Conservative Parties and Right-Wing Politics in North America

Even a quick glance at the party systems of North American and European democracies since the 1970s reveals the complexity and variation across time and space that characterizes the ideological roots, programmatic orientations and organizational arrangements of political conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, the 1980s saw important changes inspired by neo-conservatism. Although many neo-conservative governments in the industrialized world were voted out of office in the 1990s, they succeeded in anchoring their spe cific understanding of the state and public policy in the political mainstream. Core elements of the neo-conservative agenda - such as the goal of fiscal consolidation - were widely adopted, even by social democratic parties in Europe. At the tum of the millennium, one could observe the return to power of conservative parties in some countries, for example in the United States. Yet the parties of the Right also faced considerable tensions over the last few decades, which often triggered the decline or break-up of established conser vative parties as weB as the rise of new parties. In North America and Europe alike, the phenomenon of right-wing populism resurfaced in the political arena. Particularly in the North American democracies, the formation of new right-wing parties went along with ideological, programmatic and organiza tional changes. These forced established conservative parties in North Amer ica to implement concomitant changes and at the same time served as model for conservative parties in Europe."

Author: Rainer-Olaf Schultze

Publisher: Vs Verlag Fur Sozialwissenschaften

Publication Date: Feb 28, 2003

Number of Pages: 298 pages

Binding: Paperback or Softback

ISBN-10: 3810038121

ISBN-13: 9783810038128