Conservatism 405
in political life. To understand its nature, we can
Conservatism
Conservatism is one of the basic currents of demo
cratic political life, which is founded on a (moder
ate) critique of liberalism. Conservatism generally
accepts the political institutions of liberal democ
racy, but it denounces the dangers that come from
the decline of traditions and from the modern eman
cipation of individuals. The study of the diverse
traditions of conservatism must start with the expla
nation of its complex nature as philosophy and as
political attitude; it requires a historical study of the
growth of conservatism from the Enlightenment to
the birth of modern democracy through the demo
cratic revolutions of Europe and America and, in
the end, a philosophical examination of its theoreti
cal foundations. This entry begins with a definition
of conservatism as both a philosophy and a political
ideology, briefly traces its historical origins and
development in British politics, and concludes with
a look at contemporary conservative thought.
Conservatism is both a political philosophy,
with its concepts, traditions and classical authors,
and a political ideology, which is one of the main
currents of political life in modern democratic
politics. As a philosophy, it is founded on a cri
tique of modern liberalism, which, as Philippe
Bnton has shown, is directed against what con
servatism regards as three great illusions that are
the consequences of individual liberalism. The first
of these illusions is epistemological and comes
from one of the main tendencies of modern phi
losophy, originating with Ren Descartes and the
age of Enlightenment: It consists in identifying
individual reason as the judge of truth. The second
one, more directly political, makes individual rea
son the only foundation of political legitimacy.
The third could be named sociological and leads
to the notion of society as a mere aggregate of
individuals, to the detriment of community and/or
of social hierarchy. To these illusions, conserva
tism objects that the individual is never really inde
pendent, that all his or her accomplishments have
some underlying communitarian or traditional
condition that escapes individual reason, and that
the neglect of such a debt is a danger for the com
munity and finally even for the individual.
Conservatism is not only a philosophy but also a
political attitude that interacts with other currents
start with the usual tripartition that makes conser
vatism one of the three basic political currents,
together with liberalism and socialism: Liberalism
is the center of gravity of modern democratic
politics but, as it cannot satisfy all the expecta
tions that arise in an open society, it engenders
permanent criticisms that can be socialist, if
they argue for a new reconstruction of society, or
conservative, if they try to maintain or restore
something of the world we have lost. In both
definitions, conservatism appears not only as an
expression of permanent dispositions of human
nature but also as a paradoxical product of
modernity, which is dependent on what it con
tests, namely, the faith in individual reason as the
foundation of authority, and the philosophical
and political order, and which can be defined by
three essential features:
1. Conservatism is a modern criticism of
modernity, which criticizes or even condemns
some principles of modernity but does not reject
all the consequences of liberal modernity.
2. Even if conservatism was strengthened by its
opposition to the French Revolution, its main
themes were born before it, within liberal
politics, as an internal criticism of classical
liberalism.
3. The most central idea of conservative thought is
that of the risk of self-destruction of liberal
traditions and institutions, which is supposed to
be the consequence of a violent rupture with the
past and/or with the natural basis of human
societies. The diverse varieties of conservatism
differ in their interpretations of this common
idea.
Thus, comprehension of conservatism requires a
historical examination of the growth of conserva
tive politics between the 17th and 19th centuries
and then a philosophical examination of the
diverse expressions of the conservative arguments.
The British Sources of Conservatism
The distinction between liberals and conservatives
emerged within English politics, with the opposi
tion between the Tory and Whig Parties, and it
406 Conservatism
took on a new significance with the French
Revolution.
Whig and Tory are two English words that refer
to the two great tendenciesrespectively, liberal
and conservativeof British politics before the rise
of the Labour Party. A Whig is not only a liberal
but also a conscious heir of the constitutional
English tradition, that of rule of law and parlia
mentary government; a Tory is devoted to a certain
type of social relations, in which the authority of
gentlemen goes with a protective function and
which is connected with High Church Anglicanism.
Before 1688, the appellation Tory designated
the supporters of James II (who the Whigs mis
trusted because of his alleged papism and his
commitment to a French-style absolutist monar
chy), but after the Glorious Revolution the signifi
cation of the opposition changed. Most Tories
abandoned the absolutist doctrine and partially
accepted the Whig interpretation of the English
regime as a limited monarchy, but they remained
faithful to the institution of prerogative, which
authorizes the king to make exceptions to the law
of parliament in some special cases, and, more gen
erally, they were devoted to everything that, in the
English regime, was favorable to traditional hierar
chies. The Tory Party was marginal during the
long period of Whig supremacy, which begins with
the accession of George I to the throne (1714), but
the opposition Whig and Tory became relevant
again at the end of 18th century. The Tory Party
found a new vigor with William Pitt the Younger,
who founded a new alliance between gentry and
the commercial elite, while the New Whigs became
more democratic thanks to the leadership of James
Fox. The French Revolution showed the signifi
cance of this evolution; it caused the rupture
between James Fox and Edmund Burke who,
although a Whig, denounced the French experience
as a radical subversion of a tradition that English
and even American Revolutions had respected.
Whiggism and, more generally, liberalism divided
into two tendencies, radical and conservative, open to political innovation, intended as a para
which never disappeared afterward.
Has English conservatism experienced a general
significance beyond this historical context? One
may think so, if one leans on the interpretation of
English politics that David Hume gave and on a
reflection on the philosophical implications
Edmund Burkes criticism of the French Revolution.
David Hume (17111776) was certainly a lib
eral with some conservative elements in his
doctrine, but he was neither a Whig nor a Tory,
because he interpreted the English constitution in a
sense that explains the permanent division of
English politics between successive pairs of parties
(first Tory/Whig, then Court/Country). According
to Hume, the English regime is both republican,
because liberty is expressed through the institution
of Parliament, and monarchic, because of the exec
utive power of the king. So the parties of Great
Britain are for him the expressions of the dual
nature of the constitution. In political philosophy,
this opposition gave birth to two conflicting doc
trines. The Whigs consider that all legitimate gov
ernment must be founded on explicit consent
(original contract); the Tories offer an extremist
interpretation of loyalism and argue for the idea of
passive obedience to legal authorities (especially
to the king). Hume refuses both principles: Original
contract cannot explain the real nature of political
obligation, and passive obedience is incompatible
with the real interest of society. Nevertheless, he
considers that these two conflicting principles have
some kind of truth in the English context, as expres
sions of the two elements of the constitution of
Great Britain, and he shows how some strong con
servative feeling can be a functional feature of a
free government. But, even if he is not himself a
Tory, Hume provides a political philosophy that
is conservative in another sense. Humes doctrine
of politics accepts the effects of revolution without
assuming its principles because he refuses the illu
sion of a rational, deliberate reconstruction of
political order; he argues for a sort of synthesis
between liberalism and conservatism, accord
ing to which the durable foundation of liberty
requires the stability of institutions and a historical
continuity that makes possible a translation of
political innovations into the language of tradition.
Beyond the Tory pastoral, another kind of conser
vatism is possible, philosophically skeptical and
doxical mean of conservation of social order (the
well-known sentence of novelist Giuseppe di
Lampedusas hero in The LeopardEverything
must change so that everything can stay the
samecould just as well be from Hume).
The French Revolution was seen as the critical
turning point in the history of liberalism, which

produced a division between two wings: the radical
or democratic and the conservative. The most
important author is Edmund Burke, who was the
first great critic of the French Revolution, as early
as 1790, with his major book Reflections on the
Revolution in France. Burke was himself a genuine
Whig, who had supported every great liberal cause,
from the fight against political corruption to reli
gious freedom, and who had even accepted
American Independence; so his opposition to the
French Revolution was especially significant as an
expression of the divisions of liberal opinion.
According to Burke, there is an essential differ
ence between the French Revolution of 1789 and
the Glorious Revolution of 1688 or even the
American Revolution. In one case, people make an
exception to the constitutional rule in order to save
a regime at risk (the Glorious Revolution of 1688)
or to resist tyranny (the American Revolution of
1776); in the other one, a rule is made of the excep
tion itself, by the affirmation that political liberty
and the capacity to change the rulers are human
rights. For that reason, the French theory of droits
de lhomme (human rights) represents an aggres
sion against the European political order and a
rupture of tradition. On this foundation, Burke
builds a coherent conservative doctrine, the influ
ence of which is very large. The basic idea is that of
the fragility of human nature, which implies that
freedom cannot be natural but emerges only as a
product of history and chance, much more than of
deliberate action (such is the meaning of the well-
known opposition between rights of man and
rights of English people). For this reason, the
first condition of liberty is historical continuity,
and it explains the ambivalence of the Enlightenment:
If, as in England, modernity respects tradition, its
effects can be beneficent, but when modern reason
revolts against the Christian and aristocratic sources
of liberty, it becomes destructive. Thus, the English
regime is an example of moderate liberty, in which
open aristocracy associates itself with new elites
thanks to a transaction between landed interest
and monied interest, whereas France is the the tures not reducible to the democratic spirit of
ater of a mortal conflict between noblesse and
bourgeoisie, which produces the insurrection of the
mob. This philosophy implies a sound criticism of
modern individualism, which constitutes the cen
tral argument of Burke in favor of prejudices and
tradition, which are more rational than individual
Conservatism 407
reason. Burke reasserts many liberal views, most of
which come from English and Scottish traditions,
but he reinterprets them in a new sense: The market
is a way not only of cooperation but also of subor
dination; the social contract is not equalitarian but
is founded on the alliance between God and His
creatures. So this theory, which, in Burkes works,
remains liberal and, in some way, faithful to mod
erate Enlightenment, is also one of the main sources
of illiberal doctrines, as those of the French Counter-
Revolution or German Political Romanticism.
If the legacy of classical conservatism (Tory,
Humean, or Burkean) is rich and even impos
ing in the English-speaking world, it is commonly
seen as less impressive in continental Europe and
especially in Germany and in France (even if politi
cians like Guizot and Bismarck or de Gaulle and
Adenauer can be considered as great conservative
statesmen). In this part of the world, as political
liberty comes principally from the French
Revolution, liberalism is not traditional, and the
criticism of liberal and/or radical politics is often
more reactionary than conservative.
Main Currents of Conservative Thought
To identify the main themes of conservative
thought, one can either use a historical investiga
tion (which presupposes some hypothesis about
the nature of conservatism) or try to give a general
analysis that follows from a view of the uses and
functions of conservatism in political life.
The first way can be exemplified by Russell
Kirks The Conservative Mind, which is itself a
classical work of conservative philosophy. Kirk
presented himself as the American champion of a
forgotten tradition, who tried to make Americans
conscious of the conservative elements of their own
culture. He goes back to the origins of American
tradition and tries to resuscitate the classical or
traditional dimension of the American regime,
which he interprets as a mixed constitution, includ
ing, thanks to John Adams, some aristocratic fea
Jefferson. Referring to diverse American and
English thinkers, Kirk proposes a kind of ideal type
of conservatism, which combines features such as
the belief in a transcendent order, affection for the
variety and mystery of human existence, accep
tance of social hierarchy, and devotion to custom
408 Conservatism
and tradition as conditions of legitimate innova
tions. Invoking sometimes tradition, sometimes
divine revelation or natural law, Kirk is a religious
(Christian) and traditionalist thinker whose phi
losophy conveys a kind of American Toryism.
One can find a good example of a structural
analysis of conservatism in Albert O. Hirschmans
The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility,
Jeopardy, which describes the general features of
conservative rhetoric when confronted by various
examples of liberal or radical arguments or action.
Conservatism (which could be called here a reac
tion) is supposed to underlie the typical argu
ments that can be opposed to any attempts to
transform or ameliorate the social order. One can
say the projected action is dangerous, because it
can produce unintended and bad or perverse
effects (the argument of perversity). One can
insist on the uselessness of reforms or revolutions,
which never can change the human condition or
the basic social relations (futility). One can,
finally, assert that attractive innovations are dan
gerous for social goods (jeopardy vs., for exam
ple, the criticism of the welfare state as a danger
for civil and political liberty).
Both theories present some interest as descrip
tions of the conservative spirit or attitude, but to
some observers, neither of them seems really suf
ficient. One possible weakness of Kirks account is
a lack of emphasis on certain themes that are
independent of religious faith: Many conserva
tive authors, notably in what Robert Nisbet calls
the sociological tradition, were in fact nonbe
lievers or even atheists, whose criticism of moder
nity is not founded on nostalgia for the age of
faith or on the idea of natural law. As for
Hirschman, his model can be applied to any argu
mentation against deliberate action: the so-called
reactionary rhetoric can be used by liberals or
progressives (if they want to prevent some reac
tionary decision) and, on the contrary, conserva
tives can abandon and even reject it when they try
to convince people to act with courage or to
accept some risks for the public good. There are
probably several sorts of conservatism, insofar as
the criticism of modernity can be made from dif
ferent points of view. Perhaps the definition of
conservatism must be essentially negative, starting
with what conservatives refuse rather than with
what they desire. If one accepts the hypothesis
with which this entry starts (conservatism is a
basically a modern criticism of modernity), one
can say that the main theme of conservatism lies
in the refusal of two liberal and progressive ideas:
that of the self-sufficiency of the individual and
that of a possible social solution to the permanent
problems of humanity. This refusal is evidently
central in the thinkers that Kirk admires, but it is
no less important in other traditions that are not
committed to the nostalgia for religious tradition.
In fact, besides lovers of transcendence, we find
among conservatives many sober (and sometimes
even cynical) critics of any sort of idealism. This is
notably the case, in the sociological tradition, of
the so-called Machiavellians, who contributed
notably to the growth and vitality of conservative
thought.
One of the most interesting contributions of
social science to conservative thought can be found
in Vilfredo Paretos Treatise on General Sociology,
which is at the same time very critical of humani
tarian values and almost skeptical toward tradi
tional ideas. The basic thesis of the Treatise is that
of the eternity of the division of society between
the elite and the people: It comes from
Machiavelli but without any of the democratic
connotations that one can find in the Florentine
philosopher. For Pareto, society is always divided
between the mass of individuals and the ruling,
honored (and generally propertied) minority,
whose definition is itself value neutral. The elites
are not necessarily virtuous or even beneficent:
They include all the persons or groups that are in
some way above the average. Concerning the rul-
ing elite, it is defined by some capacity for domina
tion, either by strength or by cunning (see
Machiavellis division of rulers into lions and
foxes). So this sociology is supposed to refute
the democratic and socialist idea of an egalitarian
society, and it implies some conservative or
reactionary argument in the sense of Hirschmans
theory: If division of society is eternal, social
change is an illusion, and revolutions are, at best,
futile. Besides, Pareto gives not only an argument
against some specific action but also a general
theory, which includes a pessimistic view of human
capacity to rationalize society. However, this the
ory is not conservative in Kirks sense of the
word; the social order has no transcendent basis or
value, and the first aim of the ruling class is not to

promote the social good but to make its domina
tion legitimate. So we can consider Paretos theory
as an example of a conservative theory that aban
dons the arguments favoring tradition and legiti
mates the ruling elites without accepting their
opinions or arguments.
From this point of view, the most important ele
ments of Paretos theory are probably, on the one
hand, the idea of the circulation of elites and, on
the other hand, the division of motives of actions
between residues and derivations. The theory of
circulation of elites derives from the elitemass
division: If that division is eternal, all that happens
can be only a replacement of an old, exhausted elite
by a new and vigorous one. But it implies also some
political teachings for the ruling class. If it wants to
keep its position, the elite must not submit to
humanitarian illusion of egalitarian relations with
the ruled, but it must also be open to some elements
from the ruled, both to attenuate the conflict with
other classes and to regenerate itself thanks to the
incorporation of talented people. So, even if it
includes some emphatic exaltation of the elite, the
Paretian ideal of a ruling class is close to the moder
ate English idea of open aristocracy. The distinc
tion between residues and derivations gives a socio
logical equivalent of a theory of human nature. For
Pareto, the main problem of sociology is to explain
what he calls nonlogical actionsthat is, actions
in which the means are not adapted to the ends,
even if the actor believes that they are. People give
many arguments for such actions, but, in fact,
experience shows that these justifications are less
important than the basic feeling, or instinct, that
underlies human actions. So one can distinguish
between two classes of motives, a and b. The first
classa, that of residuesincludes constant and
permanent motives of action; the second oneb,
that of derivationscomes from the work accom
plished by mind in order to explain a and is much
more variable because it comes from fancy
(Treatise, sec. 850851). Pareto enumerates six
classes of residues, among which the two first ones
have the greatest importance and pertinence for
political analysis. The first class is the instinct of
combinations, which underlies invention and
innovation and which is the basis of progress or
civilization. The second class is persistence of
aggregates, which explains the fondness for past
combinations and the mistrust of innovations. Each
Conservatism 409
of them corresponds to distinct types of human
beings and the predominance of one class of resi
dues in a society explains much of its culture and
of its political trends. Conservatism in the vul
gar sense evidently has a strong affinity with per
sistence of aggregates, but, for Pareto, the conser
vation of society (and of an elite) requires an
association between the two classes of residues.
On one side, we have ancient Athens, or modern
France, in which instinct of combination pre
dominates: These societies are brilliant but unsta
ble. On the other side, one finds Sparta, or 19th-
century Prussia, in which persistence of aggre
gates is very important: They can seem stronger,
but they lack the capacity of adaptation to change.
The middle between these extremes could be
ancient Rome or modern England, in which the
combination of the two classes is such that innova
tion does not jeopardize the conservation of soci
ety or of political combination. So, the general
theory of human motives (or of human nature)
confirms the teaching of the analysis of social
stratification: The best way for the elite is to accept
change and circulation without adoring them and
this dynamic conservatism is founded on a secu
lar vision without any faith in Natural Law or in
religion.
Pareto has many descendants in social science
who could be defined as realists and modern con
servatives. The most prominent of them is proba
bly Joseph Schumpeter, whose theory of capitalism
and of democracy is a touchstone of conservative
sociology. In his political theory, Schumpeter
shows that democracy is not really the government
of the people by the people and for the people but
is simply the free competition of elites for power,
with the people as arbiter. However, he admits
implicitly that people count, since he considers
that democracy can undermine capitalism and
even engender socialism. His vision of capital
ism includes a major topic of conservatism.
Capitalism is defined by its capacity for innova
tion, but this strength is at the same time its weak
ness: The danger is that capitalism could itself
destroy the cultural conditions of its development.
So conservatism includes a traditionalist criti
cism of modernization but is not reducible to that.
If it has its roots in disillusionment with the effects
of modern liberalism, it is possible to designate as
conservative some other premodern doctrines,
410 Conservative Parties
when they are founded on a similar skeptical reac
tion to social change. Inversely, one can consider
that conservatism is always difficult in modern
democracies, where innovation is generally more
appreciated than stability. One example of this dif
ficulty could be the so-called American neoconser
vatives, who advocated the use of radical means to
attain conservative ends.
Philippe Raynaud
Universit Panthon-Assas (Paris 2)
Paris, France
See also Liberalism; Modernization Theory; Socialism;
Traditional Rule
Further Readings
Bnton, P. (1988). Le conservatisme [Conservatism].
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Burke, E. (1999). Reflections on the revolution in France
(Oxford Worlds Classics). Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Hirschman, A. O. (1991). The rhetoric of reaction:
Perversity, futility, jeopardy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press.
Hume, D. (1987). Essays: Moral, political and literary.
Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Classics.
Irving, K. (1995). Neo-conservatism: The autobiography
of an idea: Selected essays 19491995. New York:
Free Press.
Kirk, R. (1953). The conservative mind: From Burke to
Eliot. Chicago: Henry Regnery.
Nisbet, R. A. (1966). The sociological tradition. New
York: Basic Books.
Nisbet, R. A. (1986). Conservatism: Dream and reality.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Pareto, V. (1953). The mind and society: A treatise on
general sociology. New York: Dover.
Raynaud, P. (1989). Preface. In Rflexions sur la rvolution
de France (French translation of E. Burkes Reflections
on the Revolution in France]. Paris: Hachette.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Capitalism, socialism and
democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers.
Conservative Parties
Parties are organizations that seek to mobilize
public support in order to compete for political
power. In principle, attempts at support mobiliza
tion can be, and not infrequently are, based on
appeals other than those rooted in political views
(e.g., the promise of patronage benefits). However,
where the publics to be mobilized are very large
(as in most liberal-democratic regimes), parties
cannot avoid having to compete by espousing
alternative sets of public policiesin their turn
linked to, and informed by, contrasting political
principles or ideologies. At their simplest, then,
conservative parties can be defined as organiza
tions bringing together people committed to the
quest for power in order to advance an agenda of
conservatismwhich may in turn be defined as a
set of political principles arising from and express
ing a commitment to the status quo or the status
quo ante. Yet on this definition alone, even parties
that most political scientists would not see as
belonging to the categoryfor example, the Soviet
Communist Party after 1917would qualify. So
there is also a historical criterion that must be
fulfilled, since the parties that have tended to
attract the label are ones that first emerged in
some parts of the world about 200 years ago to
counter the demands of liberalshere meaning
18th- and 19th-century Europeans committed to
four essential tenets: (1) a belief in the ontological
priority of individuals as against society and
(2) an unlimited potential for human improve
ment through the application of reason, therefore
(3) a normative commitment to individual free
dom and the view that (4) government is legiti
mate only insofar as it rests on the consent of the
governed. Conservatives especially opposed,
among the political positions stemming from these
tenets, those according to which there was neither
inherent value in tradition nor any role for hered
itary or religious criteria in political institutions or
decision making. This entry reviews conservative
political principles in more detail, looking at how
they have evolved over time. It also considers how
the parties espousing them have been organized,
who has supported them and how they have per
formed electorally, and the role they have played
in the party systems that they have been part of.
Political Principles
Conservative parties have, generally, been reluctant
to call themselves such, preferring more inclusive