Conservatism

Conservatism has been described as an ahistorical ideology, a relational, common sense “faith,” and a historical and political tradition, among others. This chapter outlines three popular and persuasive approaches to defining what conservatism is and has been. It argues that the most convincing accounts look to conservatism as an evolving tradition, rather than a rigid ideology. In this way, the chapter breaks with more familiar accounts in the history of political thought and political theory and suggests that a more critical, historicist approach to canonical “founding fathers” and how they have been used over time can in fact tell us a great deal about what conservatism—as a body of thought and the inspiration for practical policies and actors—is, as well as what political thinkers and actors in the present might be trying to achieve when founding heroes and histories are invoked.