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National conservatism

Nationalist strand of conservatism

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Through National identity, Sovereignty and Protectionism

National conservatism opposes the basic precepts of enlightenment liberalism such as individualism and the universality of human rights, and in America and Europe, is majoritarian populist. National-conservative parties often have roots in rural environments, contrasting with the more urban support base of liberal-conservative parties.

In Europe, some notable national conservatives parties include the Brothers of Italy, Fidesz, the Swedish Democrats and Reform UK. National conservatives usually embrace some form of Euroscepticism. In post-communist central and eastern Europe specifically, most conservative parties since 1989 have followed a national conservative ideology.

Viktor Orbán in Hungary explicitly had his government fund national conservative institutions across Europe and the United States, such as the Danube Institute, the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, The European Conservative magazine, and the National Conservatism Conference.

In the United States, Trumpism can be considered a variety of national conservatism, which also gives its name to the National Conservatism Conference, organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation.

Ideology

National conservatism focuses on "threats to moral order and the loss of moral bearing due to liberalism's relativism". It rejects the basic precepts of enlightenment liberalism, such as individualism and the universality of human rights. In America and Europe, national conservatives are majoritarian populists and advocate for fewer limits on the power of elected representatives to "smash the liberal state".

National conservatism opposes modernity, secularism, liberalism, socialism, communism and anarchism, instead valuing Europe's Christian heritage and "defending" Western civilization.

National conservatism is similar to conservatism in Europe before World War I, epitomized by statesmen such as Otto von Bismarck and Franz Joseph I.

Criticism of liberalism

In The Virtue of Nationalism, Yoram Hazony criticises Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke for creating a "dream world" in which the "Jewish and Christian world" have "no place to exist". Patrick Deneen argues that the "current elite" should be replaced with "a better aristocracy brought about by a muscular populism" to advance the "common good", with the common good loosely defined as "integration" that includes the reunification of church and state.

National conservatism disagrees with liberalism and socialism over the interpretation of key historical developments, such as the Enlightenment, modernization, and emancipation, and key political events like those that occurred in 1789, 1968, and 1989. National conservatism is silent on classical conservative thought expressed by Michael Oakeshott and Edmund Burke.

Comparison with fascism

While national conservatism distances itself from fascism, some forms of what scholars like Roger Griffin term "para-fascism"—a type of authoritarian nationalism that seeks to preserve traditional structures rather than pursue a palingenetic ultranationalism—are seen as aligning more closely with the tenets of national conservatism than with pure fascism. In his 2022 book Conservatism: A Rediscovery, Hazony wrote that "in the political arena, conservatism refers to a standpoint that regards the recovery, restoration, elaboration, and repair of national and religious traditions as the key to maintaining a nation and strengthening it through time."

National conservatism distances itself from fascism, viewing it—along with liberalism and socialism—as aspects of modernity that "disconnect human designs from normative order", instead calling for the "restoration and order" of social, moral, and political structures.

In the 2010s and particularly the 2020s, national conservatism has become the ideology of many world leaders, including the United States under Donald Trump, Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, Russia under Vladimir Putin, and India under Narendra Modi.

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