Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T02:38:35.038Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Contradictions of Conservatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 April 2013

James Alexander
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article is a study of the contradictions of conservatism. It shows that most modern writers since Oakeshott have defined conservatism in an abstract manner. Here I argue that their definition, although not wrong, is an incomplete definition which is only coherent because it is incomplete. It is only the first stage in understanding conservatism, which has to be understood also as a negation of rival ideologies and, further, as a political position which points to a tradition or truth outside itself and which can, in service of this tradition or truth, be radical. Since it is part of the standard definition of conservatism that it cannot be radical, this means conservatism, taken as a whole, contradicts itself.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 2013 , pp. 594 - 615
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

James Alexander is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University. Contact email: [email protected].

References

Alexander, J. (2012), ‘Three Rival Views of Tradition (Arendt, Oakeshott, MacIntyre)’, Journal of the Philosophy of History, 6: 21–44.Google Scholar
Arendt, H. (1990), On Revolution (London: Penguin).Google Scholar
Arendt, H. (2006), ‘Truth and Politics’, in H. Arendt, Between Past and Future (London: Penguin): 253–259.Google Scholar
Auerbach, M.M. (1959), The Conservative Illusion (New York: Columbia University Press).Google Scholar
Buber, M. (1967), Kingship of God, trans. Richard Scheimann (New York: Harper and Row).Google Scholar
Burke, E. (1999), Reflections on the Revolution in France (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund) (first published 1790).Google Scholar
Cecil, H. (1912), Conservatism (London: Williams and Norgate).Google Scholar
Chesterton, G.K. (2001), ‘The New Jerusalem’, in G.K. Chesterton, The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton. Vol. 20 (San Francisco: St Ignatius Press) (essay first published 1920).Google Scholar
Clark, J.C.D. (1988), ‘On Moving the Middle Ground: The Significance of Jacobitism in Historical Studies’, in E. Cruikshanks and J. Black (eds), The Jacobite Challenge (Edinburgh: John Donald): 177–188.Google Scholar
Clark, J.C.D. (2000), English Society, 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics During the Ancien Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Collingwood, R.G. (1933), An Essay on Philosophical Method (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Cowling, M. (1978), ‘The Present Position’, in M. Cowling (ed.), Conservative Essays (London: Cassell): 1–24.Google Scholar
Cowling, M. (1980), Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England. Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Cowling, M. (2001), Religion and Public Doctrine in Modern England. Vol. 3: Accommodations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Dorey, P. (2010), British Conservatism: The Politics and Philosophy of Inequality (London: I.B. Tauris).Google Scholar
Eliot, T.S. (1963), Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley (London: Faber and Faber).Google Scholar
Foucault, M. (1980), ‘Two Lectures’, in C. Gordon (ed.), Power/Knowledge (New York: Pantheon): 78–108.Google Scholar
Freeden, M. (1996), Ideologies and Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press).Google Scholar
Gray, J.Willetts, D. (1997), Is Conservatism Dead? (London: Profile).Google Scholar
Green, E.H.H. (2002), Ideologies of Conservatism (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Harbour, W.R. (1982), The Foundations of Conservative Thought: An Anglo-American Perspective (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press).Google Scholar
Hayek, F.A. (1960), ‘Why I am Not a Conservative’, in F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul): 397–411.Google Scholar
Heywood, A. (2003), Political Ideologies: An Introduction, 3rd edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
Honderich, T. (1991), Conservatism (Harmondsworth: Penguin).Google Scholar
Huntington, S. (1957), ‘Conservatism as an Ideology’, American Political Science Review, 51: 454–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kedourie, E. (1984), ‘Conservatism and the Conservative Party’, in E. Kedourie, The Crossman Confessions and Other Essays (London: Mansell): 37–46 (essay first published 1970 in Solon, 1: 44–9).Google Scholar
Kirk, R. (1954), The Conservative Mind (London: Faber and Faber).Google Scholar
Kymlicka, W. (1990), Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Leavis, F.R. (1948), The Great Tradition (London: Chatto and Windus).Google Scholar
Lewis, C.S. (1967), Studies in Words, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
McTaggart, J.M.E. (1908), The Relation of Time and Eternity (Berkeley: Berkeley University Press).Google Scholar
Mannheim, K. (1986), Conservatism: A Contribution to the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. D. Kettler, V. Meja and N. Stehr (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).Google Scholar
Nisbet, R. (1986), Conservatism: Dream and Reality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).Google Scholar
Oakeshott, M. (1991), ‘On Being Conservative’, in M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Indianapolis: Liberty): 407–437 (essay first published 1956).Google Scholar
Oakeshott, M. (2008), ‘Review of Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind (1954)’, in L. O'Sullivan (ed.), The Vocabulary of a Modern European State (Exeter: Imprint Academic): 81–84.Google Scholar
O'Hara, K. (2011), Conservatism (London: Reaktion).Google Scholar
O'Sullivan, N. (1976), Conservatism (London: J.M. Dent).Google Scholar
Pieper, J. (1958), ‘The Concept of Tradition’, Review of Politics, 20: 465–491.Google Scholar
Quinton, A. (1978), The Politics of Imperfection (London: Faber and Faber).Google Scholar
Scruton, R. (1984), The Meaning of Conservatism, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan).Google Scholar
Seeley, J.R. (1896), Introduction to Political Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Shils, E. (1981), Tradition (New York: Faber and Faber).Google Scholar
Stewart, R. (1978), The Foundation of the Conservative Party, 1830–1867 (London: Longman).Google Scholar
Stove, D. (2003), ‘Why you Should be Conservative’, in A. Irvine (ed.), On Enlightenment (London: Transaction Publishers): 171–178 (essay first published 1988).Google Scholar
Thomas, G. (2000), Introduction to Political Philosophy (London: Duckworth).Google Scholar
Utley, T.E. (1989), A Tory Seer: The Selected Journalism of T.E. Utley, ed. C. Moore and S. Heffer (London: Hamish Hamilton).Google Scholar