Origins:
- Enlightenment, French & American Revolution. All three went too far and was too radical and so it would be better to conserve rather than change.
Main beliefs:
- If conservatism is actually an ideology
- Government is paramount to conservative thought – it is traditional and provides order. Limited in size but preserve the one nation.
- Free market is central to a thriving economy that can provide wealth for all.
- Freedom and choice are important but the state is needed to provide order and stability for this freedom and choice to exist.
Traditional
Conservatives:
- Belief in hierarchy and paternalism where the government provides clear order and rules on how to act. This is upheld through social attitudes such as marriage that provide stability and certainty.
- Society is a series of little platoons that deal with political problems as they arise
- Belief in change to conserve
- Focus on empiricism – focus on what is rather than what can be.
New Right:
- Belief in small state which needs to be rolled back with limited public spending on welfare
- Free market is best for management of resources with lots of privatisation and cuts in tax to return to capitalism.
- Society divided between neo-conservatives who believe in anti-permissiveness (rejection of permissiveness which is a liberal belief that people should make their own moral choices. The state can provide order)
- Neo-liberals who believe that individual choices are more important to bring a stripped state