Law and conspiracy theory: sovereign citizens, freemen on the land, and pseudolaw

Abstract

This article examines the ‘sovereign citizen’ and ‘freemen on the land’ movements and the operation of ‘pseudolaw’. Against a predominant judicial, governmental, and academic approach that portrays sovereign citizen beliefs as ‘irrational’ and ‘nonsensical’, I argue that such beliefs should be understood in terms of conflicts within the socio-historical production of ‘legitimate’ knowledge across the public sphere and popular culture. Conspiratorial sovereign citizen beliefs articulate, albeit very problematically, social concerns and suspicions in relation to transnational economic, political, and legal power. Further, such beliefs should be understood within the context of the rise to prominence and contemporary normalization of neoliberal, authoritarian populism, and a discourse of ‘inverted oppression’. Through this, a range of anti-egalitarian, ethno-nationalist, and racist beliefs are hidden behind and justified via a conspiratorial worldview that uses a supposedly ‘neutral’ pseudolegal rhetoric to defend individual liberty against a perceived social reality constituted by ongoing and extreme oppression.