This article is about the political philosophy of conservatism as influenced by liberalism. For the conservative wing of the liberal movement, see Conservative liberalism.
Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters,[1] representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by liberalism.
The ideology incorporates the classical liberal view of minimal government intervention in the economy, according to which individuals should be free to participate in the market and generate wealth without government interference.[2] However, liberal conservatives also hold that individuals cannot be thoroughly depended on to act responsibly in other spheres of life; therefore, they believe that a strong state is necessary to ensure law and order and that social institutions are needed to nurture a sense of duty and responsibility to the nation.[2] Liberal conservatives also support civil liberties, along with some socially conservative positions. They differ on social issues, with some being socially conservative and others socially liberal, though all liberal conservatives broadly support the rule of law regarding civil rights, social equality and the environment.[3][4] This is equated with the creation of a cohesive and tolerant society with increased levels of individual responsibility and less inequality.[5]
Liberal conservatism shares the classical liberal tenets of a commitment to individualism, belief in negative freedom, a lightly regulated free market, and a minimal rule of law state.[6] A number of commentators have stated that many conservative currents in the 1980s, such as Thatcherism,[2] were rejuvenated classical liberals in all but name.[6] However, in contrast to classical liberalism there is a stronger social agenda and support for a greater degree of state intervention especially in certain areas of social life which liberal conservatives believe should not be subject to market forces.[6] Particularly in regards to the family, sexuality, health and education, these should either always be periodically regulated or minimally protected by the state.[6]
Both conservatism and liberalism have had different meanings over time in different centuries. The term liberal conservatism has been used in quite different ways. It usually contrasts with aristocratic conservatism, which deems the principle of equality as something discordant with human nature and emphasizes instead the idea of natural inequality. As conservatives in democratic countries have embraced typical liberal institutions such as the rule of law, private property, the market economy and constitutionalrepresentative government, the liberal element of liberal conservatism became consensual among conservatives. In some countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, the term liberal conservatism came to be understood simply as conservatism in popular culture,[7] prompting some conservatives who embraced more strongly classical-liberal values to call themselves libertarians instead.[8] However, there are differences between classical liberals and libertarians.[9]
In their embrace of liberal and free market principles, European liberal conservatives are clearly distinguishable from those holding national-conservative, fully socially conservative and/or outright populist views, let alone a right-wing populist posture. Being liberal often involves stressing free market economics and the belief in individual responsibility together with the defense of civil rights and support for a limited welfare state.[citation needed] Compared to other centre-right political traditions such as Christian democracy, liberal conservatives are less socially conservative and more economically liberal, favouring low taxes and minimal state intervention in the economy.[citation needed]
In the modern European discourse, liberal conservatism usually encompasses centre-right political outlooks that reject at least to some extent social conservatism. This position is also associated with support for moderate forms of social safety net and environmentalism (see also green conservatism and green liberalism). This variety of liberal conservatism has been espoused by Nordic conservatives (the Moderate Party in Sweden, the Conservative Party in Norway and the National Coalition Party in Finland) which have been fending off competition from right-wing populists to their right and do not include Christian democrats; and at times the British Conservative Party. In an interview shortly after taking office as Prime Minister in 2010, David Cameron introduced himself as a liberal conservative.[10] During his first speech to a party conference in 2006, Cameron had defined this as believing in individual freedom and human rights, but being skeptical of "grand schemes to remake the world".[11]
In the United States, conservatives often combine the economic individualism of classical liberals with a Burkean form of conservatism that emphasizes the natural inequalities between men, the irrationality of human behavior as the basis for the human drive for order and stability and the rejection of natural rights as the basis for government.[12] From a different perspective, American conservatism (a "hybrid of conservatism and classical liberalism") has exalted three tenets of Burkean conservatism, namely the diffidence toward the power of the state, the preference of liberty over equality and for patriotism while rejecting the three remaining tenets, namely loyalty to traditional institutions and hierarchies, skepticism regarding progress and elitism.[13][clarification needed] Consequently, the term liberal conservatism is not used in the United States. Modern American liberalism happens to be quite different from European liberalism and occupies the centre-left of the political spectrum, in contrast to many European countries where liberalism is often more associated with the centre and centre-right while social democracy makes up a substantial part of the centre-left. The opposite is true in Latin America, where economically liberal conservatism is often labelled under the rubric of neoliberalism both in popular culture and academic discourse.[14]
Although libertarian conservatism has similarities to liberal conservatism with both being influenced by classical liberal thought,[15] libertarian conservatism is far more anti-statist than liberal conservatism and is much more hostile to government intervention in both social and economic matters.[16] Combining conservative cultural principles but with less social intervention and a more laissez faire economic system. Neoconservatism is sometimes described as the same or similar to liberal conservatism in Europe.[17] However, Peter Lawler has regarded neoconservatism in the United States as conservative liberalism and distinguished it from liberal conservatism.
According to scholar Andrew Vincent, the maxim of liberal conservatism is "economics is prior to politics".[18] Others emphasize the openness of historical change and a suspicion of tyrannical majorities behind the hailing of individual liberties and traditional virtues by authors such as Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville[19] as the basis of current liberal conservatism which can be seen both in the works of Raymond Aron and Michael Oakeshott. However, there is general agreement that the original liberal conservatives were those who combined conservative social attitudes with an economically liberal outlook, adapting a previous aristocratic understanding of natural inequalities between men to the rule of meritocracy, without directly criticizing privileges of birth as long as individual liberties were guaranteed. Over time, the majority of conservatives in the Western world came to adopt free market economic ideas as the Industrial Revolution progressed and the monarchy, aristocracy and clergy lost their wealth and power, to the extent that such ideas are now generally considered as part of conservatism. Nonetheless, the term liberal is used in most countries to describe those with free-market economic views. This is the case in continental Europe,[20] Australia[21] and Latin America.[22]
Liberal-conservative parties or parties with liberal-conservative factions
^The AKP was described as a liberal-conservative and conservative-liberal, but there is controversy; a study by the V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden found that the AKP is illiberal.[87]
^Oleksii Stus; Dmytro Finberg; Leonid Sinchenko, eds. (2021). Ukrainian Dissidents: An Anthology of Texts. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 346. ISBN9783838215518. The tendency of neoconservatism (liberal conservatism) is most clearly represented by the literary ...
^Lakoff, Sandoff, "Tocqueville, Burke, and the Origins of Liberal Conservatism." The review of politics60(3), pp. 435–464, 1998. doi:10.1017/S003467050002742X
^Maipose, Gervase S. (2008). "Policy and Institutional Dynamics of Sustained Development in Botswana". Commission on Growth and Development (35): 20–21. hdl:10986/28032.
^Michel Ducharme; Jean-François Constant, eds. (2009). Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution. Springer Nature. p. 150. ISBN9780802098825.
^Arceneaux, Craig; Pion-Berlin, David (2005), Transforming Latin America: The International And Domestic Origins Of Change, University of Pittsburgh Press, p. 148
^ abPeter Humphreys; Michael Steed (3 November 1988). "Identifying Liberal Parties". In Emil J. Kirchner (ed.). Liberal Parties in Western Europe. Cambridge University Press. pp. 408–409. ISBN978-0-521-32394-9.
^Nordsieck, Wolfram (2019). "Denmark". Parties and Elections in Europe.
^Nordsieck, Wolfram (2017). "France". Parties and Elections in Europe. Archived from the original on 24 April 2020. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
^Martin Steven (2018). "Conservatism in Europe—The Political Thought of Christian Democracy". In Mark Garnett (ed.). Conservative Moments: Reading Conservative Texts. Textual Moments in the History of Political Thought. London: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 96. ISBN9781350001558. OCLC1006441779.
^Sylvia Kritzinger; Carolina Plescia; SKolja Raube; James Wilhelm; Jan Wouters, eds. (2020). Assessing the 2019 European Parliament Elections. Taylor & Francis. p. 263. ISBN9781000057263. As in 2014, seven minor parties with vote shares below 5 per cent gained seats in the European Parliament, ranging from single-issue parties like the Animal Protection Party (one seat) or the Family Party (one seat) to the satirical 'Die Partei' (two seats) or the liberal-Conservative 'Free Voters'.
^Amnon Rapoport (1990). Experimental Studies of Interactive Decisions. Kluwer Academic. p. 413. ISBN0792306856. Likud is a liberal-conservative party that gains much of its support from the lower and middle classes, and promotes free enterprise, nationalism, and expansionism.
^Nordsieck, Wolfram (2018). "Italy". Parties and Elections in Europe.
^"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.
^Abdo Baaklini; Guilain Denoeux; Springborg, Robert (1999), Legislative Politics in the Arab World: The Resurgence of Democratic Institutions, Lynne Riener, p. 129
^Vowles, Jack (1987). The New Zealand Journal of History. University of Auckland. p. 225. [T]he National Party is both conservative and liberal, its liberalism containing both elements of classical and new liberalism, the implications of the latter also overlapping with elements of conservatism. Within the National Party, it is the liberals rather than the conservatives who are most self-conscious and vocal, although the conservatives most frequently seem to prevail.
^ VMRO-DPMNE (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity) | https://vmro-dpmne.org.mk/
^Fernando Reinares (2014). "The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings". In Bruce Hoffman; Fernando Reinares (eds.). The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: From 9/11 to Osama bin Laden's Death. Columbia University Press. p. 32. ISBN978-0-231-53743-8.
^David Hanley (1999). "France: Living with Instability". In David Broughton (ed.). Changing Party Systems in Western Europe. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 66. ISBN978-1-85567-328-1. Retrieved 21 August 2012.
McAnulla, Stuart (2006). British Politics: A Critical Introduction. A&C Black. ISBN978-0-826-46155-1.
Turner, Rachel S. (2008). Neo-Liberal Ideology: History, Concepts and Policies: History, Concepts and Policies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN978-0-748-63235-0.
van de Haar, Edwin (2015). Degrees of Freedom: Liberal Political Philosophy and Ideology. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. ISBN978-1-412-85575-4.
Vincent, Andrew (2009). Modern Political Ideologies. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN978-1-4443-1105-1.