Conservative liberalism

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Conservative liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal values and policies with conservative stances, or, more simply, representing the right-wing of the liberal movement. The roots of it are to be found at the beginning of the history of liberalism: until the World Wars, in most European countries the political class was formed by conservative liberals, from Germany to Italy.

Ideology and issues
Conservative liberals differ from social liberals for some main reasons:

First, conservative liberals are more concerned with economic liberalism, adopting libertarian or neo-liberal policies, while social liberals tend to be more keen on Keynesian solutions and on higher taxes, though still supporting individual liberty as well as decentralization. Conservative liberals, in contrast, are staunch supporters of the free-market, fiscal conservatism, small government, less bureaucracy, deregulation, privatizations and the lowering of taxes, often proposing less steep progressive tax or flat tax.

Second, they are usually socially liberal on such social issues as same-sex marriage, abortion, secularism, stem-cell research, and euthanasia but may place less emphasis on them than do most social liberals.

Third, they are mostly strong supporters of economic globalization. Most conservative liberals support the foreign policy of the United States and, in NATO-member states, support that political alliance.

Fourth, conservative liberals are often in favor of stricter punishment of illegal immigrants and are usually tolerant but not enthusiastic about multiculturalism, of which social liberals are strong supporters. Conservative liberals often identify as law and order-parties, which are tougher on crime and support higher levels of punishment and are more committed to fighting terrorism, while social liberals tend to emphasize prevention and are more committed to civil rights.
Fifth, historically, conservative liberals tended to be more skeptical about universal suffrage than social or classical liberals.
One should not confuse conservative liberalism with liberal conservatism; indeed, the latter is a variant of conservatism. Liberal conservatives tend to be more committed to authority, tradition and established religion, while conservative liberals are supporters of the separation between church and state. However it is possible to classify some parties as both conservative-liberal and liberal-conservative.

Conservative liberalism differs from libertarianism in several ways. First it is far less radical in its economic program. Second it is supportive of an active defense policy and military interventions in contrast to the libertarian non-interventionist policy. Second conservative liberals are tough on crime and are more willing to sacrifice civil liberties to fight terrorism and crime.


Historical development
Conservative liberal parties have tended to develop in those European countries where there was no strong secular conservative party and where the separation of church and state was less on issue. In those countries, where the conservative parties were christian-democratic, this conservative brand of liberalism developed.