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were Mussolini and Hitler.
Fascism is a form of government which is a type of one-party
dictatorship. Fascistsare against democracy. They work for a
totalitarian one-party state. ... The two firstfascist leaders
were Mussolini and Hitler.
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Conservatism
New Dictionary of the History of Ideas
COPYRIGHT 2005 The Gale Group, Inc.

CONSERVATISM.
Conservatism lends itself to
misunderstanding because its political
designation is easily confused with
popular usage. To be conservative in
the sense of preferring the familiar to
the unfamiliar is a common form of
behavior. Since this attitude toward
life is universal, it issues from no
necessary political commitment. For
any person, even the most bohemian,
not to develop a settled habit or a
lingering attachment would be almost
inconceivable. However, it is possible
to conceive of persons having such
habits and attachments and yet being
radical in his or her politics. That
would have been true, for instance,
of Adolf Hitler. Equally, to be
conservative in the sense of wishing
to maintain a position of authority,
privilege, reverence, or wealth is
another universally recognizable form
of behavior that issues from no
necessary political commitment. It
would be exceptional for someone
who has achieved or inherited such
powerful status not to want to secure
it. This would have been true, for
instance, of Joseph Stalin. Both of
these popular meanings of
conservatism—as shorthand for
individual or social characteristics—
are inadequate to understanding
conservatism in politics. Both of them
are primordial in their instincts,
general in their applications, and
empty of content.
Conservatism in politics, on the other
hand, is a relatively recent historical
phenomenon, particular in its
significance, and as a consequence
has a distinctive, if differentiated,
character. Conservatism is best
understood as a set of propositions
about the activity of governing,
defined against those radical
ideologies with roots in eighteenth-
century speculation, like liberalism
and socialism, that were to have such
a profound effect on world history in
the course of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. It is opposed to
grand schemes for the political
emancipation or salvation of
humankind to which such radical
speculation can lead. Conservatism
advocates limited ambitions in
politics, argues that the aspiration of
government should be modest, and
emphasizes the value of continuity in
the state. Conservatives believe that
government can be authoritative only
when it is limited, modest, and
continuous. If it were possible to
identify a distinctive desire uniting all
forms of conservatism, it would be the
desire to be left alone to enjoy the
benefits of a well-ordered society. As
the nineteenth-century British prime
minister Lord Salisbury (Robert Arthur
Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil) once put it,
conservatism is like a policeman: if
there were no (radical) criminals to
protect against, there would be no
need for it. However, conservatives
will not be left alone.

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Origins of Conservatism: Britain, France,

and Germany

Restricting the scope of politics in this

manner has made conservatism
appear at odds with the promise of
modernity. Certainly, any political
project to remove evil from the world
is for the religious conservative an act
of impiety, just as any project to
perfect humankind is for the secular
conservative an act of dangerous folly.
The difficulty remains that these
fundamental criticisms of modern
hubris are easily dismissed as
nostalgic, self-interested, and most
damning of all, irrationally prejudiced.
If conservative irrationalism can be
ascribed to any particular failing, it is
thought to be the presumption of
resisting historical progress. In this
view, conservatism and modernization
are antithetical, since to be modern is
to assume history to be linear and its
meaning to be emancipation from
ignorant custom. That is an audacious
concept of politics that understands
traditional restraints to be obstacles
to manifest destiny.

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Conventional historical wisdom has

been that the event that transformed
these terms of political argument was
the French Revolution. That
convention is a sound one. The main
currents of European intellectual life
were drawn into the revolution, and
out of it emerged the modern narrative
of progress versus reaction,
improvement versus obstruction, and
reason versus tradition that was to
shape political reflection in the course
of the following two centuries. This
has been an influential narrative and a
persuasive one. In its light,
conservatism at best serves as a
prudential brake on the wheels of
change, at worst as an insufferable
denial of human development. In
neither case is it thought to involve
anything of substantial value or
intellectual significance.
Nevertheless, the temptation to
interpret conservatism as
"antimodern" should be resisted, for to
be conservative does not entail a
passive acceptance of the status quo.
Rather it involves a critical encounter
with what exists. Conservatism was
itself a nineteenth-century neologism
for a modern, novel, self-conscious
disposition in politics and as such is a
contemporary of socialism,
liberalism, and nationalism. Its
meaning has been given by modern
experience and its content by the
recurring expression of certain
principles in the work of thinkers
alarmed into reflection by
revolutionary activity. Conservatism,
in other words, has a history, not a
nature, and that is an insight owed to
the Irish "philosopher in action,"
Edmund Burke (1729–1797).

Britain.
If Burke is taken to be paradigmatic of
conservative thought, it is by
attribution rather than by design.
Burke drew on a large repertoire of
ideas, such as the social-contract
tradition of Thomas Hobbes (1588–
1679) and John Locke (1632–1704) and
the skeptical conventionalism of David
Hume (1711–1776), and marshaled
them like a great melodist to
challenge the abstract "speculatism"
of the French revolutionaries. Writing
from within a culture of constitutional
monarchy that had only recently and
precariously secured its legitimacy
(albeit with the loss of the American
colonies), Burke's intent in Reflections
on the Revolution in France (1790) is
to warn against the implications of
revolutionary principles, which he
thinks are as subversive of good
government as they are of bad. If
society is indeed a social contract, it
is a contract "between those who are
living, those who are dead, and those
who are to be born," and in that
formulation Burke tries to make safe
two of the potentially radical loose
ends bequeathed by Locke. Political
society, Burke argues, is not
dissolvable according to demands
made by the present generation, and
the "tacit" consent of contemporaries
is assumed because of their inherited
obligations and future responsibilities.
Burke does refer these obligations and
responsibilities to laws of nature, but
he is aware that nature can be a false
friend. It is those very "natural" rights,
so beloved by revolutionaries in
France, that he dismisses as being
incompatible with the "real" rights of
political society. For Burke, to "follow
nature" is not a radical invitation to
rebel against society but an injunction
to accept one's "second nature" as a
dutiful member of a historically
achieved political order. Since history
is a record of experience and since all
practical knowledge is a product of
experience, history supplies a
sufficient guide to political activity.
From that empiricist rather than
natural-law premise, Burke proposes
that prudence, circumstance, utility,
convenience, and respect for order
provide the proper conditions for
liberty, while abstract theorizing
delivers the condition of "rational
despotism."
For some, this committed Burke (and
conservatism) to an "organic" theory
of society. That is an understandable
interpretation, but a degree of caution
is required because the argument is
more subtle and the content less
mysterious than the expression
"organic" sometimes implies. Burke's
notion of the constitution assumes an
arrangement in which order and
liberty presuppose one another. It
assumes that the individual is part of
and has meaning within a social order
of classes or estates and that the
state is an authoritative expression of
that social order. The "little platoons"
of immediate identity are functional to
stability because their education in
local and social affection forms the
basis of patriotism. On the one hand,
the state cannot be absolute, for its
existence depends on the life of its
parts and it has a duty to secure them.
On the other hand, reasons of state
cannot be reduced alone to the
protection of the rights of individuals.
If revolutionary theorizing would
dissolve these historical associations
into dust and make social
relationships as evanescent as the
"flies of summer," Burke's model was
not an alternative blueprint. Unlike the
revolutionary's vision of France as
"nothing but carte blanche, upon
which he may scribble anything he
pleases," Burke is defending what he
takes to be the actual life of the
British state, monarchical,
aristocratic, and constitutional.
The paradigmatic conservatism of
Burke's thought lies in its evocation of
sympathy for what is enduring in a
political association. While
revolutionary politics proclaim a
profound incompatability between the
values of the people and the principles
of traditional structures of
government, Burke proclaims a deep
congruence. Tradition, which is
shorthand for a politics of congruence,
emerges from his work as an
important value in conservative
politics. Conservatism puts the idea of
tradition to work in defense of the
political order. It seeks to encourage
people to accept the world around
them, for it just happens to be the
world in which we do live and it is one
that sets limits to political change. In
the British case, the ability of the
political order to secure its authority
through prolonged periods of
economic and social change appeared
to confirm Burke's maxim that a state
without the means of reform is
without the means of its own
conservation. It also appeared to
confirm his assumption that the
advancement of civilization owes
more to the advantages of stability
than it does to the pursuit of abstract
rights. In the conduct of reform,
continuity is secured because
improvements are never wholly new
and what is retained is never wholly
obsolete. Of course, the reconciled
condition that conservatism proposes
is reconciliation within the ideology
itself and not necessarily
reconciliation in experience. It is
possible to conceive of reality as
being seriously at odds with the
ideology.

France.
This was the case for conservatives in
France, where, unlike the happy
condition of Britain, the experience
and effect of revolution had
disconnected the state from what they
believed to be the true spirit of
society. This compelled thinking
through with passionate intensity
questions of order and legitimacy, and
it fostered a politics that made
fundamental distinctions between
what is true and what exists. In this
case what mattered was the fractured
rather than the coherent relationship
between political structures and
spiritual truth. The legitimacy of those
who had usurped power in the name of
reason could never be secure against
the consecrated authority they had
displaced. The task of conservative
political argument was to recall
people to their true allegiance by
clarifying the principles that had been
forsaken.
For Joseph-Marie de Maistre (1753–
1821), the French Revolution
represents divine retribution for the
sins of the godless Enlightenment and
the "century of blasphemy" that had
preceded it. One consequence of that
blasphemy is the rationalist
misconception involved in the creation
of a written constitution. The true
constitution is not to be found in the
fine words of such a document but in
the public spirit that should animate
it. For de Maistre, "what is written is
nothing." The constitution is divine in
origin, and only when one acts in
harmony with God can his or her
actions be creative. Once separated
from the Creator, people's actions are
rendered negative and destructive.
The rule of number, implied by popular
sovereignty, has nothing to do with the
rule of justice and would ultimately
prove to be self-destructive. This is
what the course of revolutionary
history reveals to conservatives—a
succession of failed constitutions of
increasing perniciousness and
impiety. That disastrous history is as
much the fault of the internal
corruption of the ancien régime as of
the arguments of the philosophes.
Ironically then, the revolution will
serve as a necessary purgative and
will lead to the inevitable, because
divinely ordained, restoration of
monarchy, religion, and nation. That
dissociation between the social and
the political as well as the theocratic
justification for the restoration of the
ancien régime is also found in the
work of Louis de Bonald (1754–1840).
Monarchy and church, throne and
altar, will together bring back into
harmony the body and spirit of the
nation that the French political
revolution had willfully divided. It will,
moreover, defeat secular nationalism
and replace it with ultramontane
Catholicism.
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Like Burke, de Maistre and de Bonald

associated the terror and the chaos in
France with the new, rapacious, self-
seeking, revolutionary elite, and they
formulated a sociology as well as a
pathology of revolution to account for
it. They recall to attention the
monstrosity of humankind when
liberals may prefer to flatter humanity,
and they remind one that original sin
may be a better guide to modern
history than natural goodness.
Nevertheless, there are a number of
problems with their denunciation of
revolutionary presumption. Like
radicalism, their thought conveys a
profound alienation between what is
and what ought to be and, like
radicalism, presents itself as a
science of politics with a blueprint of
restoration as grandiose as the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen. Moreover, de Maistre's
celebrated recommendation that if
"you wish
to conserve all, consecrate all" is a
proposition that transforms the sacred
into human artifice, as impious to the
true faith as the revolutionary
consecration of the cult of the
Supreme Being. The intelligent
reflection necessary to make the case
for conserving all tends to corrode the
myths upon which traditions depend
and collapses conservatism into very
unconservative reaction.
Germany.
If conservatism in Britain defended
the congruence and conservatism in
France demanded the restoration of
harmony between the social and
political orders, then conservatism in
nineteenth-century Germany aspired
to bring together an idea of the social
and an idea of the political. Here
revolutionary France in all its horrible
fascination was instructive,
demonstrating not only the radical
dangers of popular sovereignty but
also the military effectiveness of
national unity. A romantic evocation of
the cultural and racial characteristics
of the Volk existed alongside a statist
philosophy of realpolitik. Both were to
contribute to an aggressive
nationalism favored by those who
thought German culture threatened by
alien influences and by those who
thought its state insufficiently
powerful. If these tendencies are
present in some measure in all
conservative politics, they were to
take a radical and racist turn in
twentieth-century German history
when combined in the
detraditionalized, de-Christianized,
alienated, genocidal (and so
unconservative) shape of National
Socialism.
A very different sort of reconciliation
is provided by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel (1770–1831), whose philosophy
courageously addresses the central
problem of modernity—the idea of
progress—that conservative thought
either chose to veil (like Burke) or to
deny (like de Maistre). The
conservative suspicion of progress is
that it denies the present in pursuit of
the future. A restless and limitless
ambition for change, based on an
abstract model of human experience,
makes modernity into a
political project to be implemented
rather than a process (for good and ill)
to be understood. The French
Revolution was such a political
project, and Hegel attempts to map
the lineage and the lineaments of the
modern state in order to contain the
destructive potential of the ideal of
emancipation (that Hegelianism was
not the project of modernity, the
fulfillment of which demanded a new
science of revolution, was well
understood by that most insightful
student, Karl Marx). On the conviction
that the rational is actual and the
actual is rational, Hegel argues in The
Philosophy of Right (1821), the "plain
man like the philosopher takes his
stand." The task of the philosopher is
to reveal the rationality of the
common-sense intuition of the plain
person. Hegel does not approve an
institution on the basis of Burkean
prescription—that its survival alone is
sufficient justification of its rationality
—but on the basis of its conformity
with the rational self-understanding of
the age. Such rationalism and
historicism sit uneasily with
conservative traditionalism, which
often despises the self-understanding
of the age and believes that the best
reason for a practice is that no reason
need be given. Despite his
philosophical ambivalence, Hegel's
appeal to the conservative is twofold.
His reflections satisfy the need to feel
that the enjoyment of present liberties
is meaningful and should not be
sacrificed to some abstract "ought to
be." They also satisfy that deep desire
to arrest the disturbing uncertainties
of modern life within stable political
institutions. Ironically, it has been
these emotional satisfactions rather
than his rational metaphysical system
that constitute Hegel's enduring
attraction to conservative thinkers.
The Challenge of the Modern

If there has been a specter haunting

conservatism in modern times, it is
the specter of "mass society." The
fear of mass society is a product of
two related possibilities. The first is
the disintegration of traditional
allegiances in the name of liberation
and personal freedom. Since
conservatives hold that such
allegiances are the condition of
identity, the consequence would be
the loss of individuality. Liberalism,
ironically, promotes the death of
liberty. The second fear concerns the
manipulation of that disintegration by
ideologies that promise material
satisfaction in return for absolute
political power. Having destroyed
individuality, mass society would
demand abasement before the secular
image of its collective power, the
state. Socialism, ironically, promotes
the death of the social.
In the nineteenth century and for
much of the twentieth century,
conservatism defended property,
religion, and family as bulwarks
against the feared drift to "mass"
society in which the decencies of
civilized life would be subverted by
popular barbarism. This disposition
helps to capture what is distinctive
about the conservative idea of the
nation, the one form of popular politics
to which it not only adapted but which
it also helped to define. For
conservatives, the nation is
understood as a political community
united in acceptance of the legitimacy
of traditional political arrangements.
The "people" is not some abstract
category but the historic nation in its
regional and social variety, with its
traditional beliefs, particular
affections, and long-standing
prejudices. To be conservative is
another way of professing one's
sympathy for the "real" character of
the nation, and like de Maistre,
conservatives would agree that they
have met the French, English,
Germans, or Americans but have yet to
meet "Humanity."
In rejecting the universal claims of
radical politics, conservatism has
been compelled to identify exactly
what it is that makes the nation
distinctive. What differentiates
conservatism from right-wing
ideologies is the nature of that
distinctiveness. In right-wing thought
the idea of the nation serves to
mobilize the people in order to assert
its distinctive purity, honor, and
greatness. In conservative thought,
the idea of the nation serves to foster
piety toward its distinctive social and
political institutions. This
differentiation has nothing to do with
the intensity of national feeling. It has
to do with the source of national
feeling. Right-wing thought locates it
in the will of the people. Conservatism
locates it in the inherited practices of
a way of life and has been concerned
to limit the popular will in the name of
tradition and order. In Europe between
the two world wars, conservatism was
outflanked by radical right-wing
movements because an appeal to
tradition and order appeared irrelevant
in conditions of economic collapse
and social disintegration. The sense of
political decadence made an ideology
of popular salvation, like fascism, a
powerful alternative to traditional
conservative patriotism. Britain was
the exception, and the experience of
British conservatism was thought to
illustrate the distinction between the
politics of the moderate right and the
politics of the extreme right.
While the drama of modern European
history has been taken to be
exemplary of this difference, an
American illustration is more
appropriate. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.
considered that the great
achievement of American politics has
been the replacement of the idea of
the sovereign people with the idea of
the constitutional people. "The
warmth of their republican genius
must somehow be cooled; the
confidence in their own sovereignty,
which is responsible for the
factiousness of democratic majorities,
must be restrained" (Mansfield, p. 57).
The practice of constitutional politics
educates democracy in the
responsibilities of government, in
particular the need to limit power in
order to enjoy life, liberty, and
happiness. All elements of government
"are derived from the people but none
of them is the people," and populism,
with its tendency to deny limit and
constitutional constraint, is just as
subversive of good government as any
other species of radicalism (Mansfield,
p. 55). This does not imply that there
are no elements of populism in
conservatism or that conservative
politics has not appealed to its
prejudices against innovation.
However, conservatism's suspicion of
political enthusiasm of all kinds
makes it uncomfortable with the
fickleness as well as the hubris of
popular opinion, especially when it
proclaims itself to be "the moral
majority."

Resisting democracy, defending

tradition.
Of course, resisting the claims of
democracy in the name of limited
constitutional politics can be
interpreted as an offense to modern
sensibility, and defending tradition in a
world of rapid change can be seen as
either irrelevant or willfully ignorant.
Conservatism always faces an
enormous challenge in making these
ideas persuasive in a world of
programmatic politics. It appears
insufficiently purposeful to those who
are seeking a political faith and
insufficiently principled to those who
are seeking an alternative to
radicalism. To such critics,
conservatism is always right, but its
inability to be proactive also means
that it is always wrong. For example,
Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) thought
conservatism incapable of offering "an
alternative to the direction in which
we are moving" because it does not
and cannot indicate another direction
(p. 398). Since Hayek famously
believed that the socialistic path
along which society was moving was
the road to serfdom, then clearly
conservatism, for all its useful
maxims, would not do. This attitude
helps to distinguish conservatism
from that other species of recent
politics, the New Right.
What Hayek assumes is the modernist
belief in history-as-project, and this
makes politics into an engagement
between projects, either a capitalist
one or a socialist one. That modernist
assumption, at the heart of New Right
dogmatics about liberty and choice,
finds systematic expression in
neoconservatism. Indeed, some of the
leading neoconservatives, like Irving
Kristol, have radical political
backgrounds. Their contribution in the
last half of the twentieth century was
to provide a systematic critique of
"big government" and its policy
failures and to show that the market
was not only compatible with moral
values but also more efficient in the
delivery of social goods.
Neoconservative arguments helped
transform the political climate in the
1970s and 1980s and contributed to
the intellectual defeat of socialism.
However, there does exist a tension in
neoconservatism between market
fundamentalism and conservative
skepticism. As Michael Oakeshott
(1901–1990) once argued, a plan like
Hayek's to end all planning is still a
species of rationalism and one with
which conservatives can only feel
uncomfortable. It abstracts the market
from the institutional and cultural
traditions necessary for its
flourishing, and for the skeptic,
conservatism does not have a project
to realize. That is its strength and not
its weakness, for it properly
designates the restricted competence
in human affairs of such projects like
market liberalization. If conservatism
has an attitude toward capitalism, it is
the endeavor to sustain those
conditions that favor the political
economy of freedom, a very different
notion from the minimal state.

Postmodernism, human rights, and

multiculturalism.
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If in the early twenty-first century

revolutionary ideologies like
communism no longer threaten,
arguments in favor of egalitarianism
and the aggrandizing state have taken
a new shape. As a result,
conservatism has been obliged to
engage with new discourses, such as
postmodernism, human rights, and
multi-culturalism. In 1959 Hannah
Arendt (1906–1975) wrote that
distinction anand difference had become private
matters of the individual and that simple insight, with
its contradictory effects, continues to have profound
implications for conservatism. Traditionally, of course,
conservatism held distinction and difference not to be
private matters at all but to be ones of public
significance. According to Robert Nisbet, this is the
key to understanding the conservative sociological
imagination, where such differences, articulated in
social institutions like Burke's "little platoons,"
mediate the relationship between the state and the
individual.

The trend toward privatization has disordered that

notion in two ways. First, the contemporary state has
come either to absorb many of the functions of these
institutions, like the educational responsibilities of
churches, or to incorporate them into centrally
determined policy networks. Second, it has become
attractive for the individual to retire into a private
world and to cede public duties to the care of
professionals. The consequence of both aspects is an
expansion of state influence that many conservatives
do believe is inimical to individual freedom and social
autonomy. For the conservative, the old radical
dynamic that required a straightforward faith in state-
fostered egalitarianism to be achieved through the
redistribution of wealth between social classes has
been replaced by a politics of inclusion that requires a
rather contradictory faith not only in cultural
"difference" but also in the redistribution of "worth"
between social groups. The dynamic in this case is
toward the removal of all obstacles in the way of social
inclusion, and the motor is a refurbished language of
abstract rights.

This new politics is understood to be yet another

strategy to achieve the utopian objective of radical
democracy, and conservatives believe that the only
way it can be realized is by calling on the state to
implement an ever-expanding body of entitlements.
The influential neoconservative critique of modern
liberalism has its roots here, and the concern is that
the emphasis on rights will weaken the informal bonds
of society and permit the state to become dangerously
intrusive in the lives of citizens, destroying the
distinction between public and private. Diversity is
officially "celebrated," but what is fostered is a culture
suspicious of independent thought or behavior or
"political incorrectness." This is reminiscent of what
George Santayana (1863–1952) once called "vacant
liberty." Santayana's problem with the prescriptions of
liberalism is its high-minded egalitarianism of respect,
which he believes to be at odds with the very pluralism
it seeks to promote. For Santayana, unlimited
toleration would achieve the "euthanasia of
differences," and as a consequence everybody "would
be free to be what he liked, and no one would care to
be anything but what pleased everybody" (p. 449). This
anticipates a common, two-pronged, conservative
criticism of contemporary liberalism. First, liberalism
defends difference only in theory but cannot really
come to terms with it in practice when it discovers
that goodwill alone is not enough. Second, it is
actually intolerant of dissent from political
correctness and seeks to impose a modern version of
"rational despotism." Two strands of conservatism, the
civil and the cultural, can be identified in response to
contemporary political trends.

Conservatism: Civil and Cultural

Civil conservatism draws on a recognizable tradition of
limited politics. On the one hand, it proposes that
government should not plan the lives of citizens or be
an instrument of their collective enlightenment but
should uphold a framework of law. On the other hand,
it argues that the rights of civil society should not be
translated into claims on public expenditure but
should be valued as the condition of self-reliance and
creativity. Limited but authoritative government
remains the proper complement to a society of
"difference."

This understanding owes much to the work of

Oakeshott, who in turn owes much to Hobbes. Indeed,
Oakeshott's celebrated essay "On Being Conservative"
draws its inspiration from a distinctive reading of
Hobbes's Leviathan. Commentators seduced by his
poetic description of conservatism as a preference for
"the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to
the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to
the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the
convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian
bliss" (Oakeshott, 1991, p. 408) sometimes fail to note
that Oakeshott believes this disposition to be
inappropriate "in respect of human conduct in general"
(p. 415). However, conservatism does remain
appropriate in respect of government, all the more so
indeed in a modern society that puts so much store by
its individualism.

Governing, for Oakeshott, "is recognized as a specific

and limited activity; not the management of an
enterprise, but the rule of those engaged in a great
diversity of self-chosen enterprises" (1991, p. 429). The
philosophic basis of this view of government is
explored in On Human Conduct (1975). This text has
provided fruitful reflection for a diverse range of
thinkers seeking a method to secure political
legitimacy in contemporary multicultural societies and
who identify a common threat to civility in utopian
liberalism. Noël O'Sullivan, for example, has attempted
to develop a vision of "formal politics" where the bond
of association "is neither an agreed end, nor personal
approval of the ruler and his actions, but
acknowledgement of the procedural considerations
which confer authority" (pp. 204–205). He argues that
formal politics does not mean a commitment to
liberalism but rather a rejection of the sort of
"programmatic politics" with which modern liberal
politics has become associated. The problem with the
formal politics favored by civil conservatives is that it
may be (ironically) too abstract and too detached from
public sentiment to engage the loyalty of citizens.
Certainly, it appears very distant from that sympathy
for a traditional way of life normally associated with
conservative politics.

Cultural conservatism, by contrast, assumes that a

sense of unity rather than diversity is the foundation of
political legitimacy. As Roger Scruton argues, the civil
vision discounts "prejudices," and for Scruton (as for
Burke), prejudices are those prepolitical affections,
such as a sense of national belonging, upon which a
stable political order depends. As he succinctly
expresses it, "Unity is, in the normal instance, social
rather than political, and ought also to be national"
(1990, p. 54). This sets out a clear skeptical agenda for
conservatism on issues—such as immigration,
feminism, multiculturalism, and human rights—that are
thought to present challenges to the substance of
national identity. This cultural conservative agenda
can be distinguished from that of the extreme right
because of its respect for the conventions of
established institutions. The great difficulty with it is
that the social unity it assumes is a contentious one
and, far from being self-evident, presents an easy
target for those who would dismiss conservatism as
nostalgic and elegiac. Contemporary conservatism,
then, remains an ambiguous identity, a hybrid of civil
and cultural elements.
Conclusion
In a century of ideological extremism like the
twentieth century, conservatism often appeared
something of an affectation and marginal to the march
of history in which the advancing forces of
modernization were thought certain to rout the
retreating forces of conservatism. Insofar as many
people have lost faith in the "grand narratives" of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, like Marxismand
other emancipatory ideals, then the conservative
disposition may no longer appear so reactionary. Since
conservatism never subscribed to the grosser forms of
the modernist faith, contemporary skepticism comes
as no surprise to it. However, as befits a philosophy of
modesty and imperfection, conservatism cannot
assume a final victory.

See
also Authoritarianism ; Change ; Fascism ; Liberalism ;
Monarchy ; Radicals/Radicalism ; Totalitarianism .

bibliography
Conservatism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about conservatism as a political and social philosophy. For other uses,
see Conservatism (disambiguation).

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 Conservatism portal

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Conservatism is a political and social philosophy promoting traditional social institutions in the
context of culture and civilization. The central tenets of conservatism include tradition, human
imperfection, organic society, hierarchy and authority and property rights.[1]Conservatives seek to
preserve a range of institutions such as monarchy, religion, parliamentary government and property
rights with the aim of emphasizing social stability and continuity[2] while the more extreme elements
called reactionaries oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were".[3][4]
The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de
Chateaubriand[5] during the period of Bourbon restoration that sought to roll back the policies of
the French Revolution. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term has since been used
to describe a wide range of views. There is no single set of policies regarded as conservative
because the meaning of conservatism depends on what is considered traditional in a given place
and time. Thus conservatives from different parts of the world—each upholding their respective
traditions—may disagree on a wide range of issues. Edmund Burke, an 18th-century politician who
opposed the French Revolution but supported the American Revolution, is credited as one of the
main theorists of conservatism in Great Britain in the 1790s.[6]
According to Quintin Hogg, the chairman of the British Conservative Party in 1959: "Conservatism is
not so much a philosophy as an attitude, a constant force, performing a timeless function in the
development of a free society, and corresponding to a deep and permanent requirement of human
nature itself".[7] In contrast to the tradition-based definition of conservatism, political theorists such
 as Corey Robin define conservatism primarily in terms of a general defense of social and economic
inequality. From this perspective, conservatism is less an attempt to uphold traditional institutions
and more "a meditation on—and theoretical rendition of—the felt experience of having power, seeing
it threatened, and trying to win it back".[8][9]

Contents
[hide]

 1Forms

o 1.1Liberal conservatism

o 1.2Conservative liberalism

o 1.3Libertarian conservatism

o 1.4Fiscal conservatism

o 1.5National and traditional conservatism

o 1.6Cultural and social conservatism

o 1.7Religious conservatism

o 1.8Progressive conservatism

o 1.9Authoritarian conservatism

 2History

o 2.1Development of Western conservatism

 2.1.1United Kingdom

 2.1.1.1Revival

 2.1.2Germany

 2.1.3United States

 2.1.4France
 o 2.2Historic conservatism in different countries

 2.2.1Belgium

 2.2.2Canada

 2.2.3Colombia

 2.2.4Denmark

 2.2.5Finland

 2.2.6France

 2.2.7Greece

 2.2.8Iceland

 2.2.9Italy

 2.2.10Luxembourg

 2.2.11Norway

 2.2.12Sweden

 2.2.13Switzerland

 2.2.14United Kingdom

 3Modern conservatism in different countries

o 3.1Australia

o 3.2Brazil

o 3.3India

o 3.4Russia

o 3.5South Korea
 o 3.6United States

 4Characteristics of conservatism in France, Italy, Russia, Poland,

United Kingdom, United States and Israel

 5Psychology

 6Notes

 7References

 8Further reading

 9External links

Forms[edit]
Liberal conservatism[edit]
Main article: Liberal conservatism
Liberal conservatism incorporates the classical liberal view of minimal government intervention in the
economy. Individuals should be free to participate in the market and generate wealth without
government interference.[10] However, individuals cannot be thoroughly depended on to act
responsibly in other spheres of life, therefore liberal conservatives believe that a strong state is
necessary to ensure law and order and social institutions are needed to nurture a sense of duty and
responsibility to the nation.[10] Liberal conservatism is a variant of conservatism that is strongly
influenced by liberal stances.[11]
As these latter two terms have had different meanings over time and across countries, liberal
conservatism also has a wide variety of meanings. Historically, the term often referred to the
combination of economic liberalism, which champions laissez-faire markets, with the classical
conservatism concern for established tradition, respect for authority and religious values. It
contrasted itself with classical liberalism, which supported freedom for the individual in both the
economic and social spheres.
Over time, the general conservative ideology in many countries adopted economic liberal arguments
and the term liberal conservatism was replaced with conservatism. This is also the case in countries
where liberal economic ideas have been the tradition such as the United States and are thus
considered conservative. In other countries where liberal conservative movements have entered the
political mainstream, such as Italy and Spain, the terms liberal and conservative may be
synonymous. The liberal conservative tradition in the United States combines the
economic individualism of the classical liberals with a Burkean form of conservatism (which has also
become part of the American conservativetradition, such as in the writings of Russell Kirk).
A secondary meaning for the term liberal conservatism that has developed in Europe is a
combination of more modern conservative (less traditionalist) views with those of social liberalism.
This has developed as an opposition to the more collectivist views of socialism. Often this involves
stressing what are now conservative views of free market economics and belief in individual
responsibility, with social liberal views on defence of civil rights, environmentalism and support for a
limited welfare state. In continental Europe, this is sometimes also translated into English as social
conservatism.
Conservative liberalism[edit]
Main article: Conservative liberalism
Conservative liberalism is a variant of liberalism that combines liberal values and policies with
conservative stances, or more simply the right-wing of the liberal movement. [12][13][14]The roots of
conservative liberalism are found at the beginning of the history of liberalism. Until the two World
Wars, in most European countries the political class was formed by conservative liberals, from
Germany to Italy. Events after World War I brought the more radical version of classical liberalism to
a more conservative (i.e. more moderate) type of liberalism. [15]
Libertarian conservatism[edit]
Main article: Libertarian conservatism
Libertarian conservatism describes certain political ideologies within the United
States and Canada which combine libertarian economic issues with aspects of conservatism. Its four
main branches are constitutionalism, paleolibertarianism, small government
conservatism and Christian libertarianism. They generally differ from paleoconservatives, in that they
are in favor of more personal and economic freedom.
Agorists such as Samuel Edward Konkin III labeled libertarian conservatism right-libertarianism.[16][17]
In contrast to paleoconservatives, libertarian conservatives support strict laissez-faire policies such
as free trade, opposition to any national bank and opposition to business regulations. They are
vehemently opposed to environmental regulations, corporate welfare, subsidies and other areas of
economic intervention.
Many conservatives, especially in the United States, believe that the government should not play a
major role in regulating business and managing the economy. They typically oppose efforts to
charge high tax rates and to redistribute income to assist the poor. Such efforts, they argue, do not
properly reward people who have earned their money through hard work.
Fiscal conservatism[edit]
Main article: Fiscal conservatism

Taxpayer March on Washington, as conservative protesters walk

down Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., in 2009
Fiscal conservatism is the economic philosophy of prudence in government spending and debt. [18] In
his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke argued that a government does not have
the right to run up large debts and then throw the burden on the taxpayer:
[I]t is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first
and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title,
superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in
virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor's security,
expressed or implied...[T]he public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge
nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just
and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.

National and traditional conservatism[edit]

Main articles: National conservatism and Traditional conservatism

Gianfranco Fini, former President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, in 2004

National conservatism is a political term used primarily in Europe to describe a variant of
conservatism which concentrates more on national interests than standard conservatism as well as
upholding cultural and ethnic identity,[19] while not being outspokenly nationalist or supporting a far-
rightapproach.[20][21] In Europe, national conservatives are usually eurosceptics.[22][23]
National conservatism is heavily oriented towards the traditional family and social stability as well as
in favour of limiting immigration. As such, national conservatives can be distinguished from economic
conservatives, for whom free market economic policies, deregulation and fiscal conservatism are the
main priorities. Some commentators have identified a growing gap between national and economic
conservatism: "[M]ost parties of the Right [today] are run by economic conservatives who, in varying
degrees, have marginalized social, cultural, and national conservatives". [24] National conservatism is
also related to traditionalist conservatism.
Traditionalist conservatism is a political philosophy emphasizing the need for the principles of natural
law and transcendent moral order, tradition, hierarchy and organic
unity, agrarianism, classicism and high culture as well as the intersecting spheres of loyalty.[25] Some
traditionalists have embraced the labels "reactionary" and "counterrevolutionary", defying the stigma
that has attached to these terms since the Enlightenment. Having a hierarchical view of society,
many traditionalist conservatives, including a few Americans, defend the monarchical political
structure as the most natural and beneficial social arrangement.
Cultural and social conservatism[edit]
Main articles: Cultural conservatism and social conservatism
Cultural conservatives support the preservation of the heritage of one nation, or of a shared culture
that is not defined by national boundaries.[26] The shared culture may be as divergent as Western
culture or Chinese culture. In the United States, the term cultural conservative may imply a
conservative position in the culture war. Cultural conservatives hold fast to traditional ways of
thinking even in the face of monumental change. They believe strongly in traditional values and
traditional politics and often have an urgent sense of nationalism.
Social conservatism is distinct from cultural conservatism, although there are some overlaps. Social
conservatives may believe that society is built upon a fragile network of relationships which need to
be upheld through duty, traditional values and established institutions; [27] and that the government
has a role in encouraging or enforcing traditional values or behaviours. A social conservative wants
to preserve traditional morality and social mores, often by opposing what they consider radical
policies or social engineering. Social change is generally regarded as suspect.
A second meaning of the term social conservatism developed in the Nordic countries and continental
Europe, where it refers to liberal conservatives supporting modern European welfare states.
Social conservatives (in the first meaning of the word) in many countries generally favour the pro-
life position in the abortion controversy and oppose human embryonic stem cellresearch (particularly
if publicly funded); oppose both eugenics and human enhancement (transhumanism) while
supporting bioconservatism;[28] support a traditional definition of marriage as being one man and one
woman; view the nuclear family model as society's foundational unit; oppose expansion of civil
marriage and child adoption rights to couples in same-sex relationships; promote public morality and
traditional family values; oppose atheism,[29] especially militant atheism, secularism and
the separation of church and state;[30][31][32] support the prohibition
of drugs, prostitution and euthanasia; and support the censorship of pornography and what they
consider to be obscenity or indecency. Most conservatives in the United States support the death
penalty.
Religious conservatism[edit]
See also: Christian right and Religious fundamentalism

March for Life in Paris, France in 2012

Religious conservatism principally apply the teachings of particular religions to politics, sometimes
by merely proclaiming the value of those teachings, at other times by having those teachings
influence laws.[33]
In most democracies, political conservatism seeks to uphold traditional family structures and social
values. Religious conservatives typically oppose abortion, homosexual behavior, drug use and
sexual activity outside of marriage. In some cases, conservative values are grounded in religious
beliefs and some conservatives seek to increase the role of religion in public life. [34]
Progressive conservatism[edit]
Main article: Centre-right politics
Progressive conservatism incorporates progressive policies alongside conservative policies. It
stresses the importance of a social safety netto deal with poverty, support of limited redistribution of
wealth along with government regulation to regulate markets in the interests of both consumers and
producers.[35] Progressive conservatism first arose as a distinct ideology in the United
Kingdom under Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's "One Nation" Toryism.[35][36]
There have been a variety of progressive conservative governments. In the United Kingdom, the
Prime Ministers Disraeli, Stanley Baldwin, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Harold
Macmillan[37] and previous Prime Minister David Cameron are progressive conservatives.[38][39]
In the United States, the administration of President William Howard Taft was a progressive
conservative and he described himself as "a believer in progressive conservatism" [40] and
President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared himself an advocate of "progressive conservatism".
[41]
In Germany, Chancellor Leo von Caprivi promoted a progressive conservative agenda called the
"New Course".[42] In Canada, a variety of conservative governments have been progressive
conservative, with Canada's major conservative movement being officially named the Progressive
Conservative Party of Canada from 1942 to 2003.[43] In Canada, the Prime Ministers Arthur
Meighen, R. B. Bennett, John Diefenbaker, Joe Clark, Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell and Stephen
Harper led progressive conservative federal governments.[43]
Authoritarian conservatism[edit]
Main article: Far-right politics
Authoritarian conservatism refers to autocratic regimes that center their ideology around
conservative nationalism rather than ethnic nationalism, though certain racial components such
as antisemitism may exist.[44] Authoritarian conservative movements show strong devotion towards
religion, tradition and culture while also expressing fervent nationalism akin to other far-right
nationalist movements. Examples of authoritarian conservative leaders include António de Oliveira
Salazar[45] and Engelbert Dollfuss.[46] Authoritarian conservative movements were prominent in the
same era as fascism, with which it sometimes clashed. Although both ideologies shared core values
such as nationalism and had common enemies such as communism and materialism, there was
nonetheless a contrast between the traditionalist nature of authoritarian conservatism and the
revolutionary, palingeneticand populist nature of fascism—thus it was common for authoritarian
conservative regimes to suppress rising fascist and National Socialist movements.[47] The hostility
between the two ideologies is highlighted by the struggle for power for the National Socialists in
Austria, which was marked by the assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss.
Sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset has examined the class basis of right wing extremist politics in the
1920–1960 era. He reports:
Conservative or rightist extremist movements have arisen at different periods in modern
history, ranging from the Horthyites in Hungary, the Christian Social Party of Dollfuss in
Austria, the Stahlhelm and other nationalists in pre-Hitler Germany, and Salazar in Portugal,
to the pre-19S6 Gaullist movements and the monarchists in contemporary France and Italy.
The right extremists are conservative, not revolutionary. They seek to change political
institutions in order to preserve or restore cultural and economic ones, while extremists of the
centre and left seek to use political means for cultural and social revolution. The ideal of the
right extremist is not a totalitarian ruler, but a monarch, or a traditionalist who acts like one.
Many such movements in Spain, Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Italy-have been explicitly
monarchist....The supporters of these movements differ from those of the centrists, tending
to be wealthier, and more religious, which is more important in terms of a potential for mass
support.[48]

History[edit]
Development of Western conservatism[edit]
United Kingdom[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in the United Kingdom

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In Great Britain, conservative ideas (though not yet called that) emerged in the Tory movement
during the Restoration period (1660–1688). Toryism supported a hierarchical society with a
monarch who ruled by divine right. Tories opposed the idea that sovereignty derived from the
people and rejected the authority of parliament and freedom of religion. Robert
Filmer's Patriarcha: or the Natural Power of Kings(published posthumously in 1680, but written
before the English Civil War of 1642–1651) became accepted as the statement of their doctrine.
However, the Glorious Revolution of 1688 destroyed this principle to some degree by
establishing a constitutional government in England, leading to the hegemony of the Tory-
opposed Whig ideology. Faced with defeat, the Tories reformed their movement, now holding
that sovereignty was vested in the three estates of Crown, Lords and Commons [49] rather than
solely in the Crown. Toryism became marginalized during the long period of Whig ascendancy in
the 18th century.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797)

Conservatives typically see Richard Hooker (1554–1600) as the founding father of
conservatism, along with the Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695), David Hume (1711–1776)
and Edmund Burke (1729–1797). Halifax promoted pragmatism in government whilst Hume
argued against political rationalism and utopianism.[50][51] Burke served as the private secretary
to the Marquis of Rockingham and as official pamphleteer to the Rockingham branch of the
Whig party.[52] Together with the Tories, they were the conservatives in the late 18th century
United Kingdom.[53] Burke's views were a mixture of liberal and conservative. He supported
the American Revolution of 1765–1783, but abhorred the violence of the French
Revolution (1789–1799). He accepted the liberal ideals of private property and the economics
of Adam Smith (1723–1790), but thought that economics should remain subordinate to the
conservative social ethic, that capitalism should be subordinate to the medieval social tradition
and that the business class should be subordinate to aristocracy. He insisted on standards of
honor derived from the medieval aristocratic tradition and saw the aristocracy as the nation's
natural leaders.[54] That meant limits on the powers of the Crown, since he found the institutions
of Parliament to be better informed than commissions appointed by the executive. He favored
an established church, but allowed for a degree of religious toleration.[55] Burke justified the
social order on the basis of tradition: tradition represented the wisdom of the species and he
valued community and social harmony over social reforms.[56] Burke was a leading theorist in his
day, finding extreme idealism (either Tory or Whig) an endangerment to broader liberties and
(like Hume) rejecting abstract reason as an unsound guide for political theory. Despite their
influence on future conservative thought, none of these early contributors were explicitly
involved in Tory politics. Hooker lived in the 16th century, long before the advent of toryism,
whilst Hume was an apolitical philosopher and Halifax similarly politically independent. Burke
described himself as a Whig.

Revival[edit]
Shortly after Burke's death in 1797, conservatism revived as a mainstream political force as the
Whigs suffered a series of internal divisions. This new generation of conservatives derived their
politics not from Burke but from his predecessor, the Viscount Bolingbroke (1678–1751), who
was a Jacobite and traditional Tory, lacking Burke's sympathies for Whiggish policies such
as Catholic emancipation and American independence (famously attacked by Samuel
Johnson in "Taxation No Tyranny"). In the first half of the 19th century, many newspapers,
magazines and journals promoted loyalist or right-wing attitudes in religion, politics and
international affairs. Burke was seldom mentioned, but William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806)
became a conspicuous hero. The most prominent journals included The Quarterly Review,
founded in 1809 as a counterweight to the Whigs' Edinburgh Review and the even more
conservative Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Sack finds that the Quarterly Review promoted
a balanced Canningite toryism as it was neutral on Catholic emancipation and only mildly critical
of Nonconformist Dissent; it opposed slavery and supported the current poor laws; and it was
"aggressively imperialist". The high-church clergy of the Church of England read the Orthodox
Churchman's Magazinewhich was equally hostile to Jewish,
Catholic, Jacobin, Methodist and Unitarian spokesmen. Anchoring the ultra Tories, Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine stood firmly against Catholic emancipation and favoured slavery, cheap
money, mercantilism, the Navigation Acts and the Holy Alliance.[57]
Conservatism evolved after 1820, embracing free trade in 1846 and a commitment to
democracy, especially under Disraeli. The effect was to significantly strengthen conservatism as
a grassroots political force. Conservatism no longer was the philosophical defense of the landed
aristocracy, but had been refreshed into redefining its commitment to the ideals of order, both
secular and religious, expanding imperialism, strengthened monarchy and a more generous
vision of the welfare state as opposed to the punitive vision of the Whigs and liberals. [58] As early
as 1835, Disraeli attacked the Whigs and utilitarians as slavishly devoted to an industrial
oligarchy, while he described his fellow Tories as the only "really democratic party of England"
and devoted to the interests of the whole people. [59] Nevertheless, inside the party there was a
tension between the growing numbers of wealthy businessmen on the one side and the
aristocracy and rural gentry on the other.[60] The aristocracy gained strength as businessmen
discovered they could use their wealth to buy a peerage and a country estate.
Although conservatives opposed attempts to allow greater representation of the middle class in
parliament, they conceded that electoral reform could not be reversed and promised to support
further reforms so long as they did not erode the institutions of church and state. These new
principles were presented in the Tamworth Manifesto of 1834, which historians regard as the
basic statement of the beliefs of the new Conservative Party.[61]
Robert Peel (1788–1850)
Some conservatives lamented the passing of a pastoral world where the ethos of noblesse
oblige had promoted respect from the lower classes. They saw the Anglican Church and the
aristocracy as balances against commercial wealth. [62] They worked toward legislation for
improved working conditions and urban housing.[63] This viewpoint would later be called Tory
democracy.[64] However, since Burke there has always been tension between traditional
aristocratic conservatism and the wealthy business class.[65]
In 1834, Tory Prime Minister Robert Peel issued the Tamworth Manifesto in which he pledged to
endorse moderate political reform. This marked the beginning of the transformation of British
conservatism from High Tory reactionism towards a more modern form based on "conservation".
The party became known as the Conservative Party as a result, a name it has retained to this
day. However, Peel would also be the root of a split in the party between the traditional Tories
(led by the Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli) and the "Peelites" (led first by Peel himself, then
by the Earl of Aberdeen). The split occurred in 1846 over the issue of free trade, which Peel
supported, versus protectionism, supported by Derby. The majority of the party sided with Derby
whilst about a third split away, eventually merging with the Whigs and the radicals to form
the Liberal Party. Despite the split, the mainstream Conservative Party accepted the doctrine of
free trade in 1852.

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013)

In the second half of the 19th century, the Liberal Party faced political schisms, especially
over Irish Home Rule. Leader William Gladstone (himself a former Peelite) sought to give Ireland
a degree of autonomy, a move that elements in both the left and right-wings of his party
opposed. These split off to become the Liberal Unionists (led by Joseph Chamberlain), forming a
coalition with the Conservatives before merging with them in 1912. The Liberal Unionist
influence dragged the Conservative Party towards the left as Conservative governments passing
a number of progressive reforms at the turn of the 20th century. By the late 19th century, the
traditional business supporters of the Liberal Party had joined the Conservatives, making them
the party of business and commerce.[66]
After a period of Liberal dominance before the First World War, the Conservatives gradually
became more influential in government, regaining full control of the cabinet in 1922. In the
interwar period, conservatism was the major ideology in Britain[67][68][69] as the Liberal Party vied
with the Labour Party for control of the left. After the Second World War, the first Labour
government (1945–1951) under Clement Attlee embarked on a program of nationalization of
industry and the promotion of social welfare. The Conservatives generally accepted those
policies until the 1980s. In the 1980s, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher,
guided by neoliberal economics, reversed many of Labour's programmes.[70]
Other conservative political parties, such as the United Kingdom Independence Party (founded
in 1993) and the Democratic Unionist Party (founded in 1971), began to appear, although they
have yet to make any significant impact at Westminster (as of 2014, the DUP comprises the
largest political party in the ruling coalition in the Northern Ireland Assembly).

Germany[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in Germany
Conservative thought developed alongside nationalism in Germany, culminating in Germany's
victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War, the creation of the unified German Empire in
1871 and the simultaneous rise of Otto von Bismarck on the European political stage.
Bismarck's "balance of power" model maintained peace in Europe for decades at the end of the
19th century. His "revolutionary conservatism" was a conservative state-building strategy
designed to make ordinary Germans—not just the Junker elite—more loyal to state and
emperor, he created the modern welfare state in Germany in the 1880s. According to Kees van
Kersbergen and Barbara Vis, his strategy was:
[G]ranting social rights to enhance the integration of a hierarchical society, to forge a bond
between workers and the state so as to strengthen the latter, to maintain traditional relations of
authority between social and status groups, and to provide a countervailing power against the
modernist forces of liberalism and socialism.[71]

Bismarck also enacted universal male suffrage in the new German Empire in 1871. [72] He
became a great hero to German conservatives, who erected many monuments to his memory
after he left office in 1890.[73]
With the rise of Nazism in 1933, agrarian movements faded and was supplanted by a more
command-based economy and forced social integration. Though Adolf Hitler succeeded in
garnering the support of many German industrialists, prominent traditionalists openly and
secretly opposed his policies of euthanasia, genocide and attacks on organized religion,
including Claus von Stauffenberg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Henning von Tresckow, Bishop Clemens
August Graf von Galen and the monarchist Carl Friedrich Goerdeler.
More recently, the work of conservative Christian Democratic Union leader and
Chancellor Helmut Kohl helped bring about German reunification, along with the closer
integration of Europe in the form of the Maastricht Treaty.
Today, German conservatism is often associated with politicians such as Chancellor Angela
Merkel, whose tenure has been marked by attempts to save the common European currency
(Euro) from demise. The German conservatives are divided under Merkel due to the refugee
crisis in Germany and many conservatives oppose the refugee policies under Merkel.

United States[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in the United States
American conservatism is a broad system of political beliefs in the United States that is
characterized by respect for American traditions, support for Judeo-Christian values, economic
liberalism, anti-communism and a defense of Western culture. Liberty is a core value, with a
particular emphasis on strengthening the free market, limiting the size and scope of government
and opposition to high taxes and government or labor union encroachment on the entrepreneur.
American conservatives consider individual liberty, within the bounds of conformity to American
values, as the fundamental trait of democracy, which contrasts with modern American liberals,
who generally place a greater value on social equityand social justice.[74][75]

France[edit]

Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821)

Another form of conservatism developed in France in parallel to conservatism in Britain. It was
influenced by Counter-Enlightenment works by men such as Joseph de Maistre and Louis de
Bonald. Latin conservatism was less pragmatic and more reactionary than the conservatism of
Burke.[citation needed] Many continental or traditionalist conservatives do not support separation of
church and state, with most supporting state recognition of and cooperation with the Catholic
Church, such as had existed in France before the Revolution.
Eventually, conservatives added patriotism and nationalism to the list of traditional values they
support. Conservatives were the first to embrace nationalism, which was previously associated
with liberalism and the Revolution in France.[76]
Historic conservatism in different countries[edit]
Further information: Right-wing politics and Political spectrum
Conservative political parties vary widely from country to country in the goals they wish to
achieve. Both conservative and liberal parties tend to favor private ownership of property, in
opposition to communist, socialist and green parties, which favor communal ownership or laws
requiring social responsibility on the part of property owners. Where conservatives and liberals
differ is primarily on social issues. Conservatives tend to reject behavior that does not conform to
some social norm. Modern conservative parties often define themselves by their opposition to
liberal or labor parties. The United States usage of the term "conservative" is unique to that
country.[77]
According to Alan Ware, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom retained
viable conservative parties into the 1980s.[78] Ware said that Australia, Germany, Israel, Italy,
Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Spain and the United States had no conservative parties, although
they had either Christian democrats or liberals as major right-wing parties. Canada, Ireland and
Portugal had right-wing political parties that defied categorization: the Progressive Conservative
Party of Canada; Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Progressive Democrats in Ireland; and the Social
Democratic Party of Portugal.[79] Since then, the Swiss People's Party has moved to the extreme
right and is no longer considered to be conservative. [80]
Klaus von Beyme, who developed the method of party categorization, found that no modern
Eastern European parties could be considered conservative, although the communist and
communist-successor parties had strong similarities.[81]
In Italy, which was united by liberals and radicals (Risorgimento), liberals not conservatives
emerged as the party of the right.[82] In the Netherlands, conservatives merged into a new
Christian democratic party in 1980.[83] In Austria, Germany, Portugal and Spain, conservatism
was transformed into and incorporated into fascism or the far-right.[84] In 1940, all Japanese
parties were merged into a single fascist party. Following the war, Japanese conservatives
briefly returned to politics, but were largely purged from public office.[85]
Louis Hartz explained the absence of conservatism in Australia or the United States as a result
of their settlement as radical or liberal fragments of Great Britain. Although he said English
Canada had a negligible conservative influence, subsequent writers claimed
that loyalists opposed to the American Revolution brought a Tory ideology into Canada. Hartz
explained conservatism in Quebec and Latin America as a result of their settlement as feudal
societies.[86] The American conservative writer Russell Kirk provided the opinion that
conservatism had been brought to the United States and interpreted the American Revolution as
a "conservative revolution".[87]
Conservative elites have long dominated Latin American nations. Mostly, this has been achieved
through control of and support for civil institutions, the church and the armed forces, rather than
through party politics. Typically, the church was exempt from taxes and its employees immune
from civil prosecution. Where national conservative parties were weak or non-existent,
conservatives were more likely to rely on military dictatorship as a preferred form of government.
However, in some nations where the elites were able to mobilize popular support for
conservative parties, longer periods of political stability were achieved. Chile, Colombia and
Venezuela are examples of nations that developed strong conservative parties. Argentina,
Brazil, El Salvador and Peru are examples of nations where this did not occur. [88] The
Conservative Party of Venezuela disappeared following the Federal Wars of 1858–1863.
[89]
Chile's conservative party, the National Party, disbanded in 1973 following a military coup
and did not re-emerge as a political force following the subsequent return to democracy. [90]

Belgium[edit]
Having its roots in the conservative Catholic Party, the Christian People's Party, retained a
conservative edge through the twentieth century, supporting the king in the Royal Question,
supporting nuclear family as the cornerstone of society, defending Christian education and
opposing euthanasia. The Christian People's Party dominated politics in post-war Belgium. In
1999, the party's support collapsed and it became the country's fifth largest party. [91][92]
[93]
Currently, the N-VA (nieuw-vlaamse alliantie/New Flemish Alliance) is the largest party in
Belgium.[94]

Canada[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in Canada
Canada's conservatives had their roots in the loyalists Tories who left America after the
American Revolution. They developed in the socio-economic and political cleavages that existed
during the first three decades of the 19th century and had the support of the business,
professional and established Church (Anglican) elites in Ontario and to a lesser extent in
Quebec. Holding a monopoly over administrative and judicial offices, they were called the
"Family Compact" in Ontario and the "Chateau Clique" in Quebec. John A. Macdonald's
successful leadership of the movement to confederate the provinces and his subsequent tenure
as prime minister for most of the late 19th century rested on his ability to bring together the
English-speaking Protestant oligarchy and the ultramontane Catholic hierarchy of Quebec and to
keep them united in a conservative coalition.[95]
The conservatives combined pro-market liberalism and Toryism. They generally supported an
activist government and state intervention in the marketplace and their policies were marked
by noblesse oblige, a paternalistic responsibility of the elites for the less well-off.[96] From 1942,
the party was known as the Progressive Conservatives until 2003, when the national party
merged with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada.[97]
The conservative Union Nationale governed the province of Quebec in periods from 1936 to
1960 and in a close alliance with English Canadian business elites and the Catholic Church.
This period, known as the Great Darkness, ended with the Quiet Revolution and the party went
into terminal decline.[98]

Colombia[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in Colombia
The Colombian Conservative Party, founded in 1849, traces its origins to opponents of
General Francisco de Paula Santander's 1833–1837 administration. While the term "liberal" had
been used to describe all political forces in Colombia, the conservatives began describing
themselves as "conservative liberals" and their opponents as "red liberals". From the 1860s until
the present, the party has supported strong central government; supported the Catholic Church,
especially its role as protector of the sanctity of the family; and opposed separation of church
and state. Its policies include the legal equality of all men, the citizen's right to own property and
opposition to dictatorship. It has usually been Colombia's second largest party, with
the Colombian Liberal Party being the largest.[99]

Denmark[edit]
Founded in 1915, the Conservative People's Party of Denmark. was the successor
of Højre (literally "Right"). The conservative party led the government coalition from 1982 to
1993. The party was a junior partner in coalition with the Liberals from 2001 to 2011.[100] The
party is preceded by 11 years by the Young Conservatives (KU), today the youth movement of
the party. The party suffered a major defeat in the parliamentary elections of September 2011 in
which the party lost more than half of its seat and also lost governmental power. A liberal cultural
policy dominated during the postwar period. However, by the 1990s disagreements regarding
immigrants from entirely different cultures ignited a conservative backlash.[101]

Finland[edit]
The conservative party in Finland is the National Coalition Party (in Finnish Kansallinen
Kokoomus, Kok). The party was founded in 1918 when several monarchist parties united.
Although in the past the party was right-wing, today it is a moderate liberal conservative party.
While the party advocates economic liberalism, it is committed to the social market economy.[102]

France[edit]

European People's PartyCongress in Bucharest in 2012

Conservatism in France focused on the rejection of the French Revolution, support for the
Catholic Church and the restoration of the monarchy. The monarchist cause was on the verge of
victory in the 1870s, but then collapsed because of disagreements on who would be king and
what the national flag should be.[103] Religious tensions heightened in the 1890–1910 era, but
moderated after the spirit of unity in fighting the First World War.[104] An extreme form of
conservatism characterized the Vichy regime of 1940–1944 with heightened antisemitism,
opposition to individualism, emphasis on family life and national direction of the economy. [105]
Following the Second World War, conservatives in France supported Gaullist groups and have
been nationalistic and emphasized tradition, order and the regeneration of France. [106] Gaullists
held divergent views on social issues. The number of conservative groups, their lack of stability
and their tendency to be identified with local issues defy simple categorization. Conservatism
has been the major political force in France since the Second World War. [107] Unusually, post-war
French conservatism was formed around the personality of a leader, Charles de Gaulle; and did
not draw on traditional French conservatism, but on the Bonapartism tradition.[108] Gaullism in
France continues under The Republicans (formerly Union for a Popular Movement).[109] The
word "conservative" itself is a term of abuse in France.[110]

Greece[edit]
The main interwar conservative party was called the People's Party (PP), which
supported constitutional monarchy and opposed the republican Liberal Party. Both it and the
Liberal party were suppressed by the authoritarian, arch-conservative and royalist 4th of August
Regime of Ioannis Metaxas in 1936–1941. The PP was able to re-group after the Second World
War as part of a United Nationalist Front which achieved power campaigning on a simple
anticommunist, ultranationalist platform during the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). However, the
vote received by the PP declined during the so-called "Centrist Interlude" in 1950–1952. In 1952,
Marshal Alexandros Papagos created the Greek Rally as an umbrella for the right-wing forces.
The Greek Rally came to power in 1952 and remained the leading party in Greece until 1963—
after Papagos' death in 1955 reformed as the National Radical Union under Konstantinos
Karamanlis. Right-wing governments backed by the palace and the army overthrew the Centre
Union government in 1965 and governed the country until the establishment of the far-
right Regime of the Colonels (1967–1974). After the regime's collapse in August 1974,
Karamanlis returned from exile to lead the government and founded the New Democracy party.
The new conservative party had four objectives: to confront Turkish expansionism in Cyprus, to
reestablish and solidify democratic rule, to give the country a strong government and to make a
powerful moderate party a force in Greek politics. [111]
The Independent Greeks, a newly formed political party in Greece, has also supported
conservatism, particularly national and religious conservatism. The Founding Declaration of the
Independent Greeks strongly emphasises in the preservation of the Greek state and
its sovereignty, the Greek people and the Greek Orthodox Church.[112]

Iceland[edit]
Founded in 1924 as the Conservative Party, Iceland's Independence Party adopted its current
name in 1929 after the merger with the Liberal Party. From the beginning, they have been the
largest vote-winning party, averaging around 40%. They combined liberalism and conservatism,
supported nationalization of infrastructure and opposed class conflict. While mostly in opposition
during the 1930s, they embraced economic liberalism, but accepted the welfare state after the
war and participated in governments supportive of state intervention and protectionism. Unlike
other Scandanivian conservative (and liberal) parties, it has always had a large working-class
following.[113] After the financial crisis in 2008, the party has sunk to a lower support level around
20–25%.

Italy[edit]
After World War II, in Italy the conservative theories were mainly represented by the Christian
Democracy (DC) party, which government form the foundation of the Republic until party's
dissolution in 1994. Officially, DC refused the ideology of conservatism, but in many aspects, for
example family values, it was a typical social conservative party.
In 1994, the media tycoon and entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi founded the liberal
conservative party Forza Italia (FI). Berlusconi won three elections in 1994, 2001 and 2008,
governing the country for almost ten years as Prime Minister. Forza Italia formed a coalition with
right-wing regional party Lega Nord while in government.
Besides FI, now the conservative ideas are mainly expressed by the New Centre-Right party led
by Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi form a new party, which is the reborn Forza Italiafounding a new
conservative movement. Alfano is the current Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Luxembourg[edit]
Luxembourg's major Christian democratic conservative party, the Christian Social People's
Party (CSV or PCS), was formed as the Party of the Right in 1914 and adopted its present name
in 1945. It was consistently the largest political party in Luxembourg and dominated politics
throughout the 20th century.[114]

Norway[edit]
The Conservative Party of Norway (Norwegian: Høyre, literally "right") was formed by the old
upper class of state officials and wealthy merchants to fight the populist democracy of the Liberal
Party, but lost power in 1884 when parliamentarian government was first practised. It formed its
first government under parliamentarism in 1889 and continued to alternate in power with the
Liberals until the 1930s, when Labour became the dominant political party. It has elements both
of paternalism, stressing the responsibilities of the state and of economic liberalism. It first
returned to power in the 1960s.[115] During Kåre Willoch's premiership in the 1980s, much
emphasis was laid on liberalizing the credit and housing market and abolishing the NRK TV and
radio monopoly, while supporting law and order in criminal justice and traditional norms in
education[116]
Sweden[edit]
Sweden's conservative party, the Moderate Party, was formed in 1904, two years after the
founding of the liberal party.[117] The party emphasizes tax reductions, deregulation of private
enterprise and privatization of schools, hospitals and kindergartens. [118]

Switzerland[edit]
There are a number of conservative parties in Switzerland's parliament, the Federal Assembly.
These include the largest, the Swiss People's Party (SVP),[119] the Christian Democratic People's
Party (CVP)[120] and the Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland (BDP),[121] which is a
splinter of the SVP created in the aftermath to the election of Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf as
Federal Council.[121] The right-wing parties have a majority in the Federal Assembly.
The Swiss People's Party (SVP or UDC) was formed from the 1971 merger of the Party of
Farmers, Traders and Citizens, formed in 1917 and the smaller Swiss Democratic Party, formed
in 1942. The SVP emphasized agricultural policy and was strong among farmers in German-
speaking Protestant areas. As Switzerland considered closer relations with the European Union
in the 1990s, the SVP adopted a more militant protectionist and isolationist stance. This stance
has allowed it to expand into German-speaking Catholic mountainous areas. [122] The Anti-
Defamation League, a non-Swiss lobby group based in the United States has accused them of
manipulating issues such as immigration, Swiss neutrality and welfare benefits, awakening
antisemitism and racism.[123] The Council of Europe has called the SVP "extreme right", although
some scholars dispute this classification. For instance, Hans-Georg Betz describes it as
"populist radical right".[124]

United Kingdom[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in the United Kingdom
According to historian James Sack, English conservatives celebrate Edmund Burke as their
intellectual father.[125] Burke was affiliated with the Whig Party which eventually became
the Liberal Party, but the modern Conservative Party is generally thought to derive from the Tory
party and the MPs of the modern conservative party are still frequently referred to as Tories.

Modern conservatism in different countries[edit]

While conservatism has been seen as an appeal to traditional, hierarchical society, some writers
such as Samuel P. Huntington see it as situational. Under this definition, conservatives are seen
as defending the established institutions of their time. [126]
Australia[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia adheres to the principles of social conservatism and liberal
conservatism.[127] It is liberal in the sense of economics. Other conservative parties are
the National Party of Australia, a sister party of the Liberals, Family First Party, Democratic
Labor Party, Shooters Party, Australian Conservatives and the Katter's Australian Party.
The second largest party in the country is the Australian Labor Party and its dominant faction is
Labor Right, a socially conservative element. Australia undertook significant economic reform
under the Labor Party in the mid-1980s. Consequently, issues like protectionism, welfare reform,
privatization and deregulation are no longer debated in the political space as they are in Europe
or North America. Moser and Catley explain: "In America, 'liberal' means left-of-center, and it is a
pejorative term when used by conservatives in adversarial political debate. In Australia, of
course, the conservatives are in the Liberal Party".[128] Jupp points out that, "[the] decline in
English influences on Australian reformism and radicalism, and appropriation of the symbols of
Empire by conservatives continued under the Liberal Party leadership of Sir Robert Menzies,
which lasted until 1966".[129]
Brazil[edit]
Conservatism in Brazil originates from the cultural and historical tradition of Brazil, whose
cultural roots are Luso-Iberian and Roman Catholic.[130] Brazilian conservatism from the 20th
century on includes names such as Gerardo Melo Mourão and Otto Maria Carpeaux in
literature; Oliveira Lima and Oliveira Torres in historiography; Sobral Pinto and Miguel Reale in
law; Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and Father Paulo Ricardo[131] in the Catholic Church; Roberto
Campos and Mario Henrique Simonsen in economics; Carlos Lacerda[132] in the political arena;
and Olavo de Carvalho in philosophy.[133] Brazilian Labour Renewal
Party, Patriota, Progressistas, Social Christian Party and Social Liberal Party are the
conservative parties in Brazil.
India[edit]
In India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) represents conservative politics nationally and is the
largest right-wing conservative party.
Russia[edit]
Under Vladimir Putin, the dominant leader since 1999, Russia has promoted explicitly
conservative policies in social, cultural and political matters, both at home and abroad. Putin has
attacked globalism and economic liberalism as well as scientific and technological progress. [134]
[135]
Putin has promoted new think tanks that bring together like-minded intellectuals and writers.
For example, the Izborsky Club, founded in 2012 by Aleksandr Prokhanov, stresses Russian
nationalism, the restoration of Russia's historical greatness and systematic opposition to liberal
ideas and policies.[136] Vladislav Surkov, a senior government official, has been one of the key
ideologists during Putin's presidency.[137]
In cultural and social affairs, Putin has collaborated closely with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Mark Woods provides specific examples of how the Church under Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has
backed the expansion of Russian power into Crimea and eastern Ukraine. [138] More broadly, The
New York Times reports in September 2016 how that Church's policy prescriptions support the
Kremlin's appeal to social conservatives:
A fervent foe of homosexuality and any attempt to put individual rights above those of family,
community or nation, the Russian Orthodox Church helps project Russia as the natural ally
of all those who pine for a more secure, illiberal world free from the tradition-crushing rush of
globalization, multiculturalism and women’s and gay rights.[139]
South Korea[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in South Korea
South Korea's major conservative party, the Saenuri Party (새누리당), has changed its form
throughout its history. First it was the Democratic-Republican Party (1963–1980) and its
head was Park Chung-hee, who seized power in a 1961 military coup d'état and ruled as an
unelected military strongman until his formal election as President in 1963. He was
President for 16 years until his assassination on 26 October 1979. The Democratic Justice
Party inherited the same ideology as the Democratic-Republican Party. Its head, Chun Doo-
hwan, also gained power through a coup and his followers called themselves the Hanahae.
The Democratic Justice Party changed its form and acted to suppress the opposition party
and to follow the people's demand for direct elections. The party's Roh Tae-woo became the
first President who was elected through direct election. The next form of the major
conservative party was the Democratic-Liberal Party and again through election its second
leader, Kim Young-sam, became the fourteenth President of Korea. When the conservative
party was beaten by the opposition party in the general election, it changed its form again to
follow the party members' demand for reforms. It became the New Korean Party, but it
changed again one year later since the President Kim Young-sam was blamed by the citizen
for the International Monetary Fund.[clarification needed] It changed its name to Grand National
Party (GNP). Since the late Kim Dae-jung assumed the presidency in 1998, GNP had been
the opposition party until Lee Myung-bak won the presidential election of 2007.
United States[edit]
Main article: Conservatism in the United States

President Ronald Reagan in 1982

The meaning of "conservatism" in the United States has little in common with the way the
word is used elsewhere. As Ribuffo (2011) notes, "what Americans now call conservatism
much of the world calls liberalism or neoliberalism".[140] Since the 1950s, conservatism in the
United States has been chiefly associated with the Republican Party. However, during the
era of segregation many Southern Democrats were conservatives and they played a key
role in the Conservative coalition that largely controlled domestic policy in Congress from
1937 to 1963.[141]
Major priorities within American conservatism include support for tradition, law-and-order,
Christianity, anti-communism and a defense of "Western civilization from the challenges of
modernist culture and totalitarian governments". [142] Economic conservatives and libertarians
favor small government, low taxes, limited regulation and free enterprise. Some social
conservatives see traditional social values threatened by secularism, so they support school
prayer and oppose abortion and homosexuality.[143] Neoconservatives want to expand
American ideals throughout the world and show a strong support for Israel.
[144]
Paleoconservatives, in opposition to multiculturalism, press for restrictions on
immigration.[145] Most U.S. conservatives prefer Republicans over Democrats and most
factions favor a strong foreign policy and a strong military. The conservative movement of
the 1950s attempted to bring together these divergent strands, stressing the need for unity
to prevent the spread of "Godless communism", which Reagan later labeled an "evil
empire".[146] During the Reagan administration, conservatives also supported the so-called
"Reagan Doctrine" under which the U.S. as part of a Cold War strategy provided military and
other support to guerrilla insurgencies that were fighting governments identified as socialist
or communist.
Other modern conservative positions include opposition to world government and opposition
to environmentalism.[147] On average, American conservatives desire tougher foreign
policies than liberals do.[148]
 Most recently, the Tea Party movement, founded in 2009, has proven a large outlet for
populist American conservative ideas. Their stated goals include rigorous adherence to the
U.S. Constitution, lower taxes and opposition to a growing role for the federal government in
health care. Electorally, it was considered a key force in Republicans reclaiming control of
the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010.[149][150]

Characteristics of conservatism in France, Italy, Russia,

Poland, United Kingdom, United States and Israel[edit]
This is a broad checklist of modern conservatism in seven countries.
com·mu·nism

ˈkämyəˌnizəm/
noun
1. a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a
society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid
according to their abilities and needs.
con·ser·va·tism

kənˈsərvədizəm/
noun
1. 1.
commitment to traditional values and ideas with opposition to change or innovation.
"proponents of theological conservatism"
2. 2.
the holding of political views that favor free enterprise, private ownership, and socially
conservative ideas.
"a party that espoused conservatism"