Since the electoral successes of several conservative governments in 1979, conservative ideas and politics have been placed at the centre of the political agenda of the liberal democracies for the first time since 1945.



This book studies the experience of a number of representative conservative parties in Europe and the United States. It explains the success of conservatism since the 1970s by examining the political cultures, the characteristics of particular parties or forms of conservatism, and the social bases of conservatism in particular countries.