Comparing British And American Conservatism

Westminister/Capitol Hill

Sisters in history, the United States and the United Kingdom share a special relationship in world diplomacy. This “Churchillian” relationship was forged from fighting global wars together. At the core, the United States and the United Kingdom continuously grow this relationship from common western values of patriotism that form the bedrock of their conservative parties. 

Conservative policies are defined by a devotion to patriotism, dedication to strong defense policy, and economic reform. The conservative movement takes its name from the policy of natural resources conservation that was the steering force of its early economic reforms, especially during the Progressive Era of the mid-to-late 19th century. 

American conservatism has been defined by the Hudson Institute. More information on the defining traits of U.K. conservatism is available via the Bow Group. 

American conservatism focuses on American leadership, both domestically and abroad, in a national centralizing focus on U.S. prosperity, job creation, a strong national defense, and less government spending. British conservatism is similar, focusing on a reduction of the size of government, ceding power to the citizens, and creating more economic liberties. 

Yet, for all their fundamental similarities, British Conservatism and American Conservatism have their fair share of differences. Their contrasts accent each other's failures, while also highlighting areas where one might triumph in the space the other lags. At present, Andrew Gamble, political research analyst, notes that British Conservatism appears to have “reasserted its dominance” post-Brexit and under Prime Minister Johnson. By contrast, American Conservatism saw dramatic losses to American Liberalism in the scandals following the 2020 Presidential Election. 

Perhaps the most obvious contrast, British Conservatism has retained the majority government power influence over the last decade. Whereas, American Conservatism has seen power exchanged with American Liberalism at equal intervals on a fairly term-by-term basis as of its last four presidential administrations. 

This difference relies strongly on the structural differences between American and United Kingdom governments. Oxford University describes the American government as “a republic with the form of a monarchy” and the United Kingdom as “a monarchy with the form of a government” to express these key differences. 

Oxford’s description of these government structural differences refer to the fact that the United States has an executive that doubles as both state figurehead and state executive in the form of a president, who has a similar constitutional function as pre-18th century British kings. The similarity is that the president, like the pre-18th century British king, must seek Congressional approval for his motions.

The essential difference is that a president is elected and a king is not. By contrast, the United Kingdom has a monarchial unelected figurehead of state, at present Queen Elizabeth II, who serves no political function but rather acts as a national unification influence. It has a state executive, at present Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who maintains control because they hold a majority in Parliament.    

On a smaller scale, traits of American and British Conservatism can be viewed based on their policy execution and behavioral patterns as collective political bodies. An example of this is in the contrasting approach of both conservative parties to their respective national media criticism. 

American Conservatives have exercised a constant, heated criticism of social media and mainstream media outlets. Their criticism is characterized by their use of this heated rhetoric as a branding tool for alternative platforms such as Parler in place of Twitter. The heat of this critical approach has led to Republican infighting, as was observed in Parler’s firing of its founder and CEO John Matze, see NPR News.

Conversely, the Bow Group chairman Ben Harris-Quinney offered both criticism and a proposed solution for the BBC after it came under fire following Lord Dyson’s report on the networks’ unethical “bombshell” Panorama interview with the Princess of Wales Lady Diana Spencer. 

Harris-Quinney argued the solution of revoking the BBC’s compulsory license fee, breaking the group up, and selling its shares off. While a heated attack of the BBC media giant ensued, British Conservatives gave teeth to their tirade of criticism by proposing actions against the policy enabling the BBC’s reported unethical behaviors. 

There is a direct contrast between these two incidents. American Conservatives argue against public policies from political criticism and then fight them economically by branding the negative political backlash. Whereas, in this example, the British Conservatives go directly for public policy to redress their grievances with the British mainstream media, putting the responsibility on policy and not markets. 

These differences, however, are not always so clearly observable, as more nuanced examples of the conservative’s practical hold over British policy have been observed over the post-World Wars era of history.

British Conservatism’s influence is not exclusive to the last decade but has maintained heavy power influence over Parliament over the last century and past two decades. By contrast, American Conservatism has only held power in spurts, with the movement seeing nose-diving declines and periodic rebirth periods. 

The success and failures of American and British Conservatism can be traced, in part, to the influence of party figureheads that shaped the movements. For Britain, figureheads of historical conservatism have been described as “giants” with Canadian political philosopher George Grant referring to Victorian-era conservatives Gladstone and Disraeli as “colossus” figures, see the George Grant Reader. 

British history likewise appears to have more of these “colossal” figures in major leadership roles as the history of conservatism’s dominance in U.K. politics has held a steadier pace than the development of conservatism in America. 

Britain has also had some conservative figurehead failures. Among these figures stands David Cameron. Cameron’s failures were attributed, in a critique by The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, to his attempts to modernize conservatism that failed to “restructure the key issue dimensions animating his party’s ideology. “Cameron’s failure to leave a consistent legacy to his party’s ideology echoes the failures associated with American conservative figures. 

American conservatism sees a greater mixture between its “figure successes'' and “figure failures.” In giants such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, there remains a profound attribution of policy failure. The conservative movement in America has thus been shaped by vaguely defined figures that are as heavily critiqued by their party as they are their opposition. This led to a lack of confidence in the conservative party, as was described by Joel D. Abberbach in his book Understanding American Conservatism, where he detailed the despair in 1964-era conservatism over the “scorching defeat” of Barry Goldwater. 

These acclaimed leaders failed to pilot their parties to a secure position when they left their position at the forefront of their Party. Reagan’s Party, for example, was described as “entrenched but exhausted” upon his exit from the White House, as argued by Jerome I. Himmelstein in his Epilogue of American Conservatism in the Bush Years.

This power process transfer disconnect was observed with Trump as a figurehead of merit. While Trump was held in high esteem by collective conservative idealism, his policies held no lasting force upon his departure, quickly overturned by his progressive counterparts in the Biden administration. 

The celebrity of Trump failed to yield lasting policy-driven merit as his persona inevitably became bigger than his message. Trump has since been described as “a superhero and anti-politician” in a critique of his presidency as a “brand.” 

Celebrity versus policy reality is an error that American conservatism appears to repeat. Oppositional critics of conservatism as a whole concept are swift to point this out. Vanity Fair in an article entitled “Why Ronald Reagan Should Be Seen as a Complete Failure” criticized the tendency of Republicans Paul Ryan and Rand Paul to “invoke” the “glorious era of Ronald Reagan.”

The critic piece noted that, to Ryan and Paul’s policies, Reagan stood as a contradiction. The article attributed “increased bureaucracy and higher deficits'' to Reagan’s presidency. Despite this criticism, however, the figure of Reagan for his moral values retains its figurehead value in terms of celebrity and merit revered by the Party. 

The major difference here is that British Conservatism appears to be driven by policy whereas American Conservatism is driven by brand. From the outsider's perspective, American Conservatism and the GOP are defined by its “anti-policies' ' perhaps even above those things it stands in favor of. An example of this is Five Thirty-Eight’s criticism of the GOP as “being anti-media as part of its identity.”

Conservatives in Britain take active methods to minimize the House and reduce the electoral biases for elections in the House of Commons. The British Conservative Party introduced a bill to ensure greater equality of electorates and to reduce the size of the House to the House of Lords in 2007. In so doing, the British Conservatives appear to take steps to secure the strength of their party rather than of individual politician talking points. 

The apparent devotion to building party structure in today’s British conservatism comes after the historical implosion of the party under John Major’s leadership. Political scientists critique Major’s failures as the reason for the temporary shift away from conservatives in primary UK leadership, and a corresponding conservative crisis in early 2000, for failures of Sir Keith Joseph. 

Yet, at this stage, it appears that the British conservatives have successfully corrected the issues within disunity and ideological conflict. This may be due in part to a “reimagination” of British conservatism, noted by Mark I. Vail in British Politics, that followed the chaos and eventual adoption of Brexit. 

This nature to preserve policy and party highlights a sense of adaptability in the British Conservatism. The tendency to embrace the exchange of power from the government to the citizens has been described as the “Big Society” theory, which was highlighted in research by Tuva Johansson, Lund University, in 2012. 

Johansson reasoned that British conservatives had even gone so far as to adapt to “compassion” and a transfer to “progressivism” making their approaches adaptable and organizationally different from the thinking in America’s conservative counterpart. 

The contrast, thus, is that, while American Conservatism holds a major organization over American politics, it is lacking in adaptability and centralization of its policy solutions. It also appears to lack a separation from public policy and market places and exercises politics that blend the two as mutually inclusive.

Leadership is defined by the idealism of its figureheads rather than by the transference of power from the leader to the citizen. The U.K. Conservatism, by contrast, focuses the force of party and policy to achieve its purposes, with the party steering the figurehead and positioning policy-drive above the force of merits.