National conservatism

National conservatism is a political term used to describe a variant of conservatism that is particularly widespread in Europe and that emphasizes national sentiments as well as cultural and ethnic national identity .

What national conservatives have in common is a skeptical to negative attitude towards immigration and European integration , as well as a tendency towards value conservatism and traditional moral concepts. They understand conservatism as a corrective to modernism and belief in progress and place the community before the individual . It is not uncommon for national conservatism to enter into links with conservative religious currents. Economically, on the other hand, both social-market and laissez-faire views are represented.

19th century

In 19th century German history, national conservatism was one of several conservative currents, alongside the state conservatives, social conservatives and highly conservatives. The national conservatives like Joseph von Radowitz strove for a German nation state based on the British model, comparable to the national liberals, but with a more monarchical structure. Thus, the national conservatives were forerunners of the Free Conservative Party .

Today's term

Today's national conservatism is also characteristic of the fact that it extols direct democracy as a “refuge against international interdependence” and thus captures the populist mood between the “common people” and the “ classe politique ”. In this respect, transitions to right-wing populism can be fluid. For national conservatism , the term “ right-wing conservatism ” has partly become established synonymous in the literature , but national conservatism is also defined as a special sub-category of right-wing conservatism. In this case, right-wing conservative parties should be called "national conservative" insofar as they tend to focus on "national issues".

The use of the term in the social sciences is contradictory: while the term is used in historical studies to characterize völkisch- oriented parties such as the German National People's Party and a similar use for anti-democratic ideas can also be shown in the political science discussion about the New Right , on the other hand In more recent literature on party research, the term is used to characterize parties of the right-wing conservative spectrum that are not ethnic or anti-democratic and to differentiate them from right-wing radicalism and right-wing extremism .

In the German political landscape , the Republicans and the Alternative for Germany are classified by political scientists as national conservative, in Austria the Freedom Party , in Switzerland the Swiss People's Party and in Luxembourg the Alternative Democratic Reform Party as national conservative.

Party lists

List of national conservative parties in the European national parliaments (sorted by election results, as of September 15, 2019)

country	Political party	logo	Party leader	Votes in% (last election)	Placement at last election	Seats in parliament	government participation
Russia	United Russia (ER)		Dmitry Medvedev	54.2 ( 2016 )	1.	343 of 450	Yes (three quarters majority)
Hungary	Fidesz - Hungarian Citizens' Union		Viktor Orbán	49.3 ( 2018 )	1.	133 of 199	Yes (two-thirds majority)
Serbia	Serbian Progressive Party (SNS)		Aleksandar Vucic	48.3 ( 2016 )	1.	131 of 250	Yes (absolute majority)
Poland	Law and Justice (PiS)		Jarosław Kaczyński	43.8 ( 2019 )	1.	235 of 460	Yes (absolute majority)
North Macedonia	Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization - Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE)		Nikola Gruevski	39.4 ( 2016 )	1.	51 of 123	No
Croatia	Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)		Andrej Plenković	36.3 ( 2016 )	1.	61 of 151	Yes (coalition partner)
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus	National Unity Party (UBP)		Hüseyin Özgürgün	35.6 (2018)	1.	21 of 50	Yes (coalition partner)
Switzerland	Swiss People's Party (SVP)		Albert Rösti	25.6 ( 2019 )	1.	53 of 200	Yes ( magic formula )
Estonia	Estonian Conservative Party (EKRE)		Mart helmets	17.8 ( 2019 )	3.	19 of 101	Yes (coalition partner)
Austria	Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ)		Norbert Hofer	16.2 ( 2019 )	3.	31 of 183	No
Germany	Alternative for Germany (AfD)		Jörg Meuthen	12.6 ( 2017 )	3.	89 of 709	No
Luxembourg	Alternatively, the Democratic Reform Party (ADR)		Jean Schoos	8.3 ( 2018 )	5.	4 of 60	No
Italy	Fratelli d'Italia (FdI)		Giorgia Meloni	4.4 ( 2018 )	5.	32 of 630	No
Greece	Elliniki Lysi (EL)		Kyriakos Velopoulos	3.7 ( 2019 )	5.	10 out of 300	No

List of national conservative parties in non-European national parliaments (sorted by election results, as of March 6, 2016)

country	Political party	logo	Party leader	Votes in% (last election)	Placement at last election	Seats in parliament	government participation
India	Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)		Amit Shah	37.46 ( 2019 )	1.	303 of 543	Yes (absolute majority)
Israel	Likud		Benjamin Netanyahu	29.46 ( 2020 )	1.	36 of 120	Yes

literature

• Richard Stöss : The right edge of the party system. In: Oskar Niedermayer (Ed.): Handbook of political party research. VS Springer, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 563–618.
• Thomas Assheuer: What does German mean here? National conservatism defines its “leading culture” . In: Die Zeit , No. 30/1998

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Claude Longchamp : The national conservative protest in Switzerland. An analysis of the 1999 National Council elections based on preliminary and follow-up surveys. Modified version of the book contribution for Fritz Plasser (Ed.): Elections in Austria 1999. Vienna 2000. Accessed on September 14, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Richard Stöss : The right edge of the party system. In: Oskar Niedermayer (Ed.): Handbook of political party research. VS Springer, Wiesbaden 2013, pp. 563–618.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Markus Grimm: The Alleanza Nazionale - Post-fascist or right-wing conservative? (PDF; 1.7 MB) In: Institute for Political Science at the Justus-Liebig University of Giessen. 2009, accessed September 22, 2011 . 
4. ↑ Claude Longchamp: Election research in theory, empiricism and practice. In: Institute for Political Science at the University of Zurich. 2009, accessed September 22, 2011 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Richard Stöss: The right edge of the party system. In: Oskar Niedermayer (Ed.): Handbook of political party research. VS Springer, Wiesbaden 2013, p. 578.
6. ^ Heinrich August Winkler : Quite ordinary anti-Semites . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 2003 ( online ).
7. ↑ Wolfgang Gessenharter : In the field of tension. Intellectual New Rights and Constitution. In: Wolfgang Gessenharter (Ed.): The New Right. A danger to democracy? P. 32; and so: Brothers in the new right spirit. What unites Jörg Haider and Ronald Schill - but also divides them. ( Memento from February 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF) Text on Wolfgang Gessenharter's page at the Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg , published in abbreviated form in the Frankfurter Rundschau , July 12, 2003.
8. ^ Nikolaus Werz : "Neopopulismos en Europa." Conference of the Fundación Pablo Iglesias and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation from March 25th to 26th, 2015 in Madrid. In: Journal for Comparative Political Science . July 15, 2015, o.p. doi: 10.1007 / s12286-015-0245-x