheless respecting the right of nations to [[self-determination]]. Such collective initiatives manifested in the formation of [[intergovernmental organization]]s such as the [[League of Nations]] in 1920, the [[United Nations]] (UN) in 1945, and the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO) in 1949, along with international regimes such as the [[Bretton Woods system]] and the [[General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade]] (GATT), implemented to maintain a cooperative balance of power and facilitate reconciliation between nations to prevent the prospect of [[World War III|another global conflict]]. These [[Cosmopolitanism|cosmopolitan]] efforts to instill [[International relations theory#Liberalism|liberal internationalism]] were regularly criticized and opposed by American [[Paleoconservatism|paleoconservative]] [[business nationalism|business nationalists]] from the 1930s on.<ref name="Buchanan 1999">{{cite book|author= Buchanan, Patrick J.|title= A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming America's Destiny|publisher= Regnery Publishing, Inc.|date= 1999| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=stgGsu74ui4C |isbn= 978-1621571001}}</ref>{{qn|date=August 2016}}

[[Progressivism|Progressives]] welcomed international organizations and regimes such as the United Nations in the aftermath of the two World Wars, but argued that these initiatives suffered from a [[democratic deficit]] and were therefore inadequate not only to prevent another [[world war]] but to foster [[global justice]], as the UN was chartered to be a free association of sovereign nation-states rather than a transition to democratic world government. Thus, cosmopolitan activists around the globe, perceiving the IGOs as too ineffectual for global change, formed a world federalist movement.<ref>{{cite web|last1= Hughes|first1= J.|title= Better Living Through World Government: Transnationalism as 21st Socialism|url= http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes1991worgov/|website= Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies|access-date= 10 July 2014|archive-date= 31 December 2013|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131231101826/http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/hughes1991worgov/|url-status= dead}}</ref>

British writer and futurist [[H. G. Wells]] went further than progressives in the 1940s, by appropriating and redefining the term "new world order" as a synonym for the establishment of a technocratic [[world state]] and of a [[planned economy]], garnering popularity in [[state socialism|state socialist]] circles.<ref name="Wells 1940">{{cite book|author= Wells, H. G.|title= The New World Order|publisher= Hesperides Press|date= 2006|isbn= 1-4067-2262-6|title-link= The New World Order (Wells)}}</ref><ref name="Wagar 1977">{{cite book|author= Wagar, W. Warren|title= H. G. Wells and the World State|publisher= Ayer Co Pub|date= 1977|isbn= 0-8369-5915-9|author-link= W. Warren Wagar}}</ref>

===Usage as reference to a conspiracy (Cold War era)===
During the [[Red Scare#Second Red Scare (1947–60)|Second Red Scare]], both secular and [[Christian right]] American agitators, largely influenced by the work of Canadian conspiracy theorist [[William Guy Carr]], increasingly embraced and spread dubious fears of [[Freemasons]], [[Illuminati]] and [[Jewish Bolshevism|Jews]] as the alleged driving forces behind an "[[comintern|international communist]] conspiracy." The threat of "Godless communism", in the form of an [[state atheism|atheistic]], [[bureaucratic collectivism|bureaucratic collectivist]] world government, [[demonization|demonized]] as the "Red Menace", became the focus of [[apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] [[millenarianism|millenarian]] [[conspiracism]]. The Red Scare came to shape one of the core ideas of the political right in the United States, which is that [[liberalism in the United States|liberals]] and [[progressivism in the United States|progressives]], with their [[welfare state|welfare-state]] policies and international cooperation programs such as [[United States foreign aid|foreign aid]], supposedly contribute to a gradual process of global [[Collectivism and individualism|collectivism]] that will inevitably lead to nations being replaced with a [[world communism|communistic/collectivist one-world government]].<ref name="Berlet 1999">{{cite journal|last1= Berlet|first1= Chip|title= Dances with Devils: How Apocalyptic and Millennialist Themes Influence Right Wing Scapegoating and Conspiracism|journal= The Public Eye|date= 15 April 1999|url= http://www.publiceye.org/apocalyptic/Dances_with_Devils_1.html|access-date= 2 April 2016}}</ref> [[James Warburg]], appearing before the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]] in 1950, famously stated: "We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest."<ref>{{cite book
|title=Revision of the United Nations Charter: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Relations, Eighty-First Congress
|author=Senate Report (Senate Foreign Relations Committee)
|publisher=United States Government Printing Office
|year=1950
|page=494}} [[s:James Warburg before the Subcommittee on Revision of the United Nations Charter#We shall have world government|Testimony on Wikisource]]</ref>

[[Right-wing populist]] advocacy groups with a [[paleoconservatism|paleoconservative]] world-view, such as the [[John Birch Society]], disseminated a multitude of conspiracy theories in the 1960s claiming that the governments of both the United States and the [[Soviet Union]] were controlled by a [[cabal]] of [[neoliberalism|corporate internationalists]], "greedy" bankers and corrupt politicians who were intent on using the UN as the vehicle to create a "One World Government". This [[anti-globalization movement|anti-globalist]] conspiracism fueled the campaign for [[United States withdrawal from the United Nations|U.S. withdrawal from the UN]]. American writer [[Mary M. Davison]], in her 1966 booklet ''The Profound Revolution'', traced the alleged New World Order conspiracy to the establishment of the U.S. [[Federal Reserve System|Federal Reserve]] in 1913 by international bankers, whom she claimed later formed the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] in 1921 as a [[Shadow government (conspiracy)|shadow government]]. At the time the booklet was published, many readers would have interpreted "international bankers" as a reference to a postulated "international [[Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories|Jewish banking conspiracy]]" masterminded by the [[Rothschild family]].<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>{{additional citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Arguing that the term "New World Order" is used by a secretive global elite dedicated to the eradication of the sovereignty of the world's nations, American writer [[Gary Allen]]—in his books ''None Dare Call It Conspiracy'' (1971), ''Rockefeller: Campaigning for the New World Order'' (1974), and '' Say "No!" to the New World Order'' (1987)—articulated the anti-globalist theme of contemporary [[right-wing]] conspiracism in the U.S. After the [[Revolutions of 1989|fall of communism]] in the early 1990s, the ''de facto'' subject of New World Order conspiracism shifted from [[crypto-communism|crypto-communists]], perceived to be plotting to establish an atheistic world communist government, to globalists, perceived to be plotting to implement a collectivist generally, unified world government ultimately controlled by an untouchable [[oligarchy]] of international bankers, corrupt politicians, and [[Corporatocracy|corporatists]], or the United Nations itself. The shift in perception was inspired by growing [[business nationalism|opposition to corporate internationalism]] on the American right in the 1990s.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>{{additional citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In his speech, ''[[s:Toward a New World Order|Toward a New World Order]]'', delivered on 11 September 1990 during a joint session of the [[United States Congress|US Congress]], President [[George H. W. Bush]] described [[New world order (politics)#Gulf War and Bush's formulation|his objectives for post-Cold War global governance]] in cooperation with [[post-Soviet states]]. He stated:

{{quotation|Until now, the world we've known has been a world divided—a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict, and the cold war. Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the genuine prospect of new world order. In the words of Winston Churchill, a "world order" in which "the principles of justice and fair play ... protect the weak against the strong ..." A world where the United Nations, freed from cold war stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders. A world in which freedom and respect for human rights find a home among all nations.<ref>(clip) {{cite web |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byxeOG_pZ1o |title= George Bush Sr. New World Order Live Speech Sept 11 1991 |date= 3 December 2011 |publisher= YouTube |access-date= 14 January 2016}}</ref>}}

''[[The New York Times]]'' observed that progressives were denouncing this new world order as a rationalization of [[American imperialism|American imperial]] ambitions in the [[Middle East]] at the time. At the same time [[conservatism in the United States|conservatives]] rejected any new security arrangements altogether and fulminated about any possibility of a UN revival.<ref>{{cite news|last1= Judis|first1= John B.|title= George Bush, Meet Woodrow Wilson|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/20/opinion/george-bush-meet-woodrow-wilson.html|access-date= 10 July 2014|work= The New York Times|date= 20 November 1990}}</ref> [[Chip Berlet]], an American investigative reporter specializing in the study of right-wing movements in the U.S., wrote that the Christian and secular far-right were especially terrified by Bush's speech. Fundamentalist Christian groups interpreted Bush's words as signaling the [[Eschatology|End Times]]. At the same time, more secular theorists approached it from an anti-communist and anti-collectivist standpoint and feared for hegemony over all countries by the United Nations.<ref name="Berlet and Lyons 2000"/>

===Post-Cold War usage===
[[File:Pat Robertson Paparazzo Photography.jpg|thumb|upright|American televangelist [[Pat Robertson]] wrote the 1991 best-selling book ''[[The New World Order (Robertson)|The New World Order]]''.]]
American [[televangelist]] [[Pat Robertson]], with his 1991 best-selling book ''[[The New World Order (Robertson)|The New World Order]]'', became the most prominent Christian disseminator of conspiracy theories about recent American history. He describes a scenario where [[Wall Street]], the Federal Reserve System, the Council on Foreign Relations, the [[Bilderberg Group]] and the [[Trilateral Commission]] control the flow of events from behind the scenes, constantly nudging people covertly in the direction of world government for the [[Antichrist]].<ref name="Barkun 2003" />

It has been observed that, throughout the 1990s, the galvanizing language used by conspiracy theorists such as [[Linda Thompson (attorney)|Linda Thompson]], [[Mark Koernke]] and [[Robert K. Spear]] led to militancy and the rise of the [[American militia movement]].<ref name="CAMO">Pitcavage, Mark; Institute for Intergovernmental Research: "Camouflage and Conspiracy. The Militia Movement From Ruby Ridge to Y2K". ''American Behavioral Scientist'', Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 957–81, SAGE Publications, 2001.</ref> The militia movement's [[Anti-statism|anti-government]] ideology was spread through speeches at rallies and meetings, books and videotapes sold at [[gun show]]s, shortwave and satellite radio, fax networks, and computer bulletin boards.<ref name="Berlet 1999" /> It has been argued that it was overnight AM radio shows and propagandistic [[viral marketing|viral content]] on the [[internet]] that most effectively contributed to more extremist responses to the perceived threat of the New World Order. This led to the substantial growth of New World Order conspiracism, with it retroactively finding its way into the previously apolitical literature of numerous [[Kennedy assassinologist]]s, [[ufologist]]s, [[lost lands|lost land theorists]] and—partially inspired by fears surrounding the [[Satanic ritual abuse#As a moral panic|"Satanic panic"]]—[[occultist]]s. From the mid-1990s onward, the amorphous appeal of those subcultures transmitted New World Order conspiracism to a larger audience of seekers of [[stigmatized knowledge]], with the common characteristic of disillusionment of [[political efficacy]].<ref name="Barkun 2003" />

From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, Hollywood [[conspiracy fiction|conspiracy-thriller]] television shows and films also played a role in introducing a general audience to various [[fringe theory|fringe]], esoteric theories related to New World Order conspiracism—which by that point had developed to include [[black helicopter]]s, [[Federal Emergency Management Agency|FEMA]] "[[FEMA camps conspiracy theory|concentration camps]]", etc.—theories which for decades previously were confined to largely right-wing subcultures. The 1993–2002 television series ''[[The X-Files]]'', the 1997 film ''[[Conspiracy Theory (film)|Conspiracy Theory]]'' and the 1998 film ''[[The X-Files (film)|The X-Files: Fight the Future]]'' are often cited as notable examples.<ref name="Barkun 2003" /> <!-- Please do not add further examples unless they are noted as such by a reliable source (e.g., author, review, article [no blogs], etc.). Otherwise, they will be removed; Wikipedia cannot designate something as having introduced the public to various fringe theories related to New World Order conspiracism if reliable sources have not already done so. -->

Following the start of the 21st century, and specifically during the [[late-2000s financial crisis]], many politicians and pundits, such as [[Gordon Brown]]<ref>{{cite news|last1=Grice |first1=Andrew |title=This was the Bretton Woods of our times |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-grice/andrew-grice-this-was-the-bretton-woods-of-our-times-1662231.html |access-date=10 July 2014 |work=The Independent |date=4 April 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090405105014/http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/andrew-grice/andrew-grice-this-was-the-bretton-woods-of-our-times-1662231.html |archive-date=5 April 2009}}</ref> and [[Henry Kissinger]],<ref>{{cite news|last1=Kissinger|first1=Henry|title=The chance for a new world order|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12iht-edkissinger.1.19281915.html|access-date=10 July 2014|work=The New York Times|date=12 January 2009|ref=Henry Kissinger}}</ref> used the term "[[new world order (politics)#Recent political usage|new world order]]" in their advocacy for a comprehensive reform of the [[global financial system]] and their [[International monetary systems#Calls for a "New Bretton Woods"|calls for a "New Bretton Woods"]] taking into account [[emerging markets]] such as China and India. These public declarations reinvigorated New World Order conspiracism, culminating in talk-show host [[Sean Hannity]] stating on his [[Fox News]] program ''[[Hannity]]'' that the "conspiracy theorists were right".<ref name=Hannity>{{cite book|last=Romero|first=George|title=The Rescue|date=2011|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fHZStF5WgTEC&pg=PA246|page=246|publisher=George Romero |isbn=978-1-4564-9962-4}}</ref> Progressive [[media watchdog|media-watchdog]] groups have repeatedly criticized [[Fox News]] in general, and its now-defunct opinion show ''[[Glenn Beck (TV program)|Glenn Beck]]'' in particular, for not only disseminating New World Order conspiracy theories to mainstream audiences, but possibly agitating so-called "[[lone wolf (terrorism)|lone wolf]]" extremism, particularly from the [[Radical right (United States)|radical right]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Krugman |first1=Paul |title=The Big Hate |journal=The New York Times |date=11 June 2009 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/opinion/12krugman.html |access-date=10 July 2014 |ref=Paul Krugman}}</ref><ref name="Anti-Defamation League">{{cite web|author=Anti-Defamation League |author-link=Anti-Defamation League|date=16 November 2009|url=http://www.adl.org/special_reports/rage-grows-in-America/default.asp|title=Rage Grows in America: Anti‑Government Conspiracies|work=ADL Special Reports|publisher=Anti-Defamation League|access-date=20 November 2009}}</ref>

In 2009, American film directors [[Luke Meyer]] and [[Andrew Neel]] released ''[[New World Order (film)|New World Order]]'', a critically acclaimed documentary film which explores the world of conspiracy theorists—such as American radio host [[Alex Jones]]—who vigorously oppose what they perceive as an emerging New World Order.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Monfette|first1=Christopher|title=SXSW 09: New World Order Review|url=http://uk.ign.com/articles/2009/03/16/sxsw-09-new-world-order-review|access-date=10 July 2014|work=ign.com|date=16 March 2009}}</ref> The growing dissemination and popularity of conspiracy theories has also created an alliance between right-wing agitators and [[hip hop music]]'s left-wing rappers (such as [[KRS-One]], [[Professor Griff]] of [[Public Enemy (group)|Public Enemy]] and [[Immortal Technique]]), illustrating how [[anti-elitism|anti-elitist]] conspiracism can create unlikely political allies in efforts to oppose a political system.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Gosa|first1=Travis L.|title=Counterknowledge, racial paranoia, and the cultic milieu: Decoding hip hop conspiracy theory|journal=Poetics|date=June 2011|volume=39|issue=3 |doi=10.1016/j.poetic.2011.03.003|pages=187–204}}</ref>

==Conspiracy theories==
There are numerous [[Conspiracy theory#Types|systemic conspiracy theories]] through which the concept of a New World Order is viewed. The following is a list of the major ones in roughly chronological order:<ref>{{cite book|last=Johnson|first=George|date=1983|title=Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics|publisher=Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc.|isbn=0-87477-275-3|url=https://archive.org/details/architectsoffear00john}}</ref>

===End time===
[[File:JohnNelsonDarby.jpg|upright|thumb|[[John Nelson Darby]]]]
Since the 19th century, many [[apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] [[millennialism|millennial]] [[Christian eschatology|Christian eschatologists]], starting with [[John Nelson Darby]], have predicted a globalist conspiracy to impose a tyrannical New World Order governing structure as the fulfillment of [[prophecies]] about the "[[Eschatology|end time]]" in the [[Bible]], specifically in the [[Book of Ezekiel]], the [[Book of Daniel]], the [[Olivet discourse]] found in the [[Synoptic Gospels]], [[2 Esdras]] 11:32 and [[Book of Revelation|Revelation]] 13:7.<ref name="Hughes">{{cite journal|last1=Hughes|first1=Richard T.|title=Revelation, Revolutions, and the Tyrannical New World Order|journal=The Huffington Post|date=24 February 2011|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-t-hughes/revolutions-in-the-middle_b_827201.html|access-date=10 July 2014}}</ref> They claim that people who have made a [[deal with the Devil]] to gain wealth and power have become pawns in a supernatural chess game to move humanity into accepting a [[utopia]]n world government that rests on the spiritual foundations of a [[syncretism|syncretic]]-[[messianism|messianic]] world religion, which will later reveal itself to be a [[dystopia]]n world empire that imposes the [[imperial cult]] of an “Unholy Trinity” of [[Satan]], the [[Antichrist]] and the [[False Prophet]].{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} In many contemporary Christian conspiracy theories, the False Prophet will be either the last [[pope]] of the [[Catholic Church]] (groomed and installed by an [[Alta Vendita]] or [[Jesuit conspiracy theories|Jesuit conspiracy]]), a [[guru]] from the [[New Age movement]], or even the leader of an elite [[fundamentalist Christian]] organization like [[The Fellowship (Christian organization)|the Fellowship]], while the Antichrist will be either the [[President of the European Union]], the [[Caliph]] of a [[Pan-Islamism|pan-Islamic]] state, or even the [[Secretary-General of the United Nations]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/><ref name="Hughes"/>

Some of the most vocal critics of end-time conspiracy theories come from within Christianity.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/> In 1993, historian Bruce Barron wrote a stern rebuke of apocalyptic Christian conspiracism in the ''Christian Research Journal'', when reviewing [[Pat Robertson|Robertson]]'s 1991 book ''[[The New World Order (Robertson)|The New World Order]]''.<ref name="Barron 1993">{{cite journal|author=Barron, Bruce |title=A Summary Critique|journal=Christian Research Journal|issue=Winter 1993|pages=44–45 |date=1993 |url=https://christian.net/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0120a.html |access-date=15 July 2020}}</ref> Another critique can be found in historian Gregory S. Camp's 1997 book ''Selling Fear: Conspiracy Theories and End-Times Paranoia''.<ref name="Camp 1997"/> Religious studies scholar Richard T. Hughes argues that "New World Order" rhetoric libels the Christian faith, since the "New World Order" as defined by Christian conspiracy theorists has no basis in the Bible whatsoever.  Furthermore, he argues that not only is this idea unbiblical, it is positively anti-biblical and fundamentally [[anti-Christian sentiment|anti-Christian]], because by misinterpreting key passages in the Book of Revelation, it turns a comforting message about the coming [[kingdom of God]] into one of fear, panic and despair in the face of an allegedly approaching one-world government.<ref name="Hughes"/> [[Progressive Christianity|Progressive Christians]], such as preacher-theologian [[Peter J. Gomes]], caution [[Christian fundamentalism|Christian fundamentalists]] that a "[[unclean spirit|spirit of fear]]" can distort scripture and history through dangerously combining [[biblical literalism]], [[dispensation (period)|apocalyptic timetables]], [[demonization]] and oppressive prejudices,<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Sine |first1=Tom |title=Suspicions of Conspiracy: How a spirit of fear can distort scripture and history |journal=Sojourners |issue=July–August 1995 |url=http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj9507&article=950722 |access-date=10 July 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090724154347/http://www.sojo.net//index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj9507&article=950722 |archive-date=24 July 2009 |date=July 1995 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Gomes, Peter J.|title=The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart|url=https://archive.org/details/goodbookreadingb00gome|url-access=registration|publisher=William Morrow & Co|date=1996|isbn=9780688134471|author-link=Peter J. Gomes}} {{dead link|date=July 2014}}</ref> while Camp warns of the "very real danger that Christians could pick up some extra spiritual baggage" by credulously embracing conspiracy theories.<ref name="Camp 1997"/> They therefore call on Christians who indulge in conspiracism to [[repentance|repent]].<ref name="Vandruff">{{cite web| author=Vandruff, Dean| author2=Vandruff, Laura|title=Christians & Conspiracy Theories: A Call to Repentance|url=http://www.acts17-11.com/conspire.html|access-date=30 November 2009}}</ref><ref name="Coughlin 1999">{{cite book|author=Coughlin, Paul T.|title=Secrets, Plots & Hidden Agendas: What You Don't Know About Conspiracy Theories|publisher=InterVarsity Press|date=1999|isbn=0-8308-1624-0}}</ref>

===Freemasonry===
{{Main|Masonic conspiracy theories}}
[[Freemasonry]] is one of the world's oldest secular [[fraternity|fraternal organizations]] and arose in [[Great Britain]] during the 18th century.  Over the years, several allegations and conspiracy theories have been directed towards Freemasonry, including the allegation that Freemasons have a hidden [[political agenda]] and are conspiring to bring about a New World Order, a world government organized according to Masonic principles or governed only by Freemasons.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>

The [[esotericism|esoteric]] nature of [[Masonic symbolism]] and [[Masonic ritual and symbolism|rites]] led to Freemasons first being accused of secretly practicing [[Satanism]] in the late 18th century.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/> The original allegation of a [[Masonic conspiracy theories|conspiracy within Freemasonry]] to subvert religions and governments to take over the world traces back to Scottish author [[John Robison (physicist)|John Robison]], whose [[reactionary]] conspiracy theories crossed the Atlantic and influenced outbreaks of Protestant [[anti-Masonry]] in the United States during the 19th century.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>  In the 1890s, French writer [[Léo Taxil]] wrote a series of pamphlets and books denouncing Freemasonry and charging their lodges with worshiping [[Lucifer]] as the [[God|Supreme Being]] and [[Great Architect of the Universe]]. Despite the fact that Taxil admitted that [[Taxil hoax|his claims were all a hoax]], they were and still are believed and repeated by numerous conspiracy theorists and had a huge influence on subsequent anti-Masonic claims about Freemasonry.<ref name="De Hoyos 2011">{{cite book|author=De Hoyos|first1=Artuoro|title=Is It True What They Say about Freemasonry?|last2=Morris|first2=Brent|date=2010|publisher=M. Evans and Company, revised edition|isbn=978-1-59077-153-2}}</ref>

Some conspiracy theorists eventually speculated that some [[Founding Fathers of the United States]], such as [[George Washington]] and [[Benjamin Franklin]], were having Masonic [[sacred geometry|sacred geometric]] designs interwoven into American society, particularly in the [[Great Seal of the United States]], the [[United States one-dollar bill]], the architecture of [[National Mall#Landmarks, museums and other features|National Mall landmarks]] and the [[streets and highways of Washington, D.C.]], as part of a master plan to create the first "Masonic government" as a model for the coming New World Order.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

[[File:Masonic lodge room, Salt Lake Masonic Temple.JPG|thumb|right|220 px|A [[Masonic Lodge]] room]]

Freemasons rebut these claims of a Masonic conspiracy. Freemasonry, which promotes [[rationalism]], places no power in occult symbols themselves, and it is not a part of its principles to view the drawing of symbols, no matter how large, as an act of consolidating or controlling power.<ref name="AMFAQ 6.8">{{cite web|author=McKeown, Trevor W.|date=5 May 2004|url=http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/anti-masonry06.html#68|title=Doesn't the satanic design of Washington, DC's street plan prove that there's a masonic conspiracy?|work=Anti-masonry Frequently Asked Questions|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A. M.|access-date=23 July 2009}}</ref> Furthermore, there is no published information establishing the Masonic membership of the men responsible for the design of the Great Seal.<ref name="AMFAQ 6.8"/><ref name="AMFAQ 2.3">{{cite web|author=McKeown, Trevor W.|date=5 May 2004|url=http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/anti-masonry02.html#eye_pyramid|title=Is the eye and pyramid a masonic symbol?|work=Anti-masonry Frequently Asked Questions|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A. M.|access-date=23 July 2009}}</ref> While conspiracy theorists assert that there are elements of Masonic influence on the Great Seal of the United States and that these elements were intentionally or unintentionally used because the creators were familiar with the symbols,<ref name="Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia">{{cite book|last1=Knight|first1=Peter|title=Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia|url=https://archive.org/details/conspiracytheori00knig_851|url-access=limited|year= 2003|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1576078129|pages=[https://archive.org/details/conspiracytheori00knig_851/page/n244 227]}}</ref> in fact, the all-seeing [[Eye of Providence]] and the unfinished pyramid were symbols used as much outside Masonic lodges as within them in the late 18th century. Therefore, the designers were drawing from common esoteric symbols.<ref name="Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories, The (3rd)">{{cite book|last1=McConachie|first1=James|last2=Tudge|first2=Robin|title=Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories, The (3rd)|publisher=Rough Guides UK|isbn=978-1409362456|year=2013}}</ref> The Latin phrase "''[[novus ordo seclorum]]''", appearing on the reverse side of the Great Seal since 1782 and the back of the one-dollar bill since 1935, translates to "New Order of the Ages",<ref name="Lewis and Short"/> and alludes to the beginning of an era where the United States of America is an independent nation-state; conspiracy theorists often mistranslate it as "New World Order".<ref name="GreatSeal.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.greatseal.com/mottoes/seclorum.html|title=Novus Ordo Seclorum – Origin and Meaning of the Motto Beneath the American Pyramid |publisher=GreatSeal.com}}</ref>

Although the [[Continental Freemasonry|European continental branch of Freemasonry]] has organizations that allow political discussion within their Masonic Lodges, Masonic researcher Trevor W. McKeown argues that the accusations ignore several facts. Firstly, the many Grand Lodges are independent and sovereign, meaning they act independently and do not have a common agenda. The points of belief of the various lodges often differ. Secondly, famous Freemasons have always held views that span the political spectrum and show no particular pattern or preference. As such, the term "Masonic government" is erroneous; there is no consensus among Freemasons about what an ideal government would look like.<ref name="AM FAQ 4.8">{{cite web|author=McKeown, Trevor W.|date=5 May 2004|url=http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/anti-masonry04.html#politics|title=Does Freemasonry have a secret political agenda?|work=Anti-masonry Frequently Asked Questions|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A. M.|access-date=23 July 2009}}</ref>

===Illuminati===
[[File:Adam_Weishaupt01.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Adam Weishaupt]], founder of the [[Illuminati]], an 18th-century Bavarian liberal and secular secret society]]
The Order of the [[Illuminati]] was an [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment-age]] secret society founded by university professor [[Adam Weishaupt]] on 1 May 1776, in [[Upper Bavaria]], Germany. The movement consisted of advocates of [[freethought]], [[secularism]], [[liberalism]], [[republicanism]], and [[gender equality]], recruited from the German [[Masonic Lodge]]s, who sought to teach [[rationalism]] through [[Western esotericism|mystery schools]]. In 1785, the order was infiltrated, broken up, and suppressed by the government agents of [[Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria]], in his preemptive campaign to neutralize the threat of secret societies ever becoming hotbeds of conspiracies to overthrow the Bavarian [[monarchy]] and its [[state religion]], Roman Catholicism.<ref name="Stauffer 1918">{{cite journal|author=Stauffer, Vernon L.|title=The European Illuminati|journal=New England and the Bavarian Illuminati|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A. M.|date=1918|url=http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/stauffer.html|access-date=23 July 2009|doi=10.7312/stau92126-005|url-access=subscription}}</ref> There is no evidence that the Bavarian Illuminati survived its suppression in 1785.<ref name="McKeown"/>

In the late 18th century, [[reactionary]] conspiracy theorists, such as Scottish physicist [[John Robison (physicist)|John Robison]] and French [[Jesuit]] priest [[Augustin Barruel]], began speculating that the Illuminati had survived their suppression and become the masterminds behind the [[French Revolution]] and the [[Reign of Terror]]. The Illuminati were accused of being [[subversion|subversives]] who were attempting to secretly orchestrate a [[revolutionary wave]] in [[Europe]] and the rest of the world by spreading the most [[radicalism (historical)|radical]] ideas and movements of the Enlightenment—[[anti-clericalism]], [[anti-monarchism]], and [[protofeminism|anti-patriarchalism]]— which the accusers feared would lead to the destruction of the [[appeal to nature|natural order]] of things.<ref>{{cite news|first=Colin|last=Dickey|title=Did an Illuminati Conspiracy Theory Help Elect Thomas Jefferson?|url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/29/illuminati-conspiracy-theory-thomas-jeffersion-1800-election-152934|access-date=14 January 2024|work=BBC|date=29 March 2020}}</ref><ref name="Dickey 2023">{{cite book|author=Dickey, Colin|title=Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy|publisher=Penguin Random House|date=2023|isbn=9780593299456}}</ref> During the 19th century, fear of an Illuminati conspiracy was a real concern of the European [[ruling class]]es, and their oppressive reactions to this unfounded fear provoked in 1848 [[revolutions of 1848|the very revolutions they sought to prevent]].<ref name="McKeown">{{cite web|author=McKeown, Trevor W.|title=A Bavarian Illuminati primer|date=2004|url=http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/texts/illuminati.html|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon|access-date=23 July 2009}}</ref>

During the [[interwar period]] of the 20th century, [[fascism|fascist]] propagandists, such as British revisionist historian [[Nesta Helen Webster]] and American socialite [[Edith Starr Miller]], not only popularized the myth of an Illuminati conspiracy but claimed that it was a subversive secret society which served the Jewish elites that supposedly propped up both [[finance capitalism]] and [[State ideology of the Soviet Union|Soviet communism]] in order to [[divide and rule]] the world. American evangelist [[Gerald Burton Winrod]] and other conspiracy theorists within the [[Fundamentalist Christianity|fundamentalist Christian]] movement in the United States—which emerged in the 1910s as a backlash against the principles of Enlightenment [[secular humanism]], [[modernism]], and liberalism—became the main channel of dissemination of Illuminati conspiracy theories in the U.S.. [[right-wing populism|Right-wing populists]], such as members of the [[John Birch Society]], subsequently began speculating that some collegiate fraternities ([[Skull and Bones]]), gentlemen's clubs ([[Bohemian Club]]), and think tanks ([[Council on Foreign Relations]], [[Trilateral Commission]]) of the [[American upper class]] are [[front organization]]s of the Illuminati, which they accuse of plotting to create a New World Order through a one-world government.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/> ''[[The Illuminatus! Trilogy]]'', a series of three satirical novels by American writers [[Robert Shea]] and [[Robert Anton Wilson]], first published in 1975, which attributed the alleged major [[cover-up]]s of the era – such as [[John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories|who shot John F. Kennedy]] – to the Illuminati, was extremely influential in popularizing the myth of an Illuminati superconspiracy during the 1960s and onward.<ref>{{cite news|first=Sophia|last=Smith Galer|title=The accidental invention of the Illuminati conspiracy|url=https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170809-the-accidental-invention-of-the-illuminati-conspiracy|access-date=14 January 2024|work=BBC|date=1 November 2014}}</ref>

===''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion''===
''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'' is an [[antisemitic canard]], originally published in [[Russian language|Russian]] in 1903, alleging a [[Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory|Judeo-Masonic conspiracy]] to achieve world domination. The text purports to be the minutes of the secret meetings of a [[cabal]] of Jewish masterminds, which has co-opted [[Freemasonry]] and is plotting to rule the world on behalf of all Jews because they believe themselves to be the [[Jews as a chosen people|chosen people of God]].<ref>Soviet Jewry: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations, United States Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 1984. p.&nbsp;56</ref> ''The Protocols'' incorporate many of the core conspiracist themes outlined in the [[John Robison (physicist)|Robison]] and [[Augustin Barruel|Barruel]] attacks on the Freemasons and overlay them with antisemitic allegations about anti-[[Tsarist autocracy|Tsarist]] movements in Russia. ''The Protocols'' reflect themes similar to more general [[Counter-Enlightenment|critiques of Enlightenment]] liberalism by [[traditionalist conservatism|conservative]] aristocrats who support [[monarchy|monarchies]] and [[state religion]]s. The interpretation intended by the publication of ''The Protocols'' is that if one peels away the layers of the [[Masonic conspiracy theories|Masonic conspiracy]], past the [[Illuminati]], one finds the rotten Jewish core.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>

[[File:1920 The Jewish Peril - Eyre & Spottiswoode Ltd - 1st ed..jpg|upright|thumb|Cover of a 1920 copy of ''[[The Jewish Peril]]'']]

Numerous polemicists, such as Irish journalist [[Philip Graves]] in a 1921 article in ''[[The Times]]'', and British academic [[Norman Cohn]] in his 1967 book ''[[Warrant for Genocide]]'', have proven ''The Protocols'' to be both a [[hoax]] and a clear case of plagiarism. There is general agreement that Russian-French writer and political activist [[Matvei Golovinski]] fabricated the text for [[Okhrana]], the [[secret police]] of the [[Russian Empire]], as a work of [[counter-revolutionary]] [[propaganda]] prior to the [[1905 Russian Revolution]], by plagiarizing, almost word for word in some passages, from ''[[The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu]]'', a 19th-century satire against [[Napoleon III of France]] written by French political satirist and [[Legitimism|Legitimist]] militant [[Maurice Joly]].<ref name="Spargo 1921">{{cite book|author=Spargo, John|title=The Jew and American Ideals|url=https://archive.org/details/jewandamericani03spargoog|publisher=Harper & Brothers|date=1921|author-link=John Spargo}}</ref>

Responsible for feeding many [[antisemitism|antisemitic]] and [[anti-Masonry|anti-Masonic]] mass hysterias of the 20th century, ''The Protocols'' has been influential in the development of some conspiracy theories, including some New World Order theories, and repeatedly appears in certain contemporary conspiracy literature.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/> For example, the authors of the 1982 controversial book ''[[The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail]]'' concluded that ''The Protocols'' was the most persuasive piece of evidence for the existence and activities of the [[Priory of Sion]]. They speculated that this secret society was working behind the scenes to establish a [[theocracy|theocratic]] "[[United States of Europe]]". Politically and religiously unified through the [[imperial cult]] of a [[Merovingian]] [[Great Catholic Monarch|Great Monarch]]—supposedly descended from a [[Jesus bloodline]]—who occupies both the throne of Europe and the [[Holy See]], this "Holy European Empire" would become the hyperpower of the 21st century.<ref name="Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln 1982">Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, ''The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail'', Corgi, 1982. {{ISBN|0-552-12138-X}}.</ref> Although the Priory of Sion itself has been exhaustively [[debunker|debunked]] by journalists and scholars as a hoax,<ref name=CBS>{{cite web|url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/27/60minutes/main1552009.shtml|title=The Priory Of Sion|publisher=www.cbsnews.com}}</ref> some [[apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] [[millenarianism|millenarian]] [[Christian eschatology|Christian eschatologists]] who believe ''The Protocols'' is authentic became convinced that the Priory of Sion was a fulfillment of [[prophecies]] found in the [[Book of Revelation]] and further proof of an [[Antichrist|anti-Christian]] conspiracy of epic proportions signaling the imminence of a New World Order.<ref name="Aho on the Merovingians 1997">{{cite web|author=Aho, Barbara|title=The Merovingian Dynasty: Satanic Bloodline of the AntiChrist & False Prophet|date=1997|url=http://watch.pair.com/merovingian.html|access-date=11 November 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091212030333/http://watch.pair.com/merovingian.html|archive-date=12 December 2009}}</ref>

Skeptics argue that the current gambit of contemporary conspiracy theorists who use ''The Protocols'' is to claim that they "really" come from some group other than the Jews, such as [[fallen angel]]s or [[#Alien invasion|alien invaders]]. Although it is hard to determine whether the conspiracy-minded actually believe this or are simply trying to sanitize a discredited text, skeptics argue that it does not make much difference, since they leave the actual, antisemitic text unchanged. The result is to give ''The Protocols'' credibility and circulation.<ref name="New Internationalist 1 2004"/>

===Round Table===
During the second half of [[Britain's Imperial Century|Britain's "imperial century" between 1815 and 1914]], English-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician [[Cecil Rhodes]] advocated the [[British Empire]] reannexing the United States of America and reforming itself into an "[[Imperial Federation]]" to bring about a hyperpower and lasting [[world peace]]. In his first will, written in 1877 at the age of 23, he expressed his wish to fund a [[secret society]] (known as the [[Society of the Elect]]) that would advance this goal:

{{quotation|To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia [Crete], the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible, and promote the best interests of humanity.<ref name="Flint 1976"/>}}

[[File:Cecil_Rhodes_ww.jpg|thumb|upright|Magnate and colonist [[Cecil Rhodes]] advocated a secret society which would make Britain control the Earth.]]
In 1890, thirteen years after "his now-famous will," Rhodes elaborated on the same idea: establishment of "England everywhere," which would "ultimately lead to the cessation of all wars, and one language throughout the world." "The only thing feasible to carry out this idea is a secret society gradually absorbing the wealth of the world ["and human minds of the higher-order"] to be devoted to such an object."<ref>{{cite news| url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/04/09/101945773.pdf | work=The New York Times | title=MR. RHODES'S IDEAL OF ANGLO-SAXON GREATNESS; Statement of His Aims, Written for W.T. Stead In 1890. He Believed a Wealthy Secret Society Should Work to Secure the World's Peace and a British-American Federation | date=9 April 1902}}</ref>

Rhodes also concentrated on the [[Rhodes Scholarship]], which had British statesman [[Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner|Alfred Milner]] as one of its trustees. Established in 1902, the original goal of the trust fund was to foster peace among the [[great powers]] by creating a sense of fraternity and a shared world view among future British, American, and German leaders by having enabled them to study for free at the [[University of Oxford]].<ref name="Flint 1976">{{cite book|author=Flint, John E.|title=Cecil Rhodes|publisher=Little Brown & Company |edition=1st |date=1976|isbn=0-316-28630-3}}</ref>

Milner and British official [[Lionel George Curtis]] were the architects of the [[Round Table movement]], a network of organizations promoting closer union between Britain and its [[Self-governing colony|self-governing colonies]]. To this end, Curtis founded the [[Royal Institute of International Affairs]] in June 1919 and, with his 1938 book ''The Commonwealth of God'', began advocating for the creation of an imperial federation that eventually reannexes the U.S., which would be presented to [[Protestant churches]] as being the work of the [[God in Christianity|Christian God]] to elicit their support.<ref>Curtis, Lionel. ''Civitas Dei: The Commonwealth of God'' London (1938). MacMillan & Sons</ref> The [[Commonwealth of Nations]] was created in 1949, but it would only be a free association of independent states rather than the powerful imperial federation imagined by Rhodes, Milner, and Curtis.

The [[Council on Foreign Relations]] began in 1917 with a group of New York academics who were asked by President [[Woodrow Wilson]] to offer options for the [[foreign policy of the United States]] in the [[interwar period]]. Originally envisioned as a group of American and British scholars and diplomats, some of whom belonging to the Round Table movement, it was a subsequent group of 108 New York financiers, manufacturers, and international lawyers organized in June 1918 by Nobel Peace Prize recipient and U.S. secretary of state [[Elihu Root]], that became the Council on Foreign Relations on 29 July 1921. The first of the council's projects was a quarterly journal launched in September 1922, called ''[[Foreign Affairs]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/index.html|title=About CFR|website=Council on Foreign Relations}}</ref> The [[Trilateral Commission]] was founded in July 1973, at the initiative of American banker [[David Rockefeller]], who was chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations at that time. It is a private organization established to foster closer cooperation among the United States, Europe, and Japan. The Trilateral Commission is widely seen as a counterpart to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the 1960s, [[Right-wing populism|right-wing populist]] individuals and groups with a [[paleoconservatism|paleoconservative]] worldview, such as members of the [[John Birch Society]], were the first to combine and spread a [[business nationalism|business nationalist]] critique of [[neoliberalism|corporate internationalists]] networked through think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations with a grand conspiracy theory casting them as [[front organization]]s for the Round Table of the "Anglo-American [[the Establishment|Establishment]]", which are financed by an "international banking cabal" that has supposedly been plotting from the late 19th century on to impose an [[oligarchy|oligarchic]] new world order through a [[global financial system]]. Anti-[[globalism|globalist]] conspiracy theorists therefore fear that international bankers are planning to eventually subvert the independence of the U.S. by subordinating national [[sovereignty]] to a strengthened [[Bank for International Settlements]].<ref name="Scienta Press">{{cite web|author=Scienta Press staff|title=Carroll Quigley: Theorist of Civilizations|date=20 December 2011 |url=http://www.scientiapress.com/carroll-quigley}}</ref>

The research findings of historian [[Carroll Quigley]], author of the 1966 book ''[[Tragedy and Hope]]'', are taken by both conspiracy theorists of the American [[Old Right (United States)|Old Right]] ([[W. Cleon Skousen]]) and [[New Left]] ([[Carl Oglesby]]) to substantiate this view, even though Quigley argued that the Establishment is not involved in a plot to implement a one-world government but rather [[British imperialism|British]] and [[American imperialism|American]] [[benevolent imperialism]] driven by the mutual interests of economic elites in the United Kingdom and the United States. Quigley also argued that, although the [[Round Table movement#Current organization and membership|Round Table still exists today]], its position in influencing the policies of world leaders has been much reduced from its heyday during [[World War I]] and slowly waned after the end of [[World War II]] and the [[Suez Crisis]]. Today the Round Table is largely a [[ginger group]], designed to consider and gradually influence the policies of the [[Commonwealth of Nations]], but faces strong opposition. Furthermore, in American society after 1965, the problem, according to Quigley, was that no elite was in charge and acting responsibly.<ref name="Scienta Press"/>

[[Larry McDonald]], the second president of the [[John Birch Society]] and a [[conservative Democrat]]ic member of the [[United States House of Representatives]] who represented the 7th congressional district of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], wrote a foreword for [[Gary Allen|Allen]]'s 1976 book ''The Rockefeller File'', wherein he claimed that the Rockefellers and their allies were driven by a desire to create a one-world government that combined "super-[[capitalism]]" with [[communism]] and would be fully under their control. He saw a conspiracy plot that was "international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent."<ref>McDonald, Lawrence P. Introduction. [http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/gary_allen_rocker/ ''The Rockefeller File'']. By [[Gary Allen]]. Seal Beach, CA: '76 Press, 1976. {{ISBN|0-89245-001-0}}.</ref>

In his 2002 autobiography ''Memoirs'', David Rockefeller wrote:

{{quotation|For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents ... to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.<ref name="Rockefeller 1999">{{cite book|author=Rockefeller, David|title=Memoirs|publisher=Random House|date=2002|isbn=0-679-40588-7|author-link=David Rockefeller|url=https://archive.org/details/davidrockefeller00davi}}</ref>}}

Barkun argues that this statement is partly facetious (the claim of "conspiracy" and "[[treason]]") and partly serious—the desire to encourage trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Europe, and Japan;{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} for example — an ideal that used to be a hallmark of the [[neoliberalism|internationalist]] wing of the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] (known as "[[Rockefeller Republican]]s" in honor of [[Nelson Rockefeller]]) when there was an internationalist wing.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}} The statement, however, is taken at face value{{by whom|date=November 2021}} and widely cited by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Council on Foreign Relations uses its role as the [[brain trust]] of American presidents, senators and representatives to manipulate them into supporting a New World Order in the form of a one-world government.{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

In a 13 November 2007 interview with Canadian journalist Benjamin Fulford, Rockefeller countered that he felt no need for a world government and wished for the world's governments to work together and collaborate. He also stated that it seemed neither likely nor desirable to have only one elected government rule worldwide. He criticized accusations of him being "ruler of the world" as nonsensical.<ref name="Fulford 2007">{{cite video|author=Fulford, Benjamin|url=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3704527408635856046 |title=Benjamin Fulford interviews David Rockefeller |date=2007}}</ref>

Some American [[social criticism|social critics]], such as Laurence H. Shoup, argue that the Council on Foreign Relations is an "[[American imperialism#Marxist–Leninist|imperial]] brain trust" which has, for decades, played a central behind-the-scenes role in shaping U.S. foreign policy choices for the post-World War II international order and the [[Cold War]] by determining what options show up on the [[political agenda|agenda]] and what options do not even make it to the table;<ref name="Shoup & Minter 2004">{{cite book|author=Shoup, Laurence H.|author2=Minter, William|title=Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy|publisher=Authors Choice Press|date=2004|isbn=0-595-32426-6}}</ref> others, such as [[G. William Domhoff]], argue that it is in fact a mere policy discussion forum<ref name="Domhoff 2005">{{cite web|last=Domhoff|first=G. William|author-link=G. William Domhoff|title=There Are No Conspiracies|date=2005|url=http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/theory/conspiracy.html|access-date=30 January 2009}}</ref> which provides the business [[Council on Foreign Relations#Influence on foreign policy|input to U.S. foreign policy]] planning.{{citation needed|date=August 2013}} Domhoff argues that "[i]t has nearly 3,000 members, far too many for secret plans to be kept within the group. All the council does is sponsor discussion groups, debates, and speakers. As far as being secretive, it issues annual reports and allows access to its historical archives." However, all these critics agree{{citation needed|date=January 2016}} that "[h]istorical studies of the CFR show that it has a very different role in the overall power structure than what is claimed by conspiracy theorists."<ref name="Domhoff 2005"/>

===''The Open Conspiracy''===
[[File:H.G._Wells_by_Beresford.jpg|thumb|upright|[[H. G. Wells]] wrote the books ''[[The Open Conspiracy]]'' and ''[[The New World Order (Wells)|The New World Order]]''.]]
In his 1928 book ''[[The Open Conspiracy]]'' British writer and futurist [[H. G. Wells]] promoted [[cosmopolitanism]] and offered blueprints for a [[world revolution]] and [[World Brain|world brain]] to establish a technocratic [[world state]] and [[planned economy]].<ref name="Wells 1928">{{cite book|author=Wells, H. G.|title=The Open Conspiracy|publisher=Book Tree|date=2006|isbn=1-58509-275-4|title-link=The Open Conspiracy}}</ref> Wells warned, however, in his 1940 book ''[[The New World Order (Wells)|The New World Order]]'' that:

{{quotation|... when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people ... will hate the new world order, be rendered unhappy by the frustration of their passions and ambitions through its advent and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people.<ref name="Wells 1940"/>}}

Wells's books were influential in giving a second meaning to the term "[[new world order (politics)|new world order]]", which would only be used by [[state socialism|state socialist]] supporters and [[anti-communism|anti-communist]] opponents for generations to come. However, despite the popularity and notoriety of his ideas, Wells failed to exert a deeper and more lasting influence because he was unable to concentrate his energies on a direct appeal to [[intelligentsia]]s who would, ultimately, have to coordinate the Wellsian new world order.<ref>{{cite journal|jstor=2009188|title=H. G. Wells, British Patriot in Search of a World State|first=Edward Mead|last=Earle|date=26 April 2018|journal=World Politics|volume=2|issue=2|pages=181–208|doi=10.2307/2009188|s2cid=154346069 }}</ref>

===New Age===
British [[Neo-Theosophy|neo-Theosophical]] occultist [[Alice Bailey]], one of the founders of the so-called [[New Age]] movement, prophesied in 1940 the eventual victory of the [[Allies of World War II]] over the [[Axis powers]] (which occurred in 1945) and the establishment by the Allies of a political and religious New World Order. She saw a federal world government as the culmination of [[The Open Conspiracy|Wells' Open Conspiracy]] but favorably argued that it would be [[synarchist]] because it was guided by the [[Masters of the Ancient Wisdom]], intent on preparing humanity for the [[Second Coming of Christ#Theosophy|mystical second coming]] of [[Christ]], and the dawning of the [[Age of Aquarius]]. According to Bailey, a group of ascended masters called the [[Great White Brotherhood]] works on the "[[plane (esotericism)|inner planes]]" to oversee the transition to the New World Order but, for now, the members of this [[Spiritual Hierarchy]] are only known to a few occult scientists, with whom they communicate [[telepathy|telepathically]], but as the need for their personal involvement in the plan increases, there will be an "Externalization of the Hierarchy" and everyone will know of their presence on Earth.<ref>{{cite web|author=Bailey, Alice A.|date=1957|url=http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/externalisation/contents.html|title=The Externalization of the Hierarchy|publisher=USNISA|access-date=23 July 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090805093622/http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/externalisation/contents.html|archive-date=5 August 2009}}</ref>

[[File:%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%B0_%D0%90%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0_%D0%91%D0%B5%D0%B9%D0%BB%D0%B8.jpeg|thumb|upright|[[New Age]] author [[Alice Bailey]]'s writings have been condemned by [[Christian right]] conspiracy theorists.]]
Bailey's writings, along with American writer [[Marilyn Ferguson]]'s 1980 book ''[[Marilyn Ferguson#The Aquarian Conspiracy|The Aquarian Conspiracy]]'', contributed to conspiracy theorists of the [[Christian right]] viewing the New Age movement as the "[[pseudoreligion|false religion]]" that would [[supersessionism|supersede]] Christianity in a New World Order.<ref name="Cumbey 1985">{{cite book|author=Cumbey, Constance|title=The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow: The New Age Movement and our Coming Age of Barbarism|publisher=Huntington House Publishers; Revised edition|date=1985|isbn=0-910311-03-X|author-link=Constance Cumbey|url=https://archive.org/details/hiddendangersofr00cumb}}</ref> Skeptics argue that the term "New Age movement" is a misnomer, generally used by conspiracy theorists as a catch-all rubric for any [[new religious movement]] that is not [[fundamentalist Christian]]. By this logic, anything that is not Christian is by definition actively and willfully [[Anti-Christian sentiment|anti-Christian]].<ref>{{cite web|author=McKeown, Trevor W.|date=5 May 2004|url=http://www.freemasonry.bcy.ca/anti-masonry/anti-masonry08.html#new|title=Has Freemasonry become part of the New Age movement?|work=Anti-masonry Frequently Asked Questions|publisher=Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon A.F. & A. M.|access-date=2 November 2009}}</ref>

Paradoxically, since the first decade of the 21st century, New World Order conspiracism is increasingly being embraced and propagandized by New Age [[occultists]], who are people bored by [[rationalism]] and drawn to [[stigmatized knowledge]]—such as [[alternative medicine]], [[astrology]], [[quantum mysticism]], [[Spiritualism (movement)|spiritualism]], and [[Theosophy (Blavatskian)|theosophy]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/> Thus, New Age conspiracy theorists, such as the makers of documentary films like ''Esoteric Agenda'', claim that globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order are simply misusing occultism for Machiavellian ends, such as adopting 21 December 2012 as the exact date for the establishment of the New World Order to take advantage of the growing [[2012 phenomenon]], which has its origins in the fringe [[Mayanism|Mayanist]] theories of New Age writers [[José Argüelles]], [[Terence McKenna]], and [[Daniel Pinchbeck]].{{citation needed|date=November 2021}}

Skeptics argue that the connection of conspiracy theorists and occultists follows from their common fallacious premises. First, any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false. Second, stigmatized knowledge—what [[the Establishment]] spurns—must be true. The result is a large, [[Crank (person)#Crank magnetism|self-referential network]] in which, for example, some [[UFO religion]]ists promote anti-Jewish phobias while some antisemites practice Peruvian [[shamanism]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

===Fourth Reich===
{{See also|New Order (Nazism)}}
[[File:Jim_PR_2010.jpg|thumb|upright|American writer [[Jim Marrs]] claimed that former Nazis and their sympathizers had been continuing Nazi policies worldwide, especially in the United States.]]
Conspiracy theorists often use the term "[[Fourth Reich]]" simply as a pejorative synonym for the "New World Order" to imply that its state ideology and government will be similar to Germany's [[Third Reich]].{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Conspiracy theorists, such as American writer [[Jim Marrs]], claim that some [[list of former Nazi Party members|ex-Nazis]], who survived the fall of the [[Nazi Germany|Greater German Reich]], along with sympathizers in the United States and elsewhere, given haven by organizations like [[ODESSA]] and [[Die Spinne]], has been working behind the scenes since the end of [[World War II]] to enact at least some principles of [[Nazism]] (e.g., [[militarism]], [[imperialism]], [[surveillance abuse|widespread spying on citizens]], [[corporatism]], the use of [[propaganda model|propaganda to manufacture a national consensus]]) into culture, government, and business worldwide, but primarily in the U.S. They cite the influence of ex-Nazi scientists brought in under [[Operation Paperclip]] to help advance aerospace manufacturing in the U.S. with technological principles from [[Nazi UFOs]], and the acquisition and creation of [[conglomerate (company)|conglomerates]] by ex-Nazis and their sympathizers after the war, in both [[Europe]] and the U.S.<ref name="Marrs 2008">{{cite book|author=Marrs, Jim|title=The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America|publisher=William Morrow|date=2008|isbn=978-0-06-124558-9|url=https://archive.org/details/riseoffourthreic00marr}}</ref>

This [[neo-Nazi]] conspiracy is said to be animated by an "Iron Dream" in which the [[American imperialism|American Empire]], having thwarted the [[Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory|Judeo-Masonic conspiracy]] and overthrown its [[Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory|Zionist Occupation Government]], gradually establishes a Fourth Reich formerly known as the "Western Imperium"—a [[pan-nationalism|pan]]-[[Aryan race|Aryan]] world empire modeled after [[Adolf Hitler]]'s [[New Order (Nazism)|New Order]]—which reverses the "[[The Decline of the West|decline of the West]]" and ushers a golden age of [[white supremacy]].<ref name="Zeskind 2009">{{cite book|author=Zeskind, Leonard|title=Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|date=2009|isbn=978-0-374-10903-5|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780374109035}}</ref>

Skeptics argue that conspiracy theorists grossly overestimate the influence of ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis on American society and point out that [[political repression]] at home and [[imperialism]] abroad have a long history in the United States that predates the 20th century. Political theorist [[Sheldon Wolin]] has expressed concern that the twin forces of [[democratic deficit]] and [[superpower]] status have paved the way in the U.S. for the emergence of an [[inverted totalitarianism]] which contradicts many principles of Nazism.<ref name="Wolin 2004">{{cite journal|author=Pipes, Daniel|title=Inverted Totalitarianism|journal=The Nation|date=1 May 2003|url=http://www.thenation.com/article/inverted-totalitarianism|access-date=21 December 2009}}</ref>

===Alien invasion===
Since the late 1970s, [[extraterrestrials]] from other [[planetary habitability|habitable planets]] or [[interdimensional hypothesis|parallel dimensions]] (such as "[[Grey alien|Greys]]") and intraterrestrials from [[Hollow Earth]] (such as "[[Reptilian conspiracy theory|Reptilians]]") have been included in the New World Order conspiracy, in more or less dominant roles, as in the theories put forward by American writers Stan Deyo and [[Milton William Cooper]], and British writer [[David Icke]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

[[File:David Icke, 7 June 2013 (1).jpg|thumb|British writer [[David Icke]] claims that shapeshifting aliens called [[Reptilian humanoid|Reptilians]] control the Earth.]]
The common theme in these conspiracy theories is that aliens have been among us for decades, centuries or millennia. Still, a government [[cover-up]] enforced by "[[Men in black|Men in Black]]" has shielded the public from knowledge of a secret [[alien invasion]]. Motivated by [[speciesism]] and [[imperialism]], these aliens have been and are secretly manipulating developments and changes in [[human]] society to more efficiently control and exploit human beings. In some theories, alien infiltrators have [[shapeshifting|shapeshifted]] into human form and [[cryptoterrestrial hypothesis|move freely throughout human society]], even to the point of taking control of command positions in governmental, corporate, and religious institutions, and are now in the final stages of their plan to take over the world.{{cn|date=March 2024}} A mythical covert government agency of the United States code-named [[Majestic 12]] is often imagined being the [[Shadow government (conspiracy)|shadow government]] which [[collaborationism|collaborates]] with the alien occupation and permits [[alien abduction]]s, in exchange for assistance in the development and testing of [[Circular wing|military "flying saucers"]] at [[Area 51]], in order for [[United States armed forces]] to achieve [[full-spectrum dominance]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

Skeptics, who adhere to the [[psychosocial hypothesis]] for [[unidentified flying objects]], argue that the convergence of New World Order conspiracy theory and [[UFO conspiracy theory]] is a product of not only the era's widespread mistrust of governments and the popularity of the [[extraterrestrial hypothesis]] for UFOs but of the [[far right]] and [[ufologist]]s joining forces. Barkun notes that the only positive side to this development is that, if conspirators plotting to rule the world are believed to be aliens, traditional human [[scapegoating|scapegoats]] ([[Freemasons]], [[Illuminati]], [[Jews]], etc.) are downgraded or exonerated.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

===''Brave New World''===
[[File:Stop The New World Order.jpg|thumb|2007 graffiti on a brick wall: "Stop The New World Order"]]
[[Antiscience]] and [[neo-Luddism|neo-Luddite]] conspiracy theorists emphasize [[technology forecasting]] in their New World Order conspiracy theories. They speculate that the global power elite are [[reactionary modernism|reactionary modernists]] pursuing a [[transhumanist]] plan to develop and use [[human enhancement technologies]] to become a "[[Posthuman#Posthuman in transhumanism|posthuman]] ruling [[caste]]", while [[accelerating change|change accelerates]] toward a [[technological singularity]]—a theorized future point of discontinuity when events will accelerate at such a pace that normal unenhanced humans will be unable to predict or even understand the rapid changes occurring in the world around them. Conspiracy theorists fear the outcome will either be the emergence of a ''[[Brave New World]]''-like [[dystopia]]—a "Brave New World Order"—or the [[human extinction|extinction of the human species]].<ref name="Collins 2006">{{cite book|author=Collins, Phillip D.|title=The Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship: An Examination of Epistemic Autocracy, From the 19th to the 21st Century|publisher=BookSurge Publishing|date=2006|isbn=1-4196-3932-3}}</ref>

[[democratic transhumanism|Democratic transhumanists]], such as American sociologist [[James Hughes (sociologist)|James Hughes]], counter that many influential members of the United States establishment are [[bioconservatism|bioconservatives]] strongly opposed to [[human enhancement]], as demonstrated by [[The President's Council on Bioethics|President Bush's Council on Bioethics]]'s proposed international treaty prohibiting [[human cloning]] and [[germline engineering]]. Furthermore, he argues that conspiracy theorists underestimate how fringe the transhumanist movement really is.<ref name="Hughes 2004">{{cite book|author=Hughes, James|title=Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future|publisher=Westview Press|date=2004|isbn=0-8133-4198-1}}</ref>

==Postulated implementations==
Just as there are several overlapping or conflicting theories among conspiracists about the nature of the New World Order, so are there several beliefs about how its architects and planners will implement it:

===Gradualism===
Conspiracy theorists generally speculate that the New World Order is being implemented [[Gradualism#Politics and society|gradually]], citing the formation of the [[U.S. Federal Reserve System]] in 1913; the [[League of Nations]] in 1919; the [[International Monetary Fund]] in 1944; the United Nations in 1945; the [[World Bank]] in 1945; the [[World Health Organization]] in 1948; the [[European Union]] and the [[Euro]] in 1993; the [[World Trade Organization]] in 1998; the [[African Union]] in 2002, and the [[Union of South American Nations]] in 2008 as major milestones.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

An increasingly popular conspiracy theory among American [[right-wing populism|right-wing populists]] is that the hypothetical [[North American Union]] and the [[amero currency]], proposed by the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] and its counterparts in [[Mexico]] and [[Canada]], will be the next milestone in the implementation of the New World Order. The theory holds that a group of shadowy and mostly nameless international elites is planning to replace the [[federal government of the United States]] with a [[transnationality|transnational]] government. Therefore, conspiracy theorists believe the borders between Mexico, Canada, and the United States are in the process of being erased, covertly, by a group of globalists whose ultimate goal is to replace national governments in Washington, D.C., Ottawa, and Mexico City with a European-style political union and a bloated E.U.-style bureaucracy.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

Skeptics argue that the North American Union exists only as a proposal contained in one of a thousand academic and policy papers published each year that advocate all manner of idealistic but ultimately unrealistic approaches to social, economic, and political problems. Most of these are passed around in their circles and eventually filed away and forgotten by junior staffers in congressional offices. However, some of these papers become touchstones for the conspiracy-minded and form the basis of all kinds of unfounded xenophobic fears, especially during times of economic anxiety.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

For example, in March 2009, as a result of the [[late-2000s financial crisis]], the People's Republic of China and the Russian Federation pressed for urgent consideration of a new international [[reserve currency]] and the [[United Nations Conference on Trade and Development]] proposed greatly expanding the I.M.F.'s [[special drawing rights]]. Conspiracy theorists fear these proposals are a call for the U.S. to adopt a [[world currency#Single world currency|single global currency]] for a New World Order.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/41919847.html?page=1&c=y|title=Bachmann: No foreign currency|date=26 March 2009|newspaper=Star Tribune|access-date=3 May 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/25/from-drudge-to-fox/|title=The Right-Wing Echo Chamber In Action: How A Conspiracy Travels From Drudge To Obama, Via Fox News|website=[[ThinkProgress]]|access-date=18 August 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515052509/http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/25/from-drudge-to-fox|archive-date=15 May 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Judging that both national governments and global institutions have proven ineffective in addressing global problems that go beyond the capacity of individual nation-states to solve, some political scientists critical of New World Order conspiracism, such as Mark C. Partridge, argue that [[regionalism (international relations)|regionalism]] will be the major force in the coming decades, pockets of power around regional centers: Western Europe around Brussels, the Western Hemisphere around Washington, D.C., East Asia around Beijing, and Eastern Europe around Moscow. As such, the E.U., the [[Shanghai Cooperation Organisation]], and the [[G-20 major economies|G-20]] will likely become more influential as time progresses. The question then is not whether [[global governance]] is gradually emerging, but rather how will these [[regional powers]] interact with one another.<ref name="Partridge 2008">{{cite journal |last=Partridge |first=Mark C |title=One World Government: Conspiracy Theory or Inevitable Future? |journal=[[The Diplomatic Courier]] |date=14 December 2008 |url=http://www.diplomaticourier.org/kmitan/articleback.php?newsid=259 |access-date=4 May 2014 |archive-date=17 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090817053548/http://www.diplomaticourier.org/kmitan/articleback.php?newsid=259 }}</ref>

===Coup d'état===
[[File:CBP_UH-60_Blackhawk.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[American militia movement]] claim that a [[coup d'état]] will be launched by a "[[The Secret Team#Secret Team|Secret Team]]" in [[black helicopter]]s.]]
American [[right-wing populism|right-wing populist]] conspiracy theorists, especially those who joined the [[American militia movement|militia movement]] in the United States, speculate that the New World Order will be implemented through a dramatic [[coup d'état]] by a "[[The Secret Team#Secret Team|secret team]]", using [[black helicopter]]s, in the U.S. and other nation-states to bring about a [[totalitarian]] world government controlled by the [[United Nations]] and enforced by troops of foreign [[Department of Peacekeeping Operations|U.N. peacekeepers]]. Following the [[Rex 84]] and [[Operation Garden Plot]] plans, this military coup would involve the suspension of the [[United States Constitution|Constitution]], the imposition of [[martial law]], and the appointment of [[military dictatorship|military commanders to head state and local governments]] and to detain [[dissident]]s.<ref name="Levitas 2004">{{cite book|author=Levitas, Daniel|title=The Terrorist Next Door: The Militia Movement and the Radical Right|publisher=St. Martin's Griffin|year= 2004|isbn=0-312-32041-8|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/terroristnextdoo00dani}}</ref>

These conspiracy theorists, who are all strong believers in a [[right to keep and bear arms]], are extremely fearful that the passing of any [[gun control]] legislation will be later followed by the abolition of personal gun ownership and a campaign of gun confiscation, and that the [[refugee camp]]s of emergency management agencies such as [[Federal Emergency Management Agency|FEMA]] will be used for the [[internment]] of suspected [[subversives]], making little effort to distinguish true threats to the New World Order from pacifist dissidents.<ref name="Anti-Defamation League"/>

Before 2000, some [[survivalist]]s wrongly believed this process would be set in motion by the predicted [[Y2K problem]] causing [[societal collapse]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/09/98/conspiracy_-_radio_5_live/185161.stm|title=Death to the New World Order|access-date=24 June 2006|author=BBC News Special Report |date=5 October 1998}}</ref> Since many left-wing and right-wing conspiracy theorists believe that the [[9/11 conspiracy theories|11 September attacks were a false flag operation]] carried out by the [[United States intelligence community]], as part of a [[strategy of tension]] to justify [[political repression]] at home and [[preemptive war]] abroad, they have become convinced that a more catastrophic [[terrorist incident]] will be responsible for triggering [[Executive Directive 51]] in order to complete the transition to a [[police state]].<ref>{{cite journal|url=http://www.slate.com/id/2176185/pagenum/all/#p2|title=Who Will Rule Us After the Next 9/11?|access-date=4 April 2009|author=Ron Rosenbaum|journal=Slate |date=19 October 2007}}</ref>

Skeptics argue that unfounded fears about an imminent or eventual gun ban, military coup, internment, or U.N. invasion and occupation are rooted in the [[siege mentality]] of the American militia movement but also an [[apocalypticism|apocalyptic]] [[millenarianism]] which provides a basic narrative within the political right in the U.S., claiming that the idealized society (i.e., constitutional republic, [[Jeffersonian democracy]], "[[Christian nation]]", "[[white nationalism|white nation]]") is thwarted by subversive conspiracies of [[liberalism in the United States|liberal]] [[secular humanism|secular humanists]] who want "[[Big Government]]" and globalists who plot on behalf of the New World Order.<ref name="Berlet 1999"/>

===Mass surveillance===
Conspiracy theorists concerned with [[surveillance abuse]] believe that the New World Order is being implemented by the [[cult of intelligence]] at the core of the [[surveillance-industrial complex]] through [[mass surveillance]] and the use of [[Social Security number]]s, the [[barcode|bar-coding]] of retail goods with [[Universal Product Code]] markings, and, most recently, [[Radio-frequency identification|RFID tagging]] by [[microchip implant (human)|microchip implants]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

Claiming that corporations and government are planning to track every move of consumers and citizens with RFID as the latest step toward a ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]''-like [[surveillance state]], [[consumer privacy]] advocates, such as [[Katherine Albrecht]] and [[Liz McIntyre (writer)|Liz McIntyre]],<ref name="Albrecht & McIntyre 2006">{{cite book|author=Albrecht, Katherine |author-link=Katherine Albrecht|author2=McIntyre, Liz|author2-link=Liz McIntyre (writer)|title=The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance|publisher=Nelson Current|date=2006|isbn=1-59555-021-6}}</ref> have become Christian conspiracy theorists who believe [[spychip]]s must be resisted because they argue that modern [[database]] and [[information and communication technologies|communications technologies]], coupled with [[point of sale]] [[automatic identification and data capture|data-capture]] equipment and sophisticated ID and [[authentication]] systems, now make it possible to require a [[biometrics|biometrically]] associated number or mark to make purchases. They fear that the ability to implement such a system closely resembles the [[Number of the beast|Number of the Beast]] prophesied in the [[Book of Revelation]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

In January 2002, the [[Information Awareness Office]] (IAO) was established by the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (DARPA) to bring together several DARPA projects focused on applying information technology to counter [[asymmetric warfare|asymmetric threats]] to [[national security]]. Following public criticism that the development and deployment of these technologies could potentially lead to a mass surveillance system, the IAO was defunded by the United States Congress in 2003.<ref name="eff-tia-funding">{{cite web|url=http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/20031003_comments.php|title=Total/Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA): Is It Truly Dead?|date=2003|work=Electronic Frontier Foundation (official website)|access-date=15 March 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090325113304/http://w2.eff.org/Privacy/TIA/20031003_comments.php|archive-date=25 March 2009}}</ref> The second source of controversy involved IAO's original logo, which depicted the "all-seeing" [[Eye of Providence]] atop of a pyramid looking down over the globe, accompanied by the Latin phrase ''[[scientia potentia est|scientia est potentia]]'' (knowledge is power). Although DARPA eventually removed the logo from its website, it left a lasting impression on privacy advocates.<ref name="Seifert 2004">{{cite web|author=Seifert, Jeffrey W.|title=Data Mining: An Overview|date=16 December 2004|url=https://fas.org/irp/crs/RL31798.pdf|access-date=11 October 2009}}</ref> It also inflamed conspiracy theorists,<ref>{{cite web|author=Terry Melanson|date=22 July 2002|url=http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/Paranoid.htm|title=Information Awareness Office (IAO): How's This for Paranoid?|publisher=Illuminati Conspiracy Archive|access-date=11 October 2009}}</ref> who misinterpret the "eye and pyramid" as the [[Freemasonry|Masonic]] symbol of the [[Illuminati]],<ref name="AMFAQ 2.3"/><ref name="Morris 2009">{{cite web|author=Morris, S. Brent|date=1 January 2009|url=http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/masonry/Essays/eyepyr.html|title=The Eye in the Pyramid|work=Short Talk Bulletin|publisher=Masonic Service Association|access-date=27 October 2009|archive-date=15 December 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091215172036/http://web.mit.edu/dryfoo/masonry/Essays/eyepyr.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> an 18th-century secret society they speculate continues to exist and is plotting on behalf of a New World Order.<ref name="Stauffer 1918"/><ref name="McKeown"/>

American historian [[Richard Landes]], who specialized in the history of [[apocalypticism]] and was co-founder and director of the [[Center for Millennial Studies]] at Boston University, argues that new and emerging technologies often trigger [[alarmism]] among [[millenarianism|millenarians]]. Even the introduction of [[printing press|Gutenberg's printing press]] in 1436 caused waves of apocalyptic thinking. The [[Year 2000 problem]], bar codes, and Social Security numbers all triggered [[Eschatology|end-time]] warnings which either proved to be false or were no longer taken seriously once the public became accustomed to these technological changes.<ref>{{cite news|author=Baard, Mark|title=RFID: Sign of the (End) Times?|work=wired.com|url=https://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70308-0.html|access-date=18 December 2006|date=6 June 2006}}</ref> Civil libertarians argue that the privatization of surveillance and the rise of the surveillance-industrial complex in the United States does raise legitimate concerns about the erosion of [[privacy]].<ref name="ACLU 2004">{{cite journal|author=Stanley, Jay|title=The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society|date=August 2004|journal= American Civil Liberties Union| url=https://www.aclu.org/FilesPDFs/surveillance_report.pdf|access-date=14 July 2014}}</ref> However, skeptics of mass surveillance conspiracism caution that such concerns should be disentangled from secular paranoia about [[Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Big Brother]] or religious hysteria about the [[Antichrist]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

===Occultism===
Conspiracy theorists of the [[Christian right]], starting with British revisionist historian [[Nesta Helen Webster]], believe there is an ancient [[occult]] conspiracy—started by the first [[mystagogue]]s of [[Gnosticism]] and perpetuated by their alleged [[esotericism|esoteric]] successors, such as the [[Kabbalah|Kabbalists]], [[Cathars]], [[Knights Templar]], [[Hermeticism|Hermeticists]], [[Rosicrucianism|Rosicrucians]], [[Freemasonry|Freemasons]], and, ultimately, the [[Illuminati]]—which seeks to subvert the [[Judeo-Christian]] foundations of the [[Western world]] and implement the New World Order through a one-world religion that prepares the masses to embrace the [[imperial cult]] of the [[Antichrist]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/> More broadly, they speculate that globalists who plot on behalf of a New World Order are directed by occult agencies of some sort: [[Rite of Strict Observance|unknown superiors]], [[Spiritual Hierarchy|spiritual hierarchies]], [[demon]]s, [[fallen angel]]s or [[Lucifer#Occult beliefs|Lucifer]]. They believe that these conspirators use the power of occult sciences ([[numerology]]), symbols ([[Eye of Providence]]), rituals ([[Master Mason|Masonic degrees]]), monuments ([[National Mall#Landmarks, museums and other features|National Mall landmarks]]), buildings ([[Manitoba Legislative Building]]<ref name="Albo 2007">{{cite book|last=Albo|first=Frank|title=The Hermetic Code|publisher=Winnipeg Free Press|date=2007|isbn=978-0-9682575-3-1}}</ref>) and facilities ([[Denver International Airport]]) to advance their plot to rule the world.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/><ref name="Marrs 2013">{{cite book|author=Marrs, Jim|title=Our Occulted History|publisher=William Morrow|date=2013|isbn=978-0-06-213032-7}}</ref>

For example, in June 1979, an unknown benefactor under the pseudonym "[[Christian Rosenkreuz|R. C. Christian]]" had a huge granite [[megalith]] built in the U.S. state of [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], which acts like a compass, calendar, and clock. A message comprising ten guides is inscribed on the occult structure in many languages to serve as instructions for survivors of a [[doomsday event]] to establish a more enlightened and sustainable civilization than the destroyed one. The "[[Georgia Guidestones]]" has subsequently become a spiritual and political [[Rorschach test]] onto which any number of ideas can be imposed. Some New Agers and [[neo-pagan]]s revere it as a [[ley line|ley-line]] power nexus while a few conspiracy theorists are convinced that they are engraved with the New World Order's anti-Christian "[[Ten Commandments]]." Should the Guidestones survive for centuries as their creators intended, many more meanings could arise, equally unrelated to the designer's original intention.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

Skeptics argue that the [[demonization]] of [[Western esotericism]] by conspiracy theorists is rooted in [[religious intolerance]] but also in the same [[moral panic]]s that have fueled [[witch trials in the Early Modern period]], and [[satanic ritual abuse]] allegations in the United States.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

===Population control===
Conspiracy theorists believe that the New World Order will also be implemented through [[human population control]] to more easily monitor and control the movement of individuals.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/> The means range from stopping the growth of human societies through [[reproductive health]] and [[family planning]] programs, which promote [[abstinence]], [[contraception]] and [[abortion]], or intentionally reducing the bulk of the [[world population]] through [[genocides]] by mongering unnecessary wars, through [[plague (disease)|plagues]] by engineering [[emergent virus]]es and [[Vaccine hesitancy|tainting]] [[vaccine]]s, and through [[environmental disasters]] by [[weather control|controlling the weather]] ([[High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program|HAARP]], [[chemtrail conspiracy theory|chemtrails]]), etc. Conspiracy theorists argue that globalists plotting on behalf of a New World Order are [[Neo-Malthusianism|neo-Malthusians]] who engage in [[Human overpopulation|overpopulation]] and [[climate change]] alarmism to create public support for coercive population control and ultimately world government. [[United Nations]] [[Agenda 21]] is condemned as "reconcentrating" people into urban areas and depopulating rural ones, even generating a dystopian novel by [[Glenn Beck]] where single-family homes are a distant memory.

Skeptics argue that fears of population control can be traced back to the traumatic legacy of the [[eugenics]] movement's "war against the weak" in the United States during the first decades of the 20th century but also the [[Second Red Scare]] in the U.S. during the late 1940s and 1950s, and to a lesser extent in the 1960s, when activists on the [[far right]] of American politics routinely opposed [[public health]] programs, notably [[water fluoridation]], mass [[vaccination]] and [[mental health]] services, by asserting they were all part of a far-reaching plot to impose a socialist or communist regime.<ref name="Henig">{{cite book|last=Henig|first=Robin Marantz|title=The People's Health|publisher=Joseph Henry Press| date=1997|isbn=0-309-05492-3|page=85}}</ref> Their views were influenced by opposition to a number of major social and political changes that had happened in recent years: the growth of [[internationalism (politics)|internationalism]], particularly the [[United Nations]] and its programs; the introduction of social [[welfare]] provisions, particularly the various programs established by the [[New Deal]]; and government efforts to reduce inequalities in the [[social class in the United States|social structure of the U.S.]]<ref name="Rovere">{{cite book|last=Rovere|first=Richard H.|title=Senator Joe McCarthy|publisher=University of California Press|date=1959|pages=21–22|isbn=0-520-20472-7}}</ref> Opposition towards mass vaccinations in particular got significant attention in the late 2010s, so much so the [[World Health Organization]] listed [[vaccine hesitancy]] as one of the top ten global health threats of 2019. By this time, people that refused or refused to allow their children to be vaccinated were known colloquially as "anti-vaxxers", though citing the New World Order conspiracy theory or resistance to a perceived population control plan as a reason to refuse vaccination were few and far between.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190116182336/https://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019|url-status=dead|archive-date=16 January 2019|title=Ten health issues WHO will tackle this year|website=Who.int|language=en|access-date=19 January 2019}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newsweek.com/world-health-organization-who-un-global-health-air-pollution-anti-vaxxers-1292493 |title=The anti-vax movement has been listed by WHO as one of its top 10 health threats for 2019 |last=PM |first=Aristos Georgiou  |date=15 January 2019 |access-date=16 January 2019 |language=en}}</ref>

===Mind control===
Social critics accuse governments, corporations, and the [[mass media]] of being involved in the [[propaganda model|manufacturing of a national consensus]] and, paradoxically, a [[culture of fear]] due to the potential for increased [[social control]] that a mistrustful and mutually fearing population might offer to those in power. The worst fear of some conspiracy theorists, however, is that the New World Order will be implemented through the use of [[mind control]]—a broad range of tactics able to subvert an individual's control of their own thinking, behavior, emotions, or decisions. These tactics are said to include everything from [[The Manchurian Candidate|Manchurian candidate]]-style [[brainwashing]] of [[sleeper agent]]s ([[Project MKULTRA]], "[[Project Monarch]]") to engineering [[psychological operations]] ([[water fluoridation]], [[subliminal message|subliminal advertising]], "[[microwave auditory effect|Silent Sound Spread Spectrum]]", [[MEDUSA (weapon)|MEDUSA]]) and [[parapsychology|parapsychological]] operations ([[Stargate Project]]) to influence the masses.<ref name="Harrington 1996">{{cite journal|author=Harrington, Evan|title=Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia: Notes from a Mind-Control Conference|journal=[[Skeptical Inquirer]] |date=1996|url=http://www.csicop.org/si/9609/conspiracy.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317115600/http://csicop.org/si/9609/conspiracy.html|archive-date=17 March 2008|access-date=23 July 2009}}</ref> The concept of wearing a [[tin foil hat]] for protection from such threats has become a popular stereotype and term of derision; the phrase serves as a byword for [[paranoia]] and is associated with conspiracy theorists.

Skeptics argue that the paranoia behind a conspiracy theorist's obsession with [[mind control]], [[population control]], [[occultism]], [[surveillance abuse]], [[Big Business]], [[Big Government]], and [[globalization]] arises from a combination of two factors, when he or she: 1) holds strong [[individualist]] values and 2) lacks [[power (philosophy)|power]]. The first attribute refers to people who care deeply about an individual's right to make their own choices and direct their own lives without interference or obligations to a larger system (like the government), but combine this with a sense of powerlessness in one's own life. One gets what some psychologists call "[[agency (philosophy)|agency]] panic," intense anxiety about an apparent loss of autonomy to outside forces or regulators. When fervent individualists feel that they cannot exercise their independence, they experience a crisis and assume that larger forces are to blame for usurping this freedom.<ref name="Shrira 2008">{{cite journal|first1=Ilan|last1=Shrira|title=Paranoia and the roots of conspiracy theories – September 11 and the psychological roots of conspiracy theories|journal=Psychology Today|date=11 September 2008|url=http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-narcissus-in-all-us/200809/paranoia-and-the-roots-conspiracy-theories|access-date=14 July 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|publisher=Cornell University Press|isbn=0-8014-8606-8|last=Melley|first=Timothy|title=Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America|date=December 1999}}</ref>

==Alleged conspirators==
According to Domhoff, many people seem to believe that the United States is [[cryptocracy|ruled from behind the scenes]] by a [[cabal|conspiratorial elite]] with secret desires, i.e., by a small, secretive group that wants to change the government system or put the country under the control of a [[world government]]. In the past, the conspirators were usually said to be [[crypto-communism|crypto-communists]] who were intent upon bringing the [[United States]] under a common world government with the Soviet Union, but the [[History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991)#Dissolution of the USSR|dissolution of the USSR]] in 1991 undercut that theory. Domhoff notes that most conspiracy theorists changed their focus to the [[United Nations]] as the likely controlling force in a New World Order, an idea which is undermined by the powerlessness of the U.N. and the unwillingness of even moderates within the American [[The Establishment|Establishment]] to give it anything but a limited role.<ref name="Domhoff 2005"/>

Although skeptical of New World Order conspiracism, political scientist [[David Rothkopf]] argues, in the 2008 book ''[[Superclass (book)|Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making]]'', that the world population of 6 billion people is governed by an elite of 6,000 individuals. Until the late 20th century, governments of the [[great power]]s provided most of the superclass, accompanied by a few heads of international movements (i.e., the [[Pope]] of the [[Catholic Church]]) and entrepreneurs ([[Rothschild family|Rothschilds]], [[Rockefeller family|Rockefellers]]). According to Rothkopf, in the early 21st century, economic clout—fueled by the explosive expansion of international trade, travel, and communication—rules; the [[nation-state]]'s power has diminished shrinking politicians to minority [[power broker (term)|power broker]] status; leaders in international business, finance, and the defense industry not only dominate the superclass, but they also move freely into high positions in their nations' governments and back to private life largely beyond the notice of elected legislatures (including the U.S. Congress), which remain abysmally ignorant of affairs beyond their borders. He asserts that the superclass' disproportionate influence over national policy is constructive but always self-interested and that across the world, few object to corruption and oppressive governments provided they can do business in these countries.<ref>{{cite book|author=Rothkopf, David J.|title=Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|date=2008|isbn=978-0-374-27210-4}}</ref>

Viewing the history of the world as the history of warfare between [[secret society|secret societies]], conspiracy theorists go further than Rothkopf, and other scholars who have studied the global [[power elite]], by claiming that established upper-class families with "[[old money]]" who founded and finance the [[Bilderberg Group]], [[Bohemian Club]], [[Club of Rome]], [[Council on Foreign Relations]], [[Rhodes House#The Rhodes Trust|Rhodes Trust]], [[Skull and Bones]], [[Trilateral Commission]], and similar think tanks and private clubs, are [[Illuminati|illuminated]] conspirators plotting to impose a [[totalitarianism|totalitarian]] New World Order—the implementation of an [[authoritarianism|authoritarian]] world government controlled by the United Nations and a [[Bank for International Settlements|global central bank]], which maintains political power through the [[finance capitalism|financialization of the economy]], regulation and restriction of [[freedom of speech|speech]] through the [[concentration of media ownership]], [[mass surveillance]], widespread use of [[state terrorism]], and an all-encompassing [[propaganda]] that creates a [[cult of personality]] around a puppet world leader and [[ideology|ideologizes]] world government as the [[Philosophy of history#Social evolutionism|culmination of history's progress]].<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

==Criticism==
[[File:Demonstrace na Václavském náměstí v Praze 2010-11-17 16.42.jpg|thumb|Anti-NWO demonstration in Prague, 2010]]
Skeptics of New World Order conspiracy theories accuse its proponents of indulging in the [[furtive fallacy]], a belief that significant facts of history are necessarily sinister; [[conspiracism]], a world view that centrally places conspiracy theories in the unfolding of history, rather than social and economic forces; and [[fusion paranoia]], a promiscuous absorption of fears from any source whatsoever.<ref name="Barkun 2003"/>

[[Marxism|Marxists]], who are skeptical of [[right-wing populism|right-wing populist]] conspiracy theories, also accuse the global power elite of not having the best interests of all at heart, and many intergovernmental organizations of suffering from a [[democratic deficit]], but they argue that the superclass are [[plutocracy|plutocrats]] only interested in brazenly imposing a [[neoliberalism|neoliberal]] or [[neoconservatism|neoconservative]] new world order—the implementation of [[global capitalism]] through [[hard power|economic and military coercion]] to protect the interests of [[transnational corporation]]s—which systematically undermines the possibility of [[international socialism]].<ref name="PLSweb.org 2010">{{cite web|author=Party for Socialism and Liberation|author-link=Party for Socialism and Liberation|date=1 September 2010|title=Daniel Estulin and the phony 'Bilderberg conspiracy'|url=http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2/2021559999?page=NewsArticle&id=14431&news_iv_ctrl=1261|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807131645/http://www2.pslweb.org/site/News2/2021559999?page=NewsArticle&id=14431&news_iv_ctrl=1261|archive-date=7 August 2011|access-date=7 October 2010}}</ref> Arguing that the world is in the middle of a transition from the [[American imperialism|American Empire]] to the rule of a global ruling class that has emerged from within the American Empire, they point out that right-wing populist conspiracy theorists, blinded by their [[anti-communism]], fail to see that what they demonize as the "New World Order" is, ironically, the highest stage of the very [[capitalism|capitalist]] economic system they defend.<ref name="PLSweb.org 2010" />

Domhoff, a research professor in psychology and sociology who studies theories of [[power (philosophy)|power]], wrote in 2005 an essay entitled ''There Are No Conspiracies''. He says that for this theory to be true, it required several "wealthy and highly educated people" to do things that don't "fit with what we know about power structures". Claims that this will happen go back decades and have always been proved wrong.

Partridge, a contributing editor to the global affairs magazine ''Diplomatic Courier'', wrote a 2008 article entitled ''One World Government: Conspiracy Theory or Inevitable Future?'' He says that if anything, nationalism, which is the opposite of a global government, is rising. He also says that attempts at creating global governments or global agreements "have been categorical failures" and where "supranational governance exist they are noted for their bureaucracy and inefficiency."

Although some cultural critics see [[conspiracy theory#Types|superconspiracy theories]] about a New World Order as "[[postmodernism|postmodern]] [[metanarrative]]s" that may be politically empowering, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative structure with which to question what they see around them,<ref name="Tyson and Kahn 2005">{{cite web|author=Lewis, Tyson |author2=Kahn, Richard |title=The Reptoid Hypothesis: Utopian and Dystopian Representational Motifs in David Icke's Alien Conspiracy Theory |date=2005 |url=http://richardkahn.org/writings/culturalstudies/reptoidhypothesis.pdf |access-date=4 June 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727215245/http://richardkahn.org/writings/culturalstudies/reptoidhypothesis.pdf |archive-date=27 July 2011 }}</ref> skeptics argue that conspiracism leads people into cynicism, convoluted thinking, and a tendency to feel it is hopeless even as they denounce the alleged conspirators.<ref name="New Internationalist 2 2004">{{cite journal| author=Berlet, Chip|title=Interview: G. William Domhoff|journal=[[New Internationalist]]|date=September 2004|url=http://www.publiceye.org/antisemitism/nw_domhoff.html|access-date=1 October 2009|author-link=Chip Berlet}}</ref>

Alexander Zaitchik from the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] wrote a report titled "'Patriot' Paranoia: A Look at the Top Ten Conspiracy Theories", in which he personally condemns such conspiracies as an effort of the radical right to undermine society.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/fall/patriot-paranoia|title='Patriot' Paranoia: A Look at the Top Ten Conspiracy Theories|work=Southern Poverty Law Center|access-date=2 April 2018|language=en}}</ref>

Concerned that the [[improvisational millennialism]] of most conspiracy theories about a New World Order might motivate [[lone wolf (terrorism)|lone wolves]] to engage in [[leaderless resistance]] leading to [[Domestic terrorism in the United States|domestic terrorist incidents]] like the [[Oklahoma City bombing]],<ref name="Boyer 2004">{{cite web|author=Boyer, Paul S.|title=The Strange World of Conspiracy Theories|date=27 July 2004|url=http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3075|access-date=1 October 2009|author-link=Paul S. Boyer|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130310080017/http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3075|archive-date=10 March 2013}}</ref> Barkun writes that  "the danger lies less in such beliefs themselves ... than in the behavior they might stimulate or justify" and warns "should they believe that the prophesied evil day had in fact arrived, their behavior would become far more difficult to predict."

Warning of the threat to American democracy posed by [[right-wing populism|right-wing populist]] movements led by [[demagogy|demagogues]] who mobilize support for [[ochlocracy|mob rule]] or even a [[fascism|fascist]] revolution by exploiting the fear of conspiracies, Berlet writes that "Right-wing populist movements can cause serious damage to a society because they often popularize xenophobia, authoritarianism, scapegoating, and conspiracism. This can lure mainstream politicians to adopt these themes to attract voters, legitimize acts of discrimination (or even violence), and open the door for revolutionary right-wing populist movements, such as fascism, to recruit from the reformist populist movements."

Hughes, a professor of religion, warns that no religious idea has greater potential for shaping global politics in profoundly negative ways than "the new world order". He writes in a February 2011 article entitled ''Revelation, Revolutions, and the Tyrannical New World Order'' that "the crucial piece of this puzzle is the identity of the Antichrist, the tyrannical figure who both leads and inspires the new world order". This has in turn been the Soviet Union and the Arab world. He says that inspires believers to "welcome war with the Islamic world" and opens the door to nuclear holocaust."

Criticisms of New World Order conspiracy theorists also come from within their own community. Despite believing themselves to be "[[freedom fighter]]s", many right-wing populist conspiracy theorists hold views that are incompatible with their professed [[libertarianism]], such as [[Dominion theology|Christian dominionism]], [[authoritarianism|authoritarian]] [[ultranationalism]], [[white supremacy]] and [[eliminationism]].<ref name="Berlet 1999"/> This paradox has led [[David Icke|Icke]], who argues that [[Christian Patriot movement|Christian Patriots]] are the only Americans who understand the truth about the New World Order (which he believes is controlled by a race of [[Reptilian humanoid|reptilians]] known as the "Babylonian Brotherhood"), to reportedly tell a Christian Patriot group, "I don't know which I dislike more, the world controlled by the Brotherhood or the one you want to replace it with."{{Citation needed|date=September 2021}}

==See also==
{{portal|World}}
* [[Anti-globalization movement]]
* [[Climate change denial#Promoting conspiracy theories|Climate change denial]]
* [[Criticisms of globalization]]
* [[Zionist Occupation Government conspiracy theory]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
<!--A note to editors... please do not include works that have already been cited in the main text. Also, please do not include self-published books, as these are not considered [[WP:RS|reliably published]]'''-->
The following is a list of non-self-published non-fiction books that discuss New World Order conspiracy theories.
* {{cite book|last=Carr|first=William Guy|author-link=William Guy Carr|date=1954|title=Pawns in the Game|publisher=Legion for the Survival of Freedom, an affiliate of the [[Institute for Historical Review]]|isbn=0-911038-29-9}}
* {{cite book|last=Still|first=William T.|date=1990|title=New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies|publisher=Huntington House Publishers|isbn=0-910311-64-1|url=https://archive.org/details/newworldorderanc00stil}}
* {{cite book|last=Cooper|first=Milton William|author-link=William Milton Cooper|title=Behold a Pale Horse|date=1991|publisher=Light Technology Publications|isbn=0-929385-22-5}}
* {{cite book|last=Kah|first=Gary H.|title=En Route to Global Occupation|date=1991|publisher=Huntington House Publishers|isbn=0-910311-97-8}}
* {{cite book|last=Martin|first=Malachi|author-link=Malachi Martin|title=Keys of This Blood: Pope John Paul II Versus Russia and the West for Control of the New World Order|date=1991|publisher=Simon & Schuster|isbn=0-671-74723-1}}
* {{cite book|last=Robertson|first=Pat|author-link=Pat Robertson|title=The New World Order|date=1992|publisher=W Publishing Group|isbn=0-8499-3394-3|title-link=The New World Order (Robertson)}}
* {{cite book|last=Wardner|first=James|orig-year=1993|date=1994|title=The Planned Destruction of America|publisher=Longwood Communications|isbn=0-9632190-5-7}}
* {{cite book|last=Keith|first=Jim|author-link=Jim Keith|date=1995|title=Black Helicopters over America: Strikeforce for the New World Order|publisher=Illuminet Press|isbn=1-881532-05-4|url=https://archive.org/details/blackhelicopters00keit}}
* {{cite book|last=Cuddy|first=Dennis Laurence|date=1999|title=Secret Records Revealed: The Men, The Money and The Methods Behind the New World Order|publisher=Hearthstone Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=1-57558-031-4|orig-year=1994}}
* {{cite book|last=Marrs|first=Jim|date=2001|title=Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=0-06-093184-1|orig-year=2001|url=https://archive.org/details/rulebysecrecy00jimm}}
* {{cite book|last=Lina|first=Jüri|date=2004|title=Architects of Deception|publisher=Referent Publishing|asin=B0017YZELI}}

==External links==
{{commons}}
* [https://worldgovernmentsummit.org/ World Government summit] Official Website
* {{Wikiquote-inline|New World Order}}

{{Doomsday}}
{{Conspiracy theories}}
{{Good article}}

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[[Category:Conspiracy theories]]
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