Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, depending on the particular nation, conservatives seek to promote a range of institutions, such as the nuclear family, organized religion, the military, the nation-state, property rights, rule of law, aristocracy, and monarchy. Conservatives tend to favour institutions and practices that guarantee social order and historical continuity.
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics and civil liberties under the rule of law, with special emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, economic freedom, political freedom and freedom of speech. Classical liberalism, contrary to liberal branches like social liberalism, looks more negatively on social policies, taxation and the state involvement in the lives of individuals, and it advocates deregulation.
Paleoconservatism is a political philosophy and strain of conservatism in the United States stressing American nationalism, Christian ethics, regionalism, and traditionalist conservatism. 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 and right-wing populism.
Paul Edward Gottfried is an American paleoconservative political philosopher, historian, and writer. He is a former Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. He is editor-in-chief of the paleoconservative magazine Chronicles. He is an associated scholar at the Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank, and the US correspondent of Nouvelle École, a Nouvelle Droite journal.
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, homosexuality, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the Panama Canal Treaty, affirmative action, and most forms of taxation.
Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by liberalism.
An illiberal democracy describes a governing system that hides its "nondemocratic practices behind formally democratic institutions and procedures". There is a lack of consensus among experts about the exact definition of illiberal democracy or whether it even exists.
Centre-right politics lean to the right of the political spectrum, but are closer to the centre. Parties of the centre-right generally support liberal democracy, capitalism, the market economy, private property rights, and a modest welfare state. They support conservatism and economic liberalism and oppose socialism and communism.
In the United States, conservatism is based on a belief in limited government, individualism, traditionalism, republicanism, and limited federal governmental power in relation to U.S. states. Conservative and Christian media organizations, along with American conservative figures, are influential, and American conservatism is one of the majority political ideologies within the Republican Party.
Conservative liberalism, also referred to as right-liberalism, is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or simply representing the right-wing of the liberal movement. In the case of modern conservative liberalism, scholars sometimes see it as a more positive and less radical variant of classical liberalism; it is also referred to as an individual tradition that distinguishes it from classical liberalism and social liberalism. Conservative liberal parties tend to combine economically liberal policies with more traditional stances and personal beliefs on social and ethical issues. Ordoliberalism is a influential component of conservative-liberal thought, particularly in its German, British, French, Italian, and American manifestations.
National conservatism is a nationalist variant of conservatism that concentrates on upholding national, cultural identity, communitarianism and the public role of religion. It shares aspects of traditionalist conservatism and social conservatism, while departing from economic liberalism and libertarianism, as well as taking a more agnostic approach to regulatory economics and protectionism. National conservatives usually combine conservatism with nationalist stances, emphasizing cultural conservatism, family values and opposition to illegal immigration or opposition to immigration per se. National conservative parties often have roots in environments with a rural, traditionalist or peripheral basis, contrasting with the more urban support base of liberal conservative parties.
In American politics, fusionism is the philosophical and political combination or "fusion" of traditionalist and social conservatism with political and economic right-libertarianism. Fusionism combines "free markets, social conservatism, and a hawkish foreign policy". The philosophy is most closely associated with Frank Meyer.
American political ideologies conventionally align with the left–right political spectrum, with most Americans identifying as conservative, liberal, or moderate. Contemporary American conservatism includes social conservatism, classical liberalism and economic liberalism. The former ideology developed as a response to communism and the civil rights movement, while the latter two ideologies developed as a response to the New Deal. Contemporary American liberalism includes progressivism, welfare capitalism and social liberalism, developing during the Progressive Era and the Great Depression. Besides modern conservatism and liberalism, the United States has a notable libertarian movement, developing during the mid-20th century as a revival of classical liberalism. Historical political movements in the United States have been shaped by ideologies as varied as republicanism, populism, separatism, fascism, socialism, monarchism, and nationalism.
Conservatism in the United Kingdom is related to its counterparts in other Western nations, but has a distinct tradition and has encompassed a wide range of theories over the decades of conservatism. The Conservative Party, which forms the mainstream right-wing party in Britain, has developed many different internal factions and ideologies.
Sohrab Ahmari is an Iranian-American columnist, editor, and author of nonfiction books. He is a founding editor of the online magazine Compact. He is a contributing editor of The Catholic Herald, and a columnist for First Things. Previously, he served as the op-ed editor of the New York Post, a columnist and editor with The Wall Street Journal opinion pages in New York and London, and as a senior writer at Commentary.
David Austin French is an American political commentator and former attorney who has argued high-profile religious liberty cases. He is a columnist for The New York Times. Formerly a fellow at the National Review Institute and a staff writer for National Review from 2015 to 2019, French currently serves as senior editor of The Dispatch, and occasionally a contributing writer for The Atlantic. French is currently a distinguished visiting professor of public policy at Lipscomb University, his alma mater.
Conservatism in Russia is a broad system of political beliefs in Russia that is characterized by support for Orthodox values, Russian imperialism, statism, economic interventionism, advocacy for the historical Russian sphere of influence, and a rejection of late modernist era Western culture.
Why Liberalism Failed is a 2018 book by Patrick Deneen, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame. It criticizes both forms of American liberalism – "classical liberalism," typically called in America "libertarianism"; and "progressive/modern liberalism," often simply called "liberal."
Liberalism has been a notable ideology in Poland for hundreds of years. Polish liberalism emphasizes the preservation of democracy and opposition to authoritarianism. Liberalism was first developed in Poland as a response to the Polish–Lithuanian monarchy, and it continued to develop in response to the partition of Poland through the 19th century and Communist rule in the 20th century. Poland has officially been a liberal democracy since 1989, though its status has challenged as a result of illiberal reforms in the 2010s and 2020s.
