Understanding American Political Conservatism
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Understanding American Political
Conservatism
JOEL D. ABERBACH
Abstract
This essay examines contemporary American political conservatism from a variety of
angles. It asks first what scholars and activists mean by conservative. It then turns to
controversies about the meaning of the term to the general public and to the question
of whether the United States is a conservative nation and, if so, how this came about.
A central theme here is that the increasing link of conservative self-identification and
party identification grew out of reactions to events in the 1960s and early 1970s and
that increased partisan polarization along ideological grounds, particularly in the
South, has had a large impact on American politics at all levels (elite and general
public) of the polity. After a brief look at the Tea Party phenomenon and its implications, the essay closes with a discussion of the future of American conservatism, with
emphasis on the ability of conservative factions to coalesce, the evolving relationship
between conservative self-identification and issues attitudes, and the likelihood that
political polarization will endure.
INTRODUCTION
Conservatism is a vital force in contemporary American politics. From electoral campaigns to talk shows in the media to debates in the popular and academic literature, conservatism is a topic of discussion and controversy. This
essay examines American political conservatism from a variety of angles. It
asks first what conservatism is. What exactly do scholars and activists mean
by words like conservative? Is there general agreement on the meaning of the
term? If not, what are the meanings and what are the implications of varying
definitions. I then turn to a second set of related questions: What do people
in the general public mean when they call themselves conservatives? How
meaningful is public opinion on conservatism? Third, is the United States a
conservative nation? And, if so, what has caused this? Fourth, how different
are elites and the public? Is conservatism, whatever it may mean, just an
elite phenomenon, or is it important for the public also? Fifth, what is the
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
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meaning of contemporary movements like the Tea Party? Finally, where do
we go from here? What are some of the major questions for future research?
Due to space limitations, the essay focuses on conservatism in the general
public and among selected political elites. It only very briefly touches on the
role of conservative think tanks, media, and major donors, but clearly these
are also key areas for those seeking a comprehensive understanding of the
influence of conservatism in American political life.
WHAT IS CONSERVATISM?
There is, to put it plainly, no agreement about how to define conservatism.
Indeed, a part of the politics of conservatism—especially at the elite
level—focuses on what should or should not be categorized as conservative.
What I do here is look at some of the ways conservatism is conceptualized
by scholars and proponents, and at what those in the contemporary general
public apparently mean when they call themselves conservatives.
Few would disagree with Clinton Rossiter (1962, p. 16) that Edmund
Burke’s 1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France “is rightly considered the
first and greatest statement of consciously conservative principles.” Samuel
Huntington (1957), in a classic article, lays out a set of basic elements that
underlie Burkean conservatism. It is a practical approach to life and to
government, with a bias toward favoring institutions and practices that have
evolved over time, a strong respect for religion as a major foundation of
society, an organic view of society, and a general notion that experience is far
superior to theory as a guide to policy and appropriate behavior. Burkean
conservatism is not reactionary, in that it accepts that change may come, but
change should be based on cautious experience. As Chris Patten, writing
in this tradition, puts it: “Seeking to conserve the best of the past, trying
neither to preserve everything nor to prevent the arrival of tomorrow, is the
hallmark of a Conservative” (Patten, 1983, p. 17).
Many American politicians would be broadly classified as conservatives in
the Burkean tradition—think of Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, and Robert
Dole—but the conservative label has been appropriated by others as well
who often have more dogmatic views. The list would surely include libertarians, focused on individual liberty in both the economic and social spheres;
fiscal conservatives, who emphasize cutting taxes and shrinking the size and
reach of government; religious conservatives—sometimes called theocons or the
Religious Right—who see traditional religion and conventional morals as the
central elements of conservatism; social conservatives—often inseparable from
the religious right—who emphasize traditional values, religion, and family
life; neoconservatives (neocons), originally a group of ex-liberals with strong
anticommunist and militant foreign policy views who have morphed into a
Understanding American Political Conservatism
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more conventionally conservative group on economic issues while retaining
a predilection toward assertive diplomacy and the use of force in foreign relations; and compassionate conservatives, with their emphasis on private sector
volunteerism to aid the unfortunate (abetted by government organizations
and incentives as well as by limited expansions of the welfare state such as the
Part D drug benefit passed under the George W. Bush administration). The
list could be longer and the ideas often overlap, but the point is that there are
numerous factions in American conservatism. They were brought together,
particularly through an appeal to their anti-Communism, by a concept called
fusionism. Fusionism is identified with Frank Meyer, of the conservative magazine National Review (Nash, 2007, p. 6), and played a role in the election of
President Ronald Reagan in 1980, but there is constant tension among conservatives at the elite level over principle and practice. In short, the type of
cautious, undogmatic, and highly practical types who the Burkes and Pattens
of the world might think of as genuine conservatives have been joined by an
often raucous group of highly committed people who identify as conservatives but differ from Burkeans in their stronger commitment to doctrine and
their willingness, indeed often eagerness, to make radical changes in government and society.
WHAT DO PEOPLE IN THE GENERAL PUBLIC MEAN WHEN THEY
CALL THEMSELVES CONSERVATIVES?
While American political elites may use terms such as neoconservative or
religious right in a meaningful way, that would be a lot to expect of most
citizens (Converse, 1964). A useful future study might test this by checking
how able citizens are to make such distinctions, but for the moment it is useful to look at the correlates of conservative self-identification as measured
by people’s placement on a seven-point scale used in the American National
Election Studies (ANES) that run from “extremely liberal” at one end to “extremely conservative” at the other. Such a relatively simple exercise is particularly interesting in light of an excellent recent study that examines American
ideology using data from the General Social Survey, which employs a measure of liberalism/conservatism similar to the one on the ANES surveys (Ellis
& Stimson, 2012). The results of the study indicate that “the United States
is a nation of both the left and the right,” with Americans having a strong
affection for the “symbols of conservatism” and a particular affinity for the
word “conservative,” but when it comes to “concrete views” on public policy, there is, on average, an “affinity for solutions of the left” (Ellis & Stimson,
2012, p. 11). As the authors note, that is not a new finding (e.g., Free & Cantril,
1967; Jacobs & Shapiro, 1999), but it does call into question the meaning of
findings about the predilection toward conservatism of the American public
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(e.g., Aberbach, 2011, p. 45). The authors put special emphasis on cultural
conservatives, postulating that “millions of Americans who know that they
are religious conservatives or that they approve of a ‘conservative’ approach
to child rearing and family life are simultaneously confused by what ‘conservative’ means in politics” (Ellis & Stimson, 2012, p. 133).
Ellis and Stimson’s provocative statement brings to the fore a set of questions and avenues of exploration for students of American conservatism.
First, thinking back to Burkean notions of conservatism, religion is central
to a conservative orientation, at least historically. Traditional conservatives
may not be observant, but they see religion as a foundation of society. In that
sense, among others, religion is important politically and one would logically expect a disproportionate number of religious people to think of themselves as conservatives. Second, traditional conservatives would not necessarily reject many of the policies of the welfare state, especially those well
established over the years. British Tories of the pre-Thatcher period regularly
embraced such policies (e.g., Patten, 1983) as did many conservative political leaders in the United States. Third, it is worthwhile to examine how much
the professed conservatism of religious Americans influences their political
behavior. If it does, and in the direction one might expect—say identifying
with the more conservative of the two parties, or voting for the more conservative of the candidates running—then one might want to reconsider, and
perhaps modify, the notion that religious conservatives are somehow politically confused.
I did a preliminary examination of the importance of conservatism in determining the vote. Perhaps, as argued by Ellis and Stimson, it is the case that
many people who say they are conservative simply give this answer because
they think it means that they are religious. In short, once one knows that they
are religious, there should be little impact of their professed level of conservatism on their political choice because they would have conflated the terms
and what is left would be a lot of random noise and measurement error when
it comes to the relationship between a measure of conservatism and political
choice; religiosity alone should account for the person’s choice. Testing this
using data from the 2008 and 2012 ANES is revealing. Religious respondents
were, as predicted, much more likely than nonreligious respondents to identify as conservatives and also to vote for the more conservative of the two
candidates for president of the United States (McCain in 2008 and Romney in
2012). And, not surprisingly, conservative identifiers were much more likely
to vote for McCain or Romney in the 2 years. However, there was also a strong
relationship between degree of conservatism and the vote within categories
of the religiosity measures I used. This suggests that the term conservative
is not merely a synonym for religious people, although religious people do
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definitely tend to be more conservative. Notions of conservatism and liberalism are strong enough that they drive vote choice in a meaningful way, even
showing a consistent and high impact when there is a conflict between the
normal choices of those who are religious and their position on the conservatism scale. And, it follows that the indicator of conservatism that ANES
and others use to measure the degree of conservatism is politically meaningful to survey respondents who provide much of the basic data we have on
conservatism in the general public.
What other variables correlate with indicators of conservatism in the general public? This question has been investigated in many forms over the
years. As noted previously (Free & Cantril, 1967; Jacobs & Shapiro, 1999),
one major finding has been that Americans tend to be “philosophical conservatives” but “operational liberals.” However, other studies indicate greater
penetration of more coherent ideological thinking, especially in recent years.
For example, Abramowitz and Saunders (2008, p. 547), using ANES surveys,
show a marked increase in the relationship between partisanship and a variety of political issues over the period from 1972 to 2004. Carmines and Stanley (1992), writing in an earlier period, focused on what they termed ideological polarization, and found that ideological divergence (as measured by
the liberalism–conservatism question) of partisans changed markedly over
the years they examined (1972–1988). They conclude (p. 236): “the evidence
suggests that the white electorate has undergone a major ideological transformation during recent decades. It is not that the proportion of conservatives has increased sharply; the increase has actually been quite modest. But
what has changed is the connection between ideology and partisanship. Once
loosely connected, ideology and partisanship are now much more tightly
bound together, and this close connection has rebounded to the benefit of
Republicans.”
I shall return to the political advantages of the increasing link between ideology and partisanship in the following section, but will close here with a
brief consideration of the types of ideologues, particularly conservative ideologues, that are found in the general public and more generally with what
tends to correlate with self-identified conservatism.
One would think that developing a typology to identify the percentages
of the public falling into various ideological configurations in the general
public would be a relatively easy task, and in some ways it is, but lurking
behind these typologies are important judgments. Ellis and Stimson (2012,
p. 96), for example, find that only about 15% of the public are “consistent
conservatives.” This is based on their notion that consistent conservatives
would want to cut expenditures on a majority of government programs, and
compares to close to 30% who are rated consistently liberal. Another 30 or so
percent are categorized as “operationally liberal, symbolically conservative.”
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As I argued previously, however, this sort of typology rests on a particular
definition of conservatism that would not necessarily be shared by others,
thus one must be careful to examine how such conclusions are reached, as
whether one agrees with the operational definition of what make someone a
particular type of liberal or conservative is central to interpreting the finding. Or, to take another example, Michael Tanner, a Cato Institute Senior
Fellow—Cato is a libertarian think tank in Washington—cites survey data
suggesting that a majority of American voters lean in a libertarian direction,
describing themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” (Tanner,
2011, p. 270, based on Boaz & Kirby, 2007). This contrasts to the relatively low
percentage of voters usually classified as libertarian (about 15%), as Boaz and
Kirby indicate through their own estimates at other places in the same paper.
The point is not what the actual percentage is, but that the conceptualization
as well as the survey items used can have a significant impact on estimates
of the level and meaning of American conservatism, something particularly
important to keep in mind in studying a contentious subject such as political
ideology.
One thing that is clear is that the general item on conservatism in the ANES
studies is strongly correlated with a set of other variables and that the many
of the relationships have grown stronger over the years. Demographically,
people who self-identify as conservatives are more likely to be married
or widowed (as opposed to never married or divorced), men (although
the relationship is not strong), southern (again the regional differences
are relatively modest), and on the older side. Socially, they are religious,
antichoice, have a lower tolerance than nonconservatives of people with
different moral standards, oppose such policies as affirmative action in
the hiring and promotion of blacks, and tend to oppose gay marriage.
As the philosophically conservative but operationally liberal portrayal of
Americans implies, professed conservatives are much more likely than
liberals to think that the government is too big, spends too much on services,
and opposes government guarantees of citizens’ jobs or standard of living.
However, while they favor less government spending in principle and
oppose proposed social service or benefit, they have, traditionally, been
about as likely as liberals to favor government programs such as Social
Security and spending in areas such as science and technology and the
environment. As I said earlier, the latter positions are easily reconciled
with what many have meant by conservatism in the past, but they do
not fit well with the more doctrinaire fiscally conservative position of
many contemporary conservative activists and politicians. For good or ill,
however, the most recent data indicate a growing link between conservative
self-identification in the general public and greater fiscal conservatism or,
at least, unwillingness to spend more public funds even on popular public
Understanding American Political Conservatism
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programs. They also show, as noted earlier, a marked increase over time
in the linkage of conservative self-identification and religiosity as well
as a large increase in the relationship between attitudes on such issues
as abortion and conservatism. The point is twofold: Conservatism at the
mass public level is dynamic rather than static and, relatedly, recent trends
indicate that the attitudinal configuration of conservatives is becoming more
structured over time.
IS THE UNITED STATES A CONSERVATIVE NATION?
All that have been said so far lead to two obvious questions: First, is the
United States a conservative nation? And, second, if it is, what has caused
this?
Assuming that one accepts the ANES measure of an individual’s conservatism and those like it as legitimate indicators of public sentiment,
the answer to the first question is, at minimum, a qualified “yes.” The yes
and the qualification are based on the fact that since the question was first
asked in 1972, a plurality of respondents has consistently chosen one of the
options on the conservative end of the scale (over 40%), with the middle
of the road option second, and the liberal options third. Conservative, in
other words, is the modal public position, but not the majority position.
However, in keeping with the earlier discussion, one should always question
the indicator. Here also, there are reasons to accept the finding. First, the
indicator has face validity. Second, in surveys where the question is asked
of the same respondents several months apart, the correlation between
answers is very high (above 0.80), so the indicator is clearly reliable. Third,
conservatism is related to a whole set of other indicators—see the summary
aforementioned—that fit a general pattern. Fourth, as indicated by the
discussion earlier in this essay on the strong relationship of the conservative
self-identification measure to vote even with religiosity controlled, the
notion that political conservatism is chosen by religious respondents who
do not know what conservative may mean in politics is, at minimum, open
to question. And, finally, the fact that the ties between the conservatism
scale and other variables have either remained steady or increased in
predictable ways over time suggests that those in the general public who
answer the question are not typically confused or stabbing in the dark when
they position themselves. For these reasons, among others, I am confident
that the indicator is basically capturing what we are after and that the
consistent results lead to the conclusion that the nation tilts right of center
in it basic philosophy, fully understanding that there are inconsistencies
in many people’s views and that the complex and variegated meanings of
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conservatism guarantee that even the most sophisticated will not necessarily
agree on what it means to be a conservative.
But was it always so? What has made the conservative label so important
politically? These are obviously complex questions, but a few relatively
simple points are suggestive. First, while we do not have as reliable a set
of indicators pre-1972, we know that in the period before the mid-1960s,
respondents, particularly white respondents, were much more evenly split
between conservatism and liberalism when categorizing themselves than
in the period afterward. In other words, there are clear suggestions of a
reaction in much of the public to the various events of the 1960s and early
1970s that pushed the modal response by individuals in a conservative
direction. Second, and in some ways more important, there has been a
marked change in the link between conservative self-identification and
party identification in the period covered by the ANES ideology measure.
This is the case nationwide, but especially in the South. If one looks at
the average rank-order correlation (Gamma) between the two measures,
they have gone from an average just below 0.30 in the South in the period
1972–1992, to just below 0.50 from 1994 to 2002, to over 0.60 since 2004.1
The pattern of increase holds in the rest of the country, but the relationship
between conservatism and party identification was higher outside the South
in the initial period. In brief, the level of conservatism in the country may
have been steady (and high) since 1972, but the political significance of that
conservatism has changed; especially in the South, many of those who once
called themselves conservatives, but supported and voted for Democrats,
are now supporting and voting for Republicans.
The triumph of the Republican Party as a conservative force in the South
has had a profound impact on American politics. Where once southern
Democrats were a pivotal force in the bargaining that produced lawmaking
(e.g., Katznelson & Mulroy, 2012), both influencing policy content and
providing pivotal votes for the passage of bills, that group has diminished in
size (although become more liberal) and has been replaced by a large group
of legislators who now often hold key positions in the Republican Party.
The three-party system of Republicans, southern Democrats, and northern
Democrats has been replaced by a fiercely partisan two-party system—a
polarized system—that has changed the tenor and, often, the outcome of
political debates in the United States. In short, the political significance of
conservative identification in the United States has changed in ways that
make the fact of conservative self-identification by so many a force with an
increased impact on national political life.
1. African-American respondents were not included in these calculations because African-Americans
almost are uniformly identified as Democrats.
Understanding American Political Conservatism
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HOW DIFFERENT ARE POLITICAL ELITES AND THE PUBLIC?
There is a fierce debate in political science about the contemporary level
of political polarization in the United States. One side, identified with the
work of Morris Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope (2005), holds that polarization
among the public is vastly overstated. Polarization, in this view, is an elite
phenomenon that has distorted American political life and given the United
States a severely divided politics that is not reflective of the moderate
opinion typical in the American public. The other side, reflected in the
work of such scholars as Abramowitz (2006), Campbell (2006), and Jacobson
(2006), argues that there is widespread division at most levels in the country.
In part, as I argue in a chapter on “The Future of the American Right” (Aberbach, 2011, p. 62) recapped here, this is a debate about degree, but Fiorina
et al. (2005) go so far as to say that while elites may now be polarized, “public opinion data … provide little reason to believe that elites are following
voters. Rather they are imposing their own agendas on the electorate” (Fiorina et al., 2005, p. 88). Alan Abramowitz (2006), a mainstay of the other side,
finds increased polarization over time. And, in what is probably the best synthesis, Marc J. Hetherington (2008, p. 29) writes that “elite polarization has
stimulated participation at the mass level even though the masses remain
relatively moderate.”
The bottom line, to the degree one can have one in an ongoing argument,
is that both elites and the public are increasingly divided on ideological
grounds in their political behavior and that, as one might expect, political
elites are more strongly and consistently divided than the general public.
With regard to the general public, whether one calls it “sorting,” as Fiorina
and his colleagues do, or “polarization,” as many others do, there has
definitely been movement toward a more ideologically driven politics at all
levels.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF CONTEMPORARY MOVEMENTS
LIKE THE TEA PARTY?
The Tea Party emerged on the scene in 2009, ostensibly with a rant on the floor
of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli who
called for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest government plans to “subsidize
the losers’ mortgages” (Skocpol & Williamson, 2012, p. 7). The reaction across
the country was huge, clearly stimulated in part by conservative media and
later aided by infusions of funds from major donors (Skocpol & Williamson,
2012, pp. 9–10; Zernike, 2010, p. 43), and resulted in the formation of a
loosely structured movement whose three main principles, according to a
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sympathetic analyst, are to promote “limited government,” “unapologetic
US sovereignty,” and “constitutional originalism” (Foley, 2012, p. 19).
Skocpol and Williamson (2012, p. 147) describe the Tea Party as consisting of “conservative Republican voters.” They summarize a 2010 CBS/New
York Times poll indicating that “the 18 percent of Americans who identify
themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45 (p. 23)” and say that Tea Party supporters also tend
to be “comfortably middle-class” people who are more likely to be evangelical Protestants than mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, or nonbelievers (p.
23). They are “skeptical, even scornful of ‘establishment’ Republicans” and
are particularly marked by “opposition to public expenditures on education
and the environment” (pp. 27, 28), while favoring Social Security and Medicare benefits for people like themselves who they deem worthy because they
have earned them (pp. 60–61).
At one level, one can see Tea Partiers as an extreme type of contemporary
American conservative, but there is more to Tea Partiers than that. They are
extraordinarily active in primaries, assisting in the tilt of Republican candidates in their direction, and a recent study that is likely to be highly controversial argued “that people are driven to support the Tea Party from the anxiety
they feel as they perceive the America they know, the country they love, slipping away, threatened by the rapidly changing face of what they believe is the
‘real’ America: a heterosexual, Christian, middle-class, (mostly) male, white
country” (Parker & Barreto, 2013, p. 3). Indeed, Parker and Barreto (p. 244)
argue, “support for the Tea Party is a proxy for reactionary conservatism.”
How reliable the most negative conclusions from this study, as well as the
data on which they are based, prove to be cannot be determined now, but
they suggest, or so the authors argue, an extreme paranoia and status anxiety of the type the historian Richard Hofstadter (1967) analyzed in his classic
book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Current indications are that the
Tea Party has great influence in Republican politics, but that the extremism
of the candidates its supporters help nominate tends to repel more moderate
conservative voters and that, on balance, the Tea Party phenomenon probably hurts the Republican Party more than it helps.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? WHAT ARE SOME MAJOR
QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH?
The debate on the true nature of conservatism is most likely unresolvable.
That said, scholars of conservatism should do more work on the dynamics of conservatism, especially changing definitions of what is considered
mainstream at any point in time. How and why alliances and fallings out
between different types of conservatives occur is also an important subject for
Understanding American Political Conservatism
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further investigation. For example, the “fusionism” that aided the diminution (although certainly not the end) of internal feuding among conservative
factions in the Reagan era is usually ascribed to their common and intense
anti-Communism. What other factors and settings might contribute to relative unity or diversity among different types of conservatives?
Tracking the prevalence of the public’s identification with conservatism is
an obvious task for the future, just as important is tracking changes in the
correlates of conservatism. If, for example, the relationship tightens between
conservatism and attitudes toward spending on popular programs such as
Social Security, that is likely to have a strong influence on policy outcomes
in the United States. We should also continue to look at the relationship of
conservative sympathies to demographic factors. Right now, for example,
while there are certainly African-Americans who identify as conservatives,
their allegiance to the Democratic Party is such that, unlike members of
most other major population groups, they vote for Democratic candidates
regardless. The odds of that changing soon are low, but there is a more likely
chance, especially if Republicans block immigration reform to satisfy vocal
parts of the party’s conservative base, that Latino Americans, who already
vote strongly Democratic, could join their ranks.
As noted in this essay, the extent and nature of political polarization,
especially along conservative-liberal lines, is an important subject for future
research. This is as true at the mass public level as it is at the elite level
because signs of increasing polarization at the public level signal a likely
further hardening of the lines at the elite level and greater gridlock in the
policy process. That and increased efforts to understand the emergence
and political influence of movements like the Tea Party are central to
understanding the future shape and character of political conflict in the
United States.
Finally, in important areas not covered in this essay, research on conservative think tanks, on conservative media, and on the organization and influence of large donors to conservative causes will be central to understanding
both future directions of conservative thought and action and the level of
influence that wealthy conservatives exert on American politics.
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Rossiter, C. (1962). Conservatism in America. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knoph.
Understanding American Political Conservatism
13
Skocpol, T., & Williamson, V. (2012). The tea party and the remaking of republican conservatism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Tanner, M. (2011). Shaping a new conservative agenda. In J. D. Aberbach & G. Peele
(Eds.), Crisis of conservatism? (pp. 259–278). New York. NY: Oxford University
Press.
Zernike, K. (2010). Boiling mad. New York, NY: Times Books.
FURTHER READING
Abramowitz, A. I. (2010). The disappearing center. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Allitt, P. (2009). The conservatives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Critchlow, D. T. (2007). The conservative ascendancy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Horwitz, R. B. (2013). America’s right. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
Micklethwait, J., & Woolidge, A. (2005). The right nation. New York, NY: Penguin
Books.
Nash, G. (2006). The conservative intellectual movement in America since 1945. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books.
Tanenhaus, S. (2009). The death of conservatism. New York, NY: Random House.
JOEL D. ABERBACH SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Joel D. Aberbach is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Public
Policy and a Director of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy at
the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is the author or coauthor of Keeping a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight (Brookings, 1990), In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive
(Brookings, 2000), Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Harvard,
1981), and Race in the City (Little, Brown, 1973). He served as Co-Chair of the
Commission on the Executive Branch convened by the Annenberg Foundation Trust’s Institutions of American Democracy Project. A volume from this
project, Institutions of American Democracy: The Executive Branch (Oxford University Press, 2005), edited by Aberbach and Mark A. Peterson, won the 2006
Neustadt Award for the best reference work on the American presidency. In
2005, he was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He has also been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in
the Behavioral Sciences, the University of Bologna’s Institute of Advanced
Studies, and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
In 2006–2007, he was the John G. Winant Professor of American Government
at Oxford University and a Fellow of Balliol College, and in spring 2011,
14
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
he was a Politics Visitor at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 2013, he became a
Distinguished Fellow of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute. His latest
book, edited with Gillian Peele, is Crisis of Conservatism?: The Republican Party,
the Conservative Movement and American Politics after Bush (Oxford University
Press, 2011) and his latest article, with Tom Christensen, is “Why Reforms
So Often Disappoint,” American Review of Public Administration (2014). His
current project is a book on contemporary American conservatism.
RELATED ESSAYS
Heuristic Decision Making (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and
Nicholas J. D’Amico
Political Ideologies (Political Science), Edward G. Carmines and Nicholas J.
D’Amico
Neoliberalism (Sociology), Miguel Angel Centeno and Joseph N. Cohen
Distributive Politics: Federal Outlays (Political Science), Sanford C. Gordon
and Woo Chang Kang
Political Inequality (Sociology), Jeff Manza
Participatory Governance (Political Science), Stephanie L. McNulty and Brian
Wampler
Money in Politics (Political Science), Jeffrey Milyo
Does the 1 Person 1 Vote Principle Apply? (Political Science), Ian R. Turner
et al.
Constitutionalism (Political Science), Keith E. Whittington
-
Understanding American Political
Conservatism
JOEL D. ABERBACH
Abstract
This essay examines contemporary American political conservatism from a variety of
angles. It asks first what scholars and activists mean by conservative. It then turns to
controversies about the meaning of the term to the general public and to the question
of whether the United States is a conservative nation and, if so, how this came about.
A central theme here is that the increasing link of conservative self-identification and
party identification grew out of reactions to events in the 1960s and early 1970s and
that increased partisan polarization along ideological grounds, particularly in the
South, has had a large impact on American politics at all levels (elite and general
public) of the polity. After a brief look at the Tea Party phenomenon and its implications, the essay closes with a discussion of the future of American conservatism, with
emphasis on the ability of conservative factions to coalesce, the evolving relationship
between conservative self-identification and issues attitudes, and the likelihood that
political polarization will endure.
INTRODUCTION
Conservatism is a vital force in contemporary American politics. From electoral campaigns to talk shows in the media to debates in the popular and academic literature, conservatism is a topic of discussion and controversy. This
essay examines American political conservatism from a variety of angles. It
asks first what conservatism is. What exactly do scholars and activists mean
by words like conservative? Is there general agreement on the meaning of the
term? If not, what are the meanings and what are the implications of varying
definitions. I then turn to a second set of related questions: What do people
in the general public mean when they call themselves conservatives? How
meaningful is public opinion on conservatism? Third, is the United States a
conservative nation? And, if so, what has caused this? Fourth, how different
are elites and the public? Is conservatism, whatever it may mean, just an
elite phenomenon, or is it important for the public also? Fifth, what is the
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.
1
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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
meaning of contemporary movements like the Tea Party? Finally, where do
we go from here? What are some of the major questions for future research?
Due to space limitations, the essay focuses on conservatism in the general
public and among selected political elites. It only very briefly touches on the
role of conservative think tanks, media, and major donors, but clearly these
are also key areas for those seeking a comprehensive understanding of the
influence of conservatism in American political life.
WHAT IS CONSERVATISM?
There is, to put it plainly, no agreement about how to define conservatism.
Indeed, a part of the politics of conservatism—especially at the elite
level—focuses on what should or should not be categorized as conservative.
What I do here is look at some of the ways conservatism is conceptualized
by scholars and proponents, and at what those in the contemporary general
public apparently mean when they call themselves conservatives.
Few would disagree with Clinton Rossiter (1962, p. 16) that Edmund
Burke’s 1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France “is rightly considered the
first and greatest statement of consciously conservative principles.” Samuel
Huntington (1957), in a classic article, lays out a set of basic elements that
underlie Burkean conservatism. It is a practical approach to life and to
government, with a bias toward favoring institutions and practices that have
evolved over time, a strong respect for religion as a major foundation of
society, an organic view of society, and a general notion that experience is far
superior to theory as a guide to policy and appropriate behavior. Burkean
conservatism is not reactionary, in that it accepts that change may come, but
change should be based on cautious experience. As Chris Patten, writing
in this tradition, puts it: “Seeking to conserve the best of the past, trying
neither to preserve everything nor to prevent the arrival of tomorrow, is the
hallmark of a Conservative” (Patten, 1983, p. 17).
Many American politicians would be broadly classified as conservatives in
the Burkean tradition—think of Robert Taft, Dwight Eisenhower, and Robert
Dole—but the conservative label has been appropriated by others as well
who often have more dogmatic views. The list would surely include libertarians, focused on individual liberty in both the economic and social spheres;
fiscal conservatives, who emphasize cutting taxes and shrinking the size and
reach of government; religious conservatives—sometimes called theocons or the
Religious Right—who see traditional religion and conventional morals as the
central elements of conservatism; social conservatives—often inseparable from
the religious right—who emphasize traditional values, religion, and family
life; neoconservatives (neocons), originally a group of ex-liberals with strong
anticommunist and militant foreign policy views who have morphed into a
Understanding American Political Conservatism
3
more conventionally conservative group on economic issues while retaining
a predilection toward assertive diplomacy and the use of force in foreign relations; and compassionate conservatives, with their emphasis on private sector
volunteerism to aid the unfortunate (abetted by government organizations
and incentives as well as by limited expansions of the welfare state such as the
Part D drug benefit passed under the George W. Bush administration). The
list could be longer and the ideas often overlap, but the point is that there are
numerous factions in American conservatism. They were brought together,
particularly through an appeal to their anti-Communism, by a concept called
fusionism. Fusionism is identified with Frank Meyer, of the conservative magazine National Review (Nash, 2007, p. 6), and played a role in the election of
President Ronald Reagan in 1980, but there is constant tension among conservatives at the elite level over principle and practice. In short, the type of
cautious, undogmatic, and highly practical types who the Burkes and Pattens
of the world might think of as genuine conservatives have been joined by an
often raucous group of highly committed people who identify as conservatives but differ from Burkeans in their stronger commitment to doctrine and
their willingness, indeed often eagerness, to make radical changes in government and society.
WHAT DO PEOPLE IN THE GENERAL PUBLIC MEAN WHEN THEY
CALL THEMSELVES CONSERVATIVES?
While American political elites may use terms such as neoconservative or
religious right in a meaningful way, that would be a lot to expect of most
citizens (Converse, 1964). A useful future study might test this by checking
how able citizens are to make such distinctions, but for the moment it is useful to look at the correlates of conservative self-identification as measured
by people’s placement on a seven-point scale used in the American National
Election Studies (ANES) that run from “extremely liberal” at one end to “extremely conservative” at the other. Such a relatively simple exercise is particularly interesting in light of an excellent recent study that examines American
ideology using data from the General Social Survey, which employs a measure of liberalism/conservatism similar to the one on the ANES surveys (Ellis
& Stimson, 2012). The results of the study indicate that “the United States
is a nation of both the left and the right,” with Americans having a strong
affection for the “symbols of conservatism” and a particular affinity for the
word “conservative,” but when it comes to “concrete views” on public policy, there is, on average, an “affinity for solutions of the left” (Ellis & Stimson,
2012, p. 11). As the authors note, that is not a new finding (e.g., Free & Cantril,
1967; Jacobs & Shapiro, 1999), but it does call into question the meaning of
findings about the predilection toward conservatism of the American public
4
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
(e.g., Aberbach, 2011, p. 45). The authors put special emphasis on cultural
conservatives, postulating that “millions of Americans who know that they
are religious conservatives or that they approve of a ‘conservative’ approach
to child rearing and family life are simultaneously confused by what ‘conservative’ means in politics” (Ellis & Stimson, 2012, p. 133).
Ellis and Stimson’s provocative statement brings to the fore a set of questions and avenues of exploration for students of American conservatism.
First, thinking back to Burkean notions of conservatism, religion is central
to a conservative orientation, at least historically. Traditional conservatives
may not be observant, but they see religion as a foundation of society. In that
sense, among others, religion is important politically and one would logically expect a disproportionate number of religious people to think of themselves as conservatives. Second, traditional conservatives would not necessarily reject many of the policies of the welfare state, especially those well
established over the years. British Tories of the pre-Thatcher period regularly
embraced such policies (e.g., Patten, 1983) as did many conservative political leaders in the United States. Third, it is worthwhile to examine how much
the professed conservatism of religious Americans influences their political
behavior. If it does, and in the direction one might expect—say identifying
with the more conservative of the two parties, or voting for the more conservative of the candidates running—then one might want to reconsider, and
perhaps modify, the notion that religious conservatives are somehow politically confused.
I did a preliminary examination of the importance of conservatism in determining the vote. Perhaps, as argued by Ellis and Stimson, it is the case that
many people who say they are conservative simply give this answer because
they think it means that they are religious. In short, once one knows that they
are religious, there should be little impact of their professed level of conservatism on their political choice because they would have conflated the terms
and what is left would be a lot of random noise and measurement error when
it comes to the relationship between a measure of conservatism and political
choice; religiosity alone should account for the person’s choice. Testing this
using data from the 2008 and 2012 ANES is revealing. Religious respondents
were, as predicted, much more likely than nonreligious respondents to identify as conservatives and also to vote for the more conservative of the two
candidates for president of the United States (McCain in 2008 and Romney in
2012). And, not surprisingly, conservative identifiers were much more likely
to vote for McCain or Romney in the 2 years. However, there was also a strong
relationship between degree of conservatism and the vote within categories
of the religiosity measures I used. This suggests that the term conservative
is not merely a synonym for religious people, although religious people do
Understanding American Political Conservatism
5
definitely tend to be more conservative. Notions of conservatism and liberalism are strong enough that they drive vote choice in a meaningful way, even
showing a consistent and high impact when there is a conflict between the
normal choices of those who are religious and their position on the conservatism scale. And, it follows that the indicator of conservatism that ANES
and others use to measure the degree of conservatism is politically meaningful to survey respondents who provide much of the basic data we have on
conservatism in the general public.
What other variables correlate with indicators of conservatism in the general public? This question has been investigated in many forms over the
years. As noted previously (Free & Cantril, 1967; Jacobs & Shapiro, 1999),
one major finding has been that Americans tend to be “philosophical conservatives” but “operational liberals.” However, other studies indicate greater
penetration of more coherent ideological thinking, especially in recent years.
For example, Abramowitz and Saunders (2008, p. 547), using ANES surveys,
show a marked increase in the relationship between partisanship and a variety of political issues over the period from 1972 to 2004. Carmines and Stanley (1992), writing in an earlier period, focused on what they termed ideological polarization, and found that ideological divergence (as measured by
the liberalism–conservatism question) of partisans changed markedly over
the years they examined (1972–1988). They conclude (p. 236): “the evidence
suggests that the white electorate has undergone a major ideological transformation during recent decades. It is not that the proportion of conservatives has increased sharply; the increase has actually been quite modest. But
what has changed is the connection between ideology and partisanship. Once
loosely connected, ideology and partisanship are now much more tightly
bound together, and this close connection has rebounded to the benefit of
Republicans.”
I shall return to the political advantages of the increasing link between ideology and partisanship in the following section, but will close here with a
brief consideration of the types of ideologues, particularly conservative ideologues, that are found in the general public and more generally with what
tends to correlate with self-identified conservatism.
One would think that developing a typology to identify the percentages
of the public falling into various ideological configurations in the general
public would be a relatively easy task, and in some ways it is, but lurking
behind these typologies are important judgments. Ellis and Stimson (2012,
p. 96), for example, find that only about 15% of the public are “consistent
conservatives.” This is based on their notion that consistent conservatives
would want to cut expenditures on a majority of government programs, and
compares to close to 30% who are rated consistently liberal. Another 30 or so
percent are categorized as “operationally liberal, symbolically conservative.”
6
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
As I argued previously, however, this sort of typology rests on a particular
definition of conservatism that would not necessarily be shared by others,
thus one must be careful to examine how such conclusions are reached, as
whether one agrees with the operational definition of what make someone a
particular type of liberal or conservative is central to interpreting the finding. Or, to take another example, Michael Tanner, a Cato Institute Senior
Fellow—Cato is a libertarian think tank in Washington—cites survey data
suggesting that a majority of American voters lean in a libertarian direction,
describing themselves as “fiscally conservative and socially liberal” (Tanner,
2011, p. 270, based on Boaz & Kirby, 2007). This contrasts to the relatively low
percentage of voters usually classified as libertarian (about 15%), as Boaz and
Kirby indicate through their own estimates at other places in the same paper.
The point is not what the actual percentage is, but that the conceptualization
as well as the survey items used can have a significant impact on estimates
of the level and meaning of American conservatism, something particularly
important to keep in mind in studying a contentious subject such as political
ideology.
One thing that is clear is that the general item on conservatism in the ANES
studies is strongly correlated with a set of other variables and that the many
of the relationships have grown stronger over the years. Demographically,
people who self-identify as conservatives are more likely to be married
or widowed (as opposed to never married or divorced), men (although
the relationship is not strong), southern (again the regional differences
are relatively modest), and on the older side. Socially, they are religious,
antichoice, have a lower tolerance than nonconservatives of people with
different moral standards, oppose such policies as affirmative action in
the hiring and promotion of blacks, and tend to oppose gay marriage.
As the philosophically conservative but operationally liberal portrayal of
Americans implies, professed conservatives are much more likely than
liberals to think that the government is too big, spends too much on services,
and opposes government guarantees of citizens’ jobs or standard of living.
However, while they favor less government spending in principle and
oppose proposed social service or benefit, they have, traditionally, been
about as likely as liberals to favor government programs such as Social
Security and spending in areas such as science and technology and the
environment. As I said earlier, the latter positions are easily reconciled
with what many have meant by conservatism in the past, but they do
not fit well with the more doctrinaire fiscally conservative position of
many contemporary conservative activists and politicians. For good or ill,
however, the most recent data indicate a growing link between conservative
self-identification in the general public and greater fiscal conservatism or,
at least, unwillingness to spend more public funds even on popular public
Understanding American Political Conservatism
7
programs. They also show, as noted earlier, a marked increase over time
in the linkage of conservative self-identification and religiosity as well
as a large increase in the relationship between attitudes on such issues
as abortion and conservatism. The point is twofold: Conservatism at the
mass public level is dynamic rather than static and, relatedly, recent trends
indicate that the attitudinal configuration of conservatives is becoming more
structured over time.
IS THE UNITED STATES A CONSERVATIVE NATION?
All that have been said so far lead to two obvious questions: First, is the
United States a conservative nation? And, second, if it is, what has caused
this?
Assuming that one accepts the ANES measure of an individual’s conservatism and those like it as legitimate indicators of public sentiment,
the answer to the first question is, at minimum, a qualified “yes.” The yes
and the qualification are based on the fact that since the question was first
asked in 1972, a plurality of respondents has consistently chosen one of the
options on the conservative end of the scale (over 40%), with the middle
of the road option second, and the liberal options third. Conservative, in
other words, is the modal public position, but not the majority position.
However, in keeping with the earlier discussion, one should always question
the indicator. Here also, there are reasons to accept the finding. First, the
indicator has face validity. Second, in surveys where the question is asked
of the same respondents several months apart, the correlation between
answers is very high (above 0.80), so the indicator is clearly reliable. Third,
conservatism is related to a whole set of other indicators—see the summary
aforementioned—that fit a general pattern. Fourth, as indicated by the
discussion earlier in this essay on the strong relationship of the conservative
self-identification measure to vote even with religiosity controlled, the
notion that political conservatism is chosen by religious respondents who
do not know what conservative may mean in politics is, at minimum, open
to question. And, finally, the fact that the ties between the conservatism
scale and other variables have either remained steady or increased in
predictable ways over time suggests that those in the general public who
answer the question are not typically confused or stabbing in the dark when
they position themselves. For these reasons, among others, I am confident
that the indicator is basically capturing what we are after and that the
consistent results lead to the conclusion that the nation tilts right of center
in it basic philosophy, fully understanding that there are inconsistencies
in many people’s views and that the complex and variegated meanings of
8
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
conservatism guarantee that even the most sophisticated will not necessarily
agree on what it means to be a conservative.
But was it always so? What has made the conservative label so important
politically? These are obviously complex questions, but a few relatively
simple points are suggestive. First, while we do not have as reliable a set
of indicators pre-1972, we know that in the period before the mid-1960s,
respondents, particularly white respondents, were much more evenly split
between conservatism and liberalism when categorizing themselves than
in the period afterward. In other words, there are clear suggestions of a
reaction in much of the public to the various events of the 1960s and early
1970s that pushed the modal response by individuals in a conservative
direction. Second, and in some ways more important, there has been a
marked change in the link between conservative self-identification and
party identification in the period covered by the ANES ideology measure.
This is the case nationwide, but especially in the South. If one looks at
the average rank-order correlation (Gamma) between the two measures,
they have gone from an average just below 0.30 in the South in the period
1972–1992, to just below 0.50 from 1994 to 2002, to over 0.60 since 2004.1
The pattern of increase holds in the rest of the country, but the relationship
between conservatism and party identification was higher outside the South
in the initial period. In brief, the level of conservatism in the country may
have been steady (and high) since 1972, but the political significance of that
conservatism has changed; especially in the South, many of those who once
called themselves conservatives, but supported and voted for Democrats,
are now supporting and voting for Republicans.
The triumph of the Republican Party as a conservative force in the South
has had a profound impact on American politics. Where once southern
Democrats were a pivotal force in the bargaining that produced lawmaking
(e.g., Katznelson & Mulroy, 2012), both influencing policy content and
providing pivotal votes for the passage of bills, that group has diminished in
size (although become more liberal) and has been replaced by a large group
of legislators who now often hold key positions in the Republican Party.
The three-party system of Republicans, southern Democrats, and northern
Democrats has been replaced by a fiercely partisan two-party system—a
polarized system—that has changed the tenor and, often, the outcome of
political debates in the United States. In short, the political significance of
conservative identification in the United States has changed in ways that
make the fact of conservative self-identification by so many a force with an
increased impact on national political life.
1. African-American respondents were not included in these calculations because African-Americans
almost are uniformly identified as Democrats.
Understanding American Political Conservatism
9
HOW DIFFERENT ARE POLITICAL ELITES AND THE PUBLIC?
There is a fierce debate in political science about the contemporary level
of political polarization in the United States. One side, identified with the
work of Morris Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope (2005), holds that polarization
among the public is vastly overstated. Polarization, in this view, is an elite
phenomenon that has distorted American political life and given the United
States a severely divided politics that is not reflective of the moderate
opinion typical in the American public. The other side, reflected in the
work of such scholars as Abramowitz (2006), Campbell (2006), and Jacobson
(2006), argues that there is widespread division at most levels in the country.
In part, as I argue in a chapter on “The Future of the American Right” (Aberbach, 2011, p. 62) recapped here, this is a debate about degree, but Fiorina
et al. (2005) go so far as to say that while elites may now be polarized, “public opinion data … provide little reason to believe that elites are following
voters. Rather they are imposing their own agendas on the electorate” (Fiorina et al., 2005, p. 88). Alan Abramowitz (2006), a mainstay of the other side,
finds increased polarization over time. And, in what is probably the best synthesis, Marc J. Hetherington (2008, p. 29) writes that “elite polarization has
stimulated participation at the mass level even though the masses remain
relatively moderate.”
The bottom line, to the degree one can have one in an ongoing argument,
is that both elites and the public are increasingly divided on ideological
grounds in their political behavior and that, as one might expect, political
elites are more strongly and consistently divided than the general public.
With regard to the general public, whether one calls it “sorting,” as Fiorina
and his colleagues do, or “polarization,” as many others do, there has
definitely been movement toward a more ideologically driven politics at all
levels.
WHAT IS THE MEANING OF CONTEMPORARY MOVEMENTS
LIKE THE TEA PARTY?
The Tea Party emerged on the scene in 2009, ostensibly with a rant on the floor
of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli who
called for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest government plans to “subsidize
the losers’ mortgages” (Skocpol & Williamson, 2012, p. 7). The reaction across
the country was huge, clearly stimulated in part by conservative media and
later aided by infusions of funds from major donors (Skocpol & Williamson,
2012, pp. 9–10; Zernike, 2010, p. 43), and resulted in the formation of a
loosely structured movement whose three main principles, according to a
10
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
sympathetic analyst, are to promote “limited government,” “unapologetic
US sovereignty,” and “constitutional originalism” (Foley, 2012, p. 19).
Skocpol and Williamson (2012, p. 147) describe the Tea Party as consisting of “conservative Republican voters.” They summarize a 2010 CBS/New
York Times poll indicating that “the 18 percent of Americans who identify
themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45 (p. 23)” and say that Tea Party supporters also tend
to be “comfortably middle-class” people who are more likely to be evangelical Protestants than mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, or nonbelievers (p.
23). They are “skeptical, even scornful of ‘establishment’ Republicans” and
are particularly marked by “opposition to public expenditures on education
and the environment” (pp. 27, 28), while favoring Social Security and Medicare benefits for people like themselves who they deem worthy because they
have earned them (pp. 60–61).
At one level, one can see Tea Partiers as an extreme type of contemporary
American conservative, but there is more to Tea Partiers than that. They are
extraordinarily active in primaries, assisting in the tilt of Republican candidates in their direction, and a recent study that is likely to be highly controversial argued “that people are driven to support the Tea Party from the anxiety
they feel as they perceive the America they know, the country they love, slipping away, threatened by the rapidly changing face of what they believe is the
‘real’ America: a heterosexual, Christian, middle-class, (mostly) male, white
country” (Parker & Barreto, 2013, p. 3). Indeed, Parker and Barreto (p. 244)
argue, “support for the Tea Party is a proxy for reactionary conservatism.”
How reliable the most negative conclusions from this study, as well as the
data on which they are based, prove to be cannot be determined now, but
they suggest, or so the authors argue, an extreme paranoia and status anxiety of the type the historian Richard Hofstadter (1967) analyzed in his classic
book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Current indications are that the
Tea Party has great influence in Republican politics, but that the extremism
of the candidates its supporters help nominate tends to repel more moderate
conservative voters and that, on balance, the Tea Party phenomenon probably hurts the Republican Party more than it helps.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? WHAT ARE SOME MAJOR
QUESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH?
The debate on the true nature of conservatism is most likely unresolvable.
That said, scholars of conservatism should do more work on the dynamics of conservatism, especially changing definitions of what is considered
mainstream at any point in time. How and why alliances and fallings out
between different types of conservatives occur is also an important subject for
Understanding American Political Conservatism
11
further investigation. For example, the “fusionism” that aided the diminution (although certainly not the end) of internal feuding among conservative
factions in the Reagan era is usually ascribed to their common and intense
anti-Communism. What other factors and settings might contribute to relative unity or diversity among different types of conservatives?
Tracking the prevalence of the public’s identification with conservatism is
an obvious task for the future, just as important is tracking changes in the
correlates of conservatism. If, for example, the relationship tightens between
conservatism and attitudes toward spending on popular programs such as
Social Security, that is likely to have a strong influence on policy outcomes
in the United States. We should also continue to look at the relationship of
conservative sympathies to demographic factors. Right now, for example,
while there are certainly African-Americans who identify as conservatives,
their allegiance to the Democratic Party is such that, unlike members of
most other major population groups, they vote for Democratic candidates
regardless. The odds of that changing soon are low, but there is a more likely
chance, especially if Republicans block immigration reform to satisfy vocal
parts of the party’s conservative base, that Latino Americans, who already
vote strongly Democratic, could join their ranks.
As noted in this essay, the extent and nature of political polarization,
especially along conservative-liberal lines, is an important subject for future
research. This is as true at the mass public level as it is at the elite level
because signs of increasing polarization at the public level signal a likely
further hardening of the lines at the elite level and greater gridlock in the
policy process. That and increased efforts to understand the emergence
and political influence of movements like the Tea Party are central to
understanding the future shape and character of political conflict in the
United States.
Finally, in important areas not covered in this essay, research on conservative think tanks, on conservative media, and on the organization and influence of large donors to conservative causes will be central to understanding
both future directions of conservative thought and action and the level of
influence that wealthy conservatives exert on American politics.
REFERENCES
Aberbach, J. D. (2011). The future of the American right: Evidence and questions
from the bush years. In J. D. Aberbach & G. Peele (Eds.), Crisis of conservatism?
(pp. 40–67). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
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CA: Brookings Institution Press and Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and
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Abramowitz, A. I., & Saunders, K. L. (2008). Ideological realignment in the U.S. Electorate. Journal of Politics, 70, 542–555.
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Understanding American Political Conservatism
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Skocpol, T., & Williamson, V. (2012). The tea party and the remaking of republican conservatism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Tanner, M. (2011). Shaping a new conservative agenda. In J. D. Aberbach & G. Peele
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FURTHER READING
Abramowitz, A. I. (2010). The disappearing center. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Allitt, P. (2009). The conservatives. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Critchlow, D. T. (2007). The conservative ascendancy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Horwitz, R. B. (2013). America’s right. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.
Micklethwait, J., & Woolidge, A. (2005). The right nation. New York, NY: Penguin
Books.
Nash, G. (2006). The conservative intellectual movement in America since 1945. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books.
Tanenhaus, S. (2009). The death of conservatism. New York, NY: Random House.
JOEL D. ABERBACH SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Joel D. Aberbach is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Public
Policy and a Director of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy at
the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is the author or coauthor of Keeping a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight (Brookings, 1990), In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive
(Brookings, 2000), Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Harvard,
1981), and Race in the City (Little, Brown, 1973). He served as Co-Chair of the
Commission on the Executive Branch convened by the Annenberg Foundation Trust’s Institutions of American Democracy Project. A volume from this
project, Institutions of American Democracy: The Executive Branch (Oxford University Press, 2005), edited by Aberbach and Mark A. Peterson, won the 2006
Neustadt Award for the best reference work on the American presidency. In
2005, he was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He has also been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in
the Behavioral Sciences, the University of Bologna’s Institute of Advanced
Studies, and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
In 2006–2007, he was the John G. Winant Professor of American Government
at Oxford University and a Fellow of Balliol College, and in spring 2011,
14
EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
he was a Politics Visitor at Nuffield College, Oxford. In 2013, he became a
Distinguished Fellow of Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute. His latest
book, edited with Gillian Peele, is Crisis of Conservatism?: The Republican Party,
the Conservative Movement and American Politics after Bush (Oxford University
Press, 2011) and his latest article, with Tom Christensen, is “Why Reforms
So Often Disappoint,” American Review of Public Administration (2014). His
current project is a book on contemporary American conservatism.
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