National conservatism is a political term used primarily in Europe to describe a variant of conservatism which concentrates more on national interests than standard conservatism as well as upholding cultural and ethnic identity, while not being outspokenly nationalist or supporting a far-right approach. In Europe, national conservatives are usually eurosceptics.
National conservatism is related to social conservatism: national conservative parties are "socially traditional", i.e. they support traditional family and social stability. According to one Sieglinde Rosenberger, "national conservatism praises the family as a home and a centre of identity, solidarity and emotion." Many national conservatives are thus social conservatives, as well as in favour of limiting immigration and enacting law-and-order policies.
According to V.C. Mandal, "besides those common elements, national conservatives may hold different views in different countries, depending on local factors. This is particularly true in the case of economic issues, where the views of national conservatives can range anywhere between support for a planned economy to advocating a centrist mixed economy to upholding a laissez-faire economy." In the first, more common, case, national conservatives can be distinguished from economic/fiscal conservatives, for whom free market economic policies, deregulation and fiscal conservatism are the main priorities. Some commentators have indeed identified a growing gap between national and economic conservatism: "most parties of the Right are run by economic conservatives who, in varying degrees, have marginalized social, cultural, and national conservatives."
National conservatism is also related to traditionalist conservatism.
Read more about National Conservatism: National Conservative Parties
Famous quotes containing the words national and/or conservatism:
“I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The world is burdened with young fogies. Old men with ossified minds are easily dealt with. But men who look young, act young and everlastingly harp on the fact that they are young, but who nevertheless think and act with a degree of caution that would be excessive in their grandfathers, are the curse of the world. Their very conservatism is secondhand, and they don’t know what they are conserving.”
—Robertson Davies (b. 1913)