Political ideology representing the conservative wing of the liberal movement
This article is about the political ideology representing the conservative wing of the liberal movement. For conservatism influenced by liberalism, see Liberal conservatism.
This article may be written in a style that is too abstract to be readily understandable by general audiences. Please improve it by defining technical terminology, and by adding examples.(August 2016)
Conservative liberalism, also referred to as right-liberalism,[1][2] is a variant of liberalism combining liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or simply representing the right wing of the liberal movement.[3] 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.[4][5] Conservative liberal parties tend to combine economically liberal policies with more traditional stances and personal beliefs on social and ethical issues.[specify][6]Ordoliberalism is an influential component of conservative-liberal thought, particularly in its German, British, French, Italian, and American manifestations.[7]
In general, liberal conservatism and conservative liberalism have different philosophical roots. Historically, liberal conservatism refers mainly to the case where conservatives embrace the elements of classical liberalism, and conservative liberalism refers to classical liberals who support a laissez-faire economy as well as socially conservative principles (for instance, Christian family values). Since classical liberal institutions were gradually accepted by conservatives, there is very little to distinguish liberal conservatives from conservative liberals.[8]Neoconservatism has also been identified as an ideological relative or twin to conservative liberalism,[9] and some similarities exist also between conservative liberalism and national liberalism.[10][11]
Alexis de Tocqueville had a profound influence on modern conservative-liberal philosophy.
Conservative liberalism emerged in late 18th-century France and the United Kingdom, when the moderate bourgeoisie supported the monarchy within the liberal camp. Representatively, Doctrinaires, which existed during the Bourbon Restoration was a representative conservative-liberal party.[12] Radicalism, the leftward flank of liberalism during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that is referred to as classical radicalism, emerged as an opposition against the moderateness of these conservative liberals. Whiggism, or Whig liberalism, in the United Kingdom also forms early conservative liberalism and is distinguished from the Radicals (radical liberalism).[13]
According to Robert Kraynak, a professor at Colgate University, rather than "following progressive liberalism (i.e. social liberalism), conservative liberals draw upon pre-modern sources, such as classical philosophy (with its ideas of virtue, the common good, and natural rights), Christianity (with its ideas of natural law, the social nature of man, and original sin), and ancient institutions (such as common law, corporate bodies, and social hierarchies). This gives their liberalism a conservative foundation. It means following Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Edmund Burke rather than LockeorKant; it usually includes a deep sympathy for the politics of the Greekpolis, the Roman Republic, and Christian monarchies. But, as realists, conservative liberals acknowledge that classical and medieval politics cannot be restored in the modern world. And, as moralists, they see that the modern experiment in liberty and self-government has the positive effect of enhancing human dignity as well as providing an opening (even in the midst of mass culture) for transcendent longings for eternity. At its practical best, conservative liberalism promotes ordered liberty under God and establishes constitutional safeguards against tyranny. It shows that a regime of liberty based on traditional morality and classical-Christian culture is an achievement we can be proud of, rather than merely defensive about, as trustees of Western civilization."[15]
In the European context, conservative liberalism should not be confused with liberal conservatism, which is a variant of conservatism combining conservative views with liberal policies in regards to the economy, social and ethical issues.[6] The roots of conservative liberalism are to be found at the beginning of the history of liberalism. Until the two world wars, the political class in most European countries from Germany to Italy was formed by conservative liberals. The events such as World War I occurring after 1917 brought the more radical version of classical liberalism to a more conservative (i.e. more moderate) type of liberalism.[16] Conservative liberal parties have tended to develop in those European countries where there was no strong secular conservative party and where the separation of church and state was less of an issue. In those countries, where the conservative parties were Christian democratic, this conservative brand of liberalism developed.[3]
Conservative liberalism is generally a liberal ideology that contrasts with social liberalism.[17] Conservative liberalism, along with social liberalism and classical liberalism, is mentioned as the main liberal ideology of European politics.[5] While there are conservative liberals who are located on the right-wing political position, liberal conservatism is often used to describe liberalism close to the political centre to the centre-right of the political spectrum.[18][19]
Social, classical and conservative liberalism[edit]
Social liberalism is a combination of economic Keynesianism and cultural liberalism. Classical liberalism is economic liberalism that partially embraces cultural liberalism. Conservative liberalism is an ideology that highlights the conservative aspect of liberalism, so it can appear in a somewhat different form depending on the local reality. Conservative liberalism refers to ideologies that show relatively conservative tendencies within the liberal camp, so it has some relative meaning. In the United States, conservative liberals mean de facto classical liberals;[20] in Europe, Christian democrats and ordoliberals can also be included. Christian democracy is a mainstream European conservative ideology, so there are cases where it supports free markets, such as Röpke.[21]
Ordoliberalism is more a variant of conservative liberalism than classical liberalism, which is economic liberalism that embraces cultural liberalism, or social liberalism, in principle because it is influenced by the notion of social justice based on traditional Catholic teachings. After the war, Germany pursued economic growth based on the social market economy, which is deeply related to ordoliberalism.[21]
In the United States, liberal usually refers to a social liberal form. As such, those referred to as conservative liberals in Europe are often simply referred to as conservatives in the United States. Milton Friedman and Irving Kristol are mentioned as representative conservative liberal scholars.[20][27]
Political scientists evaluate all politicians in the United States as liberals in the academic sense.[28] In general, rather than the Democratic Party, which is close to social liberalism, the Republican Party is evaluated as a conservative-liberal party.[29] In the case of the Democratic Party, the Blue Dog Coalition is evaluated as close to conservative-liberal in fiscal policy,[30] and as moderate to liberal on cultural issues.[31] Unlike classical liberals, conservative liberals in Europe, such as Finland's Centre Party, sometimes criticize cultural liberalism.[32]
[I]n America today, responsible liberals—who are usually called neoconservatives—see that liberalism depends on human beings who are somewhat child-centered, patriotic, and religious. These responsible liberals praise these non-individualistic human propensities in an effort to shore up liberalism. One of their slogans is "conservative sociology with liberal politics." The neoconservatives recognize that the politics of free and rational individuals depends upon a pre-political social world that is far from free and rational as a whole.[33]
^Keith L. Nelson, ed. (2019). The Making of Détente: Soviet-American Relations in the Shadow of Vietnam. JHU Press. ISBN978-1421436210. ... and even today our political parties can most appropriately be described as "right liberal" (those who fear government) and "left liberal" (those who fear concentrated wealth).2 This does not mean, however, that individual American ...
^ abEmilie van Haute; Caroline Close, eds. (2019). Liberal Parties in Europe. Routledge. p. 326.
^ ab"Content". Parties and Elections in Europe. 2020. Retrieved 23 June 2023. Liberal conservatism: Liberal conservative parties combine conservative policies with more liberal stances on social and ethical issues.
^Kenneth Dyson (2021). "Introduction". In Kenneth Dyson (ed.). Conservative Liberalism, Ordo-liberalism, and the State: Discipling Democracy and the Market. Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN978-0-19-885428-9.
^Shannan Lorraine Mattiace, ed. (1998). Peasant and Indian: Political Identity and Indian Autonomy in Chiapas, Mexico, 1970–1996. University of Texas at Austin.
^Robert Tombs, ed. (2014). France 1814–1914. Routledge. ISBN978-1317871439. ... The conservative liberal Doctrinaires argued that the classe moyenne (their preferred term) was the representative part of the nation, and could legitimately govern on behalf of all. All this placed the idea of class at the centre of ...
^Efraim Podoksik, ed. (2013). In Defence of Modernity: Vision and Philosophy in Michael Oakeshott. Imprint Academic. p. 14. ISBN9781845404680. ... For Whig liberalism is also known as 'conservative liberalism' ...
^The New York Times Book Review. New York Times Company. 1986. p. 1. ISBN978-1317755098. ... a friend and philosophical colleague of both Sartre and Sartre's great intellectual opponent, Raymond Aron. ...
^Kraynak, Robert (December 2005). "Living with liberalism". The New Criterion. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 23 June 2023.
^Immanuel Wallerstein, ed. (2011). The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789–1914. University of California Press.
^ abcdEmilie van Haute; Caroline Close, eds. (2019). Liberal Parties in Europe. Routledge. pp. 338–339.
^ abcDavid Cayla, ed. (2021). Populism and Neoliberalism. Routledge. p. 62. ISBN978-1000366709. He demonstrates that the concept of "neoliberalism" did not emerge in the American context and that it was thereby not invented to distinguish Paul Krugman's left-wing liberalism from Milton Friedman's conservative liberalism.
^ abcdeKenneth Dyson, ed. (2021). Conservative Liberalism, Ordo-liberalism, and the State: Disciplining Democracy and the Market. Oxford University Press.
^ abMartin Fitzpatrick; Peter Jones, eds. (2017). The Reception of Edmund Burke in Europe. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN978-1350012554. ... If Burke is a liberal conservative, Tocqueville is a conservative liberal.49 Bénéton then silently excludes French liberalism from conservatism, and concentrates on a definition of a genuine conservatism proceeding from the ...
^ abAndrew Cleveland Gould, ed. (1992). Politicians, Peasants and Priests: Conditions for the Emergence of Liberal Dominance in Western Europe, 1815–1914. University of California. p. 82. Conservative liberal Adolphe Thiers , advocate of peace and liberal opposition leader under ...
^ abOtis L. Graham Jr., ed. (1976). Toward a Planned Society: From Roosevelt to Nixon. Oxford University Press. p. 1911. ISBN978-0199923212. The journal The Public Interest in recent years has published notable essays by the skeptics of the planning and Planning impulse, by conservative liberal writers like Aaron Wildavsky, James O. Wilson, and Irving Kristol.
^Kansas State College of Pittsburg, ed. (1945). The Educational Leader. Kansas State College. p. 67. The greatest leader of the English Liberal Party in the last century, William E. Gladstone, was in principle and practice a conservative liberal. As leader of the party from 1868 to 1894, he was directly ...
^Paul Kelly, ed. (2005). Liberalism. Polity. p. 71. ISBN978-0745632902. Conservative liberal critics of social justice, such as Friedrich Hayek, have sought to reject precisely this distinction.
^Phillip Darby, ed. (1997). At the Edge of International Relations: Postcolonialism, Gender, and Dependency. Pinter. p. 62. ... Instead, in the late twentieth century a conservative liberal, Francis Fukuyama, comfortably pronounces the victory of ...
^Pion-Berlin, David (1997), Through Corridors of Power: Institutions and Civil-military Relations in Argentina, Pennsylvania State University Press, p. 66
^Japan Almanac. Mainichi Newspapers. 1975. p. 43. In the House of Representatives, the Liberal-Democratic Party, guided by conservative liberalism, is the No.1 party holding a total of 279 seats or 56.8 per cent of the House quorum of 491.
^"Beautiful Harmony: Political Project Behind Japan's New Era Name – Analysis". eurasia review. 16 July 2019. The shifting dynamics around the new era name (gengō 元号) offers an opportunity to understand how the domestic politics of the LDP's project of ultranationalism is shaping a new Japan and a new form of nationalism.
^"Shinzo Abe and the long history of Japanese political violence". The Spectator. 9 July 2022. Retrieved 3 March 2023. As the French judge at the trial, Henri Bernard, noted, Japan's wartime atrocities 'had a principal author [Hirohito] who escaped all prosecution and of whom in any case the present defendants could only be considered accomplices.' The result was that whereas ultranationalism became toxic in post-war Germany, in Japan neo-fascism—centred around the figure of the emperor—retained its allure and became mainstream albeit sotto voce within Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
^"'더불어민주당2중대'로서 정의당" [The Justice Party, which became the "second party of the Democratic Party of Korea".]. 매일노동뉴스. 4 November 2021. Retrieved 4 November 2021. ... 집값은 오르고 불로소득은 넘쳐 나고 빈부격차도 심해졌다. 노동 개혁도 엉망진창이다. 코로나19라는 악재가 있으나, 보수적 자유주의 정당인 더불어민주당의 성격을 고려할 때 정권 출범부터 예견됐던 일이다. [... Housing prices rose, unearned income overflowed, and the gap between the rich and the poor widened. Labor reform is also a mess. Although there is a negative factor called COVID-19, it has been predicted since the inauguration of the regime considering the nature of the conservative liberal party, the Democratic Party of Korea.]
^Frank Chibulka (2012). "The Czech Republic". In Donnacha O Beachain; Vera Sheridan; Sabina Stan (eds.). Life in Post-Communist Eastern Europe after EU Membership. Routledge. p. 36. ISBN978-1136299810.
^Carol Diane St Louis (2011). Negotiating Change: Approaches to and the Distributional Implications of Social Welfare and Economic Reform. Stanford University. p. 77.
^Nyagulov, Blagovest (2014). Early Socialism in the Balkans: Ideas and Practices in Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. Vol. 2. Brill. p. 232. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
