Commentary is a monthly American magazine on religion, Judaism, Israel and politics, as well as social and cultural issues. Founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945 under Elliot E. Cohen, editor from 1945 to 1959, Commentary magazine developed into the leading post-World War II journal of Jewish affairs. The periodical strove to construct a new American Jewish identity while processing the events of the Holocaust, the formation of the State of Israel, and the Cold War. Norman Podhoretz edited the magazine from 1960 to 1995.
Neoconservatism is a political movement which began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist Democratic Party along with the growing New Left and counterculture of the 1960s. Neoconservatives typically advocate the unilateral promotion of democracy and interventionism in international relations together with a militaristic and realist philosophy of "peace through strength". They are known for espousing opposition to communism and radical politics.
Paleoconservatism is a political philosophy and a paternalistic strain of conservatism in the United States stressing American nationalism, Christian ethics, regionalism, traditionalist conservatism, and non-interventionism. Paleoconservatism's concerns overlap with those of the Old Right that opposed the New Deal in the 1930s and 1940s as well as with paleolibertarianism. By the start of the 21st century, the movement had begun to focus more on issues of race.
Irving William Kristol was an American journalist and writer. As a founder, editor, and contributor to various magazines, he played an influential role in the intellectual and political culture of the latter half of the twentieth century. He was dubbed the "godfather of neoconservatism". After his death, he was described by The Daily Telegraph as being "perhaps the most consequential public intellectual of the latter half of the century". He is the father of political writer Bill Kristol.
New Right is a term for various right-wing political groups or policies in different countries during different periods. One prominent usage was to describe the emergence of certain Eastern European parties after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the United States, the Second New Right campaigned against abortion, LGBT civil rights, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the Panama Canal Treaty, affirmative action, and most forms of taxation.
The words theoconservatism and theocon are portmanteaus of "theocracy" and "conservatism"/"conservative" coined as variants of "neoconservatism" and "neocon". They have been used as labels, sometimes pejorative, referring to members of the Christian right, particularly those whose ideology represents a synthesis of elements of American conservatism, conservative Christianity, and social conservatism, expressed through political means. The term theocon first appeared in 1996 in an article in The New Republic entitled "Neocon v. Theocon" by Jacob Heilbrunn, where he wrote:
[T]he neoconservatives believe that America is special because it was founded on an idea—a commitment to the rights of man embodied in the Declaration of Independence—not in ethnic or religious affiliations. The theocons, too, argue that America is rooted in an idea, but they believe that idea is Christianity.
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, was an English philosopher, writer, and social critic who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of conservative views.
Maurice John Cowling was a British historian. A fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, for most of his career, Cowling was a leading conservative exponent of the 'high politics' approach to political history.
The Public Interest (1965–2005) was a quarterly public policy journal founded by Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol, members of the loose New York intellectuals group, in 1965. It was a leading neoconservative journal on political economy and culture, aimed at a readership of journalists, scholars and policy makers.
The Salisbury Review is a quarterly British "magazine of conservative thought". It was founded in 1982 by the Salisbury Group, who sought to articulate and further traditional intellectual conservative ideas.
The Republican Party in the United States includes several factions, or wings. During the 19th century, Republican factions included the Half-Breeds, who supported civil service reform; the Radical Republicans, who advocated the immediate and total abolition of slavery, and later advocated civil rights for freed slaves during the Reconstruction era; and the Stalwarts, who supported machine politics.
The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is a trans-Atlantic foreign policy and national security think tank, based in the United Kingdom. While describing itself as non-partisan, its outlook has been described variously as right-wing, neoliberal, and neoconservative. The Society identifies itself with a "forward strategy" to spread democracy and liberal values globally. It is currently focused primarily on supporting global democracy in the face of threats from China and Russia. The Society is also known for its reports related to Islamic and far-right extremism. The Society is named after the US Senator and leading Democrat, Henry M. Jackson. American political journalist, Michael Allen, described the society as "a non-partisan group that convenes transatlantic center-left, center-right and independent figures committed to Jackson's legacy of 'democratic geopolitics.'"
The Conservative Philosophy Group (CPG) was formed in the UK in 1974 by Sir Hugh Fraser, a Conservative MP, to provide an intellectual basis for conservatism at a time when the Conservative Party had just lost two general elections and elected a new leader, Margaret Thatcher. It was founded with four board members: Fraser, Roger Scruton, John Casey, and Jonathan Aitken MP.
In the United Kingdom and elsewhere, High Toryism is the old traditionalist conservatism which is in line with the Toryism originating in the 16th century. High Tories and their worldview are sometimes at odds with the modernising elements of the Conservative Party. Historically, the late 18th-century conservatism derived from the Whig Edmund Burke and William Pitt the Younger marks a watershed from the "higher" or legitimist Toryism that was allied to Jacobitism.
John Casey is a British academic and a writer for The Daily Telegraph. He has been described as "mentor" to Roger Scruton and is a former lecturer in English at the University of Cambridge and a former lecturer and a Life Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1975, along with Scruton, he founded the Conservative Philosophy Group. Though not a member of Peterhouse, he has been considered part of the Cambridge Right, which included scholars from Selwyn College, Gonville and Caius College and Christ's College as well. He was editor of The Cambridge Review between 1975 and 1979.
America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy is a 2006 book written by Francis Fukuyama.
Neoconservatism and paleoconservatism are two major branches of the American conservative political movement. Representatives of each faction often argue that the other does not represent true conservatism. Disputed issues include immigration, trade, the United States Constitution, taxation, budget, business, the Federal Reserve, drug policy, foreign aid and the foreign policy of the United States.
Douglas Murray is a British author and neoconservative political commentator, cultural critic, and journalist. He founded the Centre for Social Cohesion in 2007, which became part of the Henry Jackson Society, where he was associate director from 2011 to 2018.
Neoconservatism: Why We Need It is a 2006 book by Douglas Murray, in which the author argues that neoconservatism offers a coherent platform from which to tackle genocide, dictatorships and human rights abuses in the modern world, that the terms neoconservativism and neocon are often both misunderstood and misrepresented, and that neoconservativism can play a progressive role in the context of modern British politics.
Allegations of Islamophobia in the UK Conservative Party have been made, including against senior politicians, such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Zac Goldsmith. Baroness Warsi, former co-chair of the Conservative Party, said in 2018 that anti-Muslim prejudice had "poisoned" the party. Many Muslim party members welcomed Warsi's comments, saying that they felt the issue had been marginalised within the party.
