Conservatism, as a distinct ideology, arose as a reaction to ideas of enlightenment, liberalism, the French Revolution, and, later, socialism and communism. Although internally diverse proponents of conservativism uphold ideas and values of economic and political inequality, authority, and tradition; they support social institutions of religion, family, army, law, state, and private property.

                           The First Wave of Conservatism

The earliest champions of conservatism were English philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797), and French philosophers Louis de Bonald (1754–1840) and Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821).

Burke, an English parliamentarian and political philosopher, wrote a very influential book Reflections on the Revolution in France in (1790). Although Burke supported the American Revolution, he was a staunch opponent of the French Revolution in 1789. He feared that mass democracy, universal human rights, repudiation of religion, radical rejection of historical tradition, and abstract theorizing would lead to unfettered despotism. He saw society as a product of long historical development - “a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are dead, and those who are to be born” (Burke 1790). He supported experience, tradition, and strict restraints on human behavior imposed by the state church to preserve social order. Burke believed that “the natural order of things” entitled wealthy individuals with the ability to govern, and supported the trustee model of democratic representation that would moderate mass democracy. He wasn’t completely against changes and regarded slow evolutionary reforms as necessary for preserving traditional institutions.

Count Joseph de Maistre was a French clerical monarchist. In Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions (1810), he rejected rationalism, liberty, human rights, and ideological attempts to install systemic change. Maistre praised traditionalism and the order in society. To preserve order society needs absolutism, mediated by religion. Louis de Bonald, also a French monarchist, in the Theory of Political and Religious Power (1796), argues against the individualist and utilitarianism of the Enlightenment. He exalted the tradition, as it was shaped by the structured and unitary historical process in which detrimental practices and attitudes were abandoned and beneficial ones adopted. That made historical tradition not only true but also rational.

                            Second Wave of Conservatism

After these three pioneers of conservatism, this ideology developed over the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Some of the most notable representatives of conservatism in this period are Thomas Carlyle, John Acton, and Benjamin Disraeli from Britain, Heinrich von Treitschke and Carl Schmitt from Germany, Gaetano Mosca and José Ortega y Gasset from Spain, and Maurice Barres and Charles Maurras from France. In Europe, conservative ideology peaked with the rise of Fascism in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, when this ideology came to power in a great number of European states.

Robert Michels, in the book Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy  (1915, in German 1911) presents the famous "iron law of oligarchy", the view that all political parties are controlled by a small number of people who are at their top. Michels believes that political parties have a dual nature and purpose. Parties are spontaneous associations that combine propaganda and agitation in order to gain political power. On the other hand, parties provide individuals with values and material basis to achieve their own goals, which can be ideological or purely personal - economic, status, or political well-being of the individual. All parties function very similarly, regardless of the manner and causes of the formation. Since serious politics requires great knowledge and skills, professional politicians emerge and take over every political party. On the other hand, the masses who do not have that knowledge and technical skills are not able to control the party leaders. In addition, ordinary party members, as well as sympathizers, have the mentality of the crowd and naturally follow their leaders. All these factors lead to the party striving for an oligarchic system, and that, according to Michels, is the iron law of history. However, the power of the oligarchy isn’t limitless, since, in democracies, the success of the party directly depends on the number of voters, so the party oligarchy must encourage and preserve the sympathies of the masses, which enables the masses to have a reciprocal influence on the oligarchic elite.

Gaetano Mosca rejected the idea of ​​social progress. He presented his theory of power and elite in the books Theory of Governments and Parliamentary Government (1884) and The Ruling Class (1896, 1923). Mosca believed that in every society there is an organized minority that rules over an unorganized majority. The mass (majority) can never be organized, because it lacks the will and instinct for it, while there are always individuals who, due to their personal qualities (intellectual or material), stand out from the mass. The ruling class, in any society, strives to legitimize its power by invoking an abstract principle that represents a "political formula", and the very nature of that principle is different in different societies and historical situations. In some societies the divine will is emphasized, and in some the ancient traditional power of the monarch. There are different cultural and material conditions in different societies, which lead to the existence of a different political organization of government and the ruling elite. One society can go through different cycles - periods in which circumstances are stable, so the elite and its source of power are petrified, as well as its stable attitude towards the masses, while there are also periods of sudden change. Sudden change can be caused by external or internal factors, but once it happens, the old elite is replaced or destroyed, and the new elite rises. According to Mosca, a good ruling class should be composed of brave, persistent, rational, educated, and sincere politicians who are committed to the common good and gradual reforms and are suspicious of the masses. In modern society, such a group is represented by the professional middle class, which, although it would be the best ruling class, has no power, because democracy has enabled the corrupt political elite to abuse democracy and win power. Mosca saw both democracy and socialism as enemies of the meritocratic rule of the middle class.

José Ortega y Gasset explored topics of history, politics, and relations between the masses and the elites in the books Invertebrate Spain (1921) and The Revolt of the Masses (1932, in Spanish 1930). At the core of his understanding of the relationship between history and politics is the belief that the division of society into elite and mass is present in every society, and that the dialectical relationship of these two groups has a key impact on political events and historical development. Ortega y Gasset defines members of the elite, not in the context of the political or economic power they have, but according to individual qualities. Members of the elite, that is, selected and excellent people, have a desire for "authenticity", a desire to achieve a higher ideal of living based on the moral principle. In every society, there is a prominent minority, which makes up the elite, and a majority of the society which makes up the mass. The elite has an innate predisposition to lead society, while the representatives of the masses have an innate predisposition to be led. In the period when the masses refused to be led by the elite, the state and society disintegrates. In Invertebrate Spain, Ortega y Gasset concluded that this was exactly what was happening in Spain at that time. The disintegration of society can also occur when the ruling classes degenerate, that is, they lose their vitality and turn into a mass. He believes that different human races have different proportions of selected and excellent people, so races that have relatively more "elite" people are superior to other races. Similar relations exist between different peoples of one race. He also believed that equalizing the quality of life and life chances between different classes, genders, and countries, leads to the rise of the masses. Political liberalism, in particular, leads to the politicization of the masses and the creation of a dangerous system of "hyperdemocracy" in which the masses are beginning to dominate politics. This kind of hyperdemocracy has led to the rise of systems that are even worse than liberalism - fascism, trade unionism and Bolshevism. In these systems, the barbarism of the masses and the incompetence of their leaders is most pronounced. The rise of the masses leads to an increase in violence in society, in various forms, from revolutions to direct actions of anarchists, because violence is the only doctrine that the masses have. As a reaction to that violence, the states are carrying out bureaucratization and militarization of life, which is best seen in the huge increase in police forces in all states.

Vilfredo Pareto had conservative and cynical views of society. He was skeptical about the possibility and usefulness of any real social progress. He believed that patriarchy was a natural and universal order among civilized nations, and that women were biologically destined to be fickle and promiscuous. Pareto divides every society into two separate strata - the elite that should lead the masses and the masses that should obediently follow the leadership of the elite. He believes that the elites that lead always existed, even when society seems completely democratic, or when mass revolutions take place. In both cases, the elites who manage social events are at the forefront of order, or at the forefront of change. However, relations between the elite and the masses are never static.

Lord John Acton had a pessimistic view of human nature, as he believed that all people desire to express power and domination over other people. To prevent this tendency, society has to place a limit on the authority any single person or institution can have. Besides the inherent tendency of people to have power, power itself corrupts those who wield it and brings the worst out of people – arrogance, vanity, masochism, egoism, etc. Acton's quote (by which he is most renowned) “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely” illustrates the best the corrupting side of power. He criticized the concentration of power in the hands of the central government, and that is why he was critical of the French Revolution, but praised the American Revolution as it was based on ideals of individual liberties and freedoms, and it created a government that had checks and balances.

                                Third Wave of Conservatism

The third wave of conservatism started after the Second World War and is represented by scientists and philosophers like: James Samuel Coleman, Seymour Martin Lipset, Robert Nisbet, Daniel Bell, William Buckley, Nathan Glazer, Friedrich Hayek, Irving Kristol, Friedman Milton, Charles Murray, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Michael Oakeshott, and Strauss Leo. In the US, before the Second World War, conservative ideology wasn’t unified and had representatives in both Democratic and Republican parties. After WWII several strands of American conservatism united. The first strand was the evangelical movement. The evangelical movement is a historical product of religious and political conservatism (fundamentalism) in the USA, which has set itself up as a clear counterweight to liberalism and secularism. In contrast, religious fundamentalists wanted America to become a "Christian nation," and to impose severe restrictions on individual freedoms. In the 1960s and 1970s, American conservative preachers, most notably Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell Sr., created a network of churches, theological universities, media, and political organizations to spread evangelical theology and conservative ideology. The second strand of US conservatism concerns itself with nationalism and militaristic imperialism. A third strand of postwar conservatism consisted of a strong anticommunist movement, that started after the First World War, and then came into prominence again after the end of WWII, with Senator Joseph McCarthy as the most powerful and most vocal representative. founding of the conservative journal National Review in 1955, by William F. Buckley, united those three strands of conservatism in the US.

Robert Nisbet, in the book Conservatism: Dream and Reality (1986), finds the roots of conservatism in reaction to the French Revolution, especially in Edmund Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Nisbet believes that conservatism is an alternative to the liberal utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham. According to Nisbet, utilitarianism is "mechanical" and "soulless" and is based on pure reason. He believes that people need a different way of thinking that is based more on emotions, experience, and pure logic. In addition, Nisbet defends the concept of prejudice, because prejudice gives people inner wisdom that precedes the intellect. Prejudice allows us to act in moments when it is necessary to make split-second decisions. Nisbet opposes any form of redistribution of wealth, including social benefits and affirmative action programs. An attempt to demolish the existing hierarchical structures in society would be an attack on cultural and psychological diversity in society. According to Nisbet, individualism, which is represented by modern social science, denies people the need to belong to the community and leaves them to fight alone against the central government of the state. In addition, Nisbet sees militarization, centralization, bureaucratization, and conformism as threats to political and personal freedoms.

In The Clash of Civilizations (1996), Samuel Huntington hypothesizes that states are increasingly cooperating based on a common culture, which will, in the future, lead to the creation of a world in which there will be separate and conflicting civilizations. He believes that seven or eight such separate civilizations will emerge: Chinese, Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, Western, Latin American, and (potentially) African civilizations. Each of them has all the elements needed to build a common culture: language, history, identity, customs, institutions, and religion. This clash of cultures, that is, civilizations, will become more important than ideological, political, and economic differences or similarities. In a similar vein, in the book Who Are We? (2004), Huntington argues that Latin Americans refuse to accept what forms the basis of American identity — Protestant religion and ethics, the English language, individual responsibility, and capitalism. Because Latin Americans have high birth rates, Huntington thinks that there is a significant possibility that in the future there would arise a large Latin population, that would like to divide America.

Friedrich Hayek was critical of economic central planning and advocated for a society grounded in spontaneous order and personal freedom. Hayek's advocacy for individualism and personal freedom was closely tied to his economic views. He believed that a free market economy not only promoted efficient resource allocation but also safeguarded individual liberties. His emphasis on individualism was not a call for unchecked selfishness but rather an acknowledgment of individuals' diverse knowledge and preferences. Hayek contended that personal freedom, within the bounds of the rule of law, allowed for creativity, innovation, and the flourishing of human potential. He warned against the allure of collectivist ideologies that sought to subsume individual rights for the sake of a perceived greater good.

Milton Friedman emphasized the importance of free markets, limited government intervention, and rigorous empirical analysis. Friedman’s ideas have left an indelible mark on policy, academia, and public discourse. Friedman's advocacy for economic freedom was another cornerstone of his philosophy. He contended that free markets were essential for fostering innovation, efficiency, and individual liberty. In his influential work Capitalism and Freedom (1962b), he argued against government interventions that he believed hindered market mechanisms. He believed that competitive markets, coupled with minimal government interference, could lead to optimal outcomes for society as a whole.

                             Critique of Conservatism

Karl Mannheim, in Conservatism (1984), argues that conservatism arose as a reaction to the Enlightenment's efforts to introduce rationalization into society. Conservatives, contrary to the ideals of the age of reason, sought to preserve the religious view of the world. Conservatives not only wanted to preserve customs and values ​​as they were before, as traditionalists aspired to, but they also actively sought to shape those old customs and values ​​to be more receptive to modern generations. As an example, he cites the attempt of romanticism in Germany to present feudal institutions in a new and positive light.

Alvin Gouldner gave a negative critique of functionalism and its approach toward social stratification. He believes that the functionalist approach toward stratification is based on the conservative view of society, which emphasizes order and stability and rejects the possibility of radical change in society. The functionalist approach refuses to accept that the social order, and the value consensus that sustains it, serve to preserve the dominant position of the ruling minority.

Eric Wolf studied peasant societies in the books Peasants (1966) and Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (1969). He believes that peasants are populations that function, politically and economically, between isolated tribes and industrial society. The peasants are, for the most part, economically self-sustaining, that is, they produce almost everything they need and make only a part of their agricultural or handicraft products for the market. However, the political and economic relations of the peasants with the wider society always have some form of domination and coercion. As a result, conservative attitudes and resistance have emerged. These resistances can take many forms, from resistance to taxation to the tendency to resist being pushed into the proletariat. 

Robert Wuthnow, in The Restructuring of American Religion (1988), states that there are two civil religions in the United States, and not one, as earlier sociologists believed. These two civil religions strictly follow the political divisions between the two main political parties in that country, so one civil religion is liberal (Democratic Party) and the other civil religion is conservative (Republican Party). This division of values ​​touches on many socio-political issues and intersects with almost every single denomination and church in the United States. Belonging to a liberal or conservative faction of a particular church or civil religion affects a person's lifestyle and spiritual and moral life more than belonging to any particular church.

Stuart Hall examined the rise of authoritarianism in British politics. At the heart of these studies is the way the state has treated immigrants of African or Caribbean descent. The increase in the share of this group of immigrants in the general population has led to a conservative reaction in public and politics. This reaction was reflected in the formation of racially based ghettos. Thatcherism was the culmination of a conservative and authoritarian reaction in British politics. As a leftist, Hall believed that the left should focus on thinking about the future and ways to overcome the conservative reaction.

Albert Hirschman, in The Rhetoric of Reaction (1992), argues that reactionary rhetoric has three distinct elements. The first element refers to the futility thesis, which states that attempts at political change are destined to fail because of the natural order of society. The jeopardy thesis is the second element, and it refers to the fear of change. The third element is the perversity thesis, which claims that change necessarily leads to unanticipated and unfavorable outcomes.

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