Edexcel Politics A level revision - UK Politics, Core Political Ideas - Conservatism
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Course
Core political ideas - Conservatism
Institution
PEARSON (PEARSON)
From the specification: Conservatism
Conservatism seeks to conserve society as it is and is suspicious of change. Conservatism
values pragmatism over ideological thinking, seeking to adapt its values over time, according
to changes in society. However, new right thinking within conservatism in...
Pragmatism - a way of making decisions and policies, and approaching
society and politics with the attitude of “what matters is what works”.
• To be pragmatic is to reject ideology and dogma - and instead accept
that the best route to solving a problem is not necessarily what one’s
own ideological belief says.
Differences in strands of conservatism:
• One-nation conservatism is a highly pragmatic way of governing.
• New Right conservatism is much more ideological and requires a firm
leadership to steer the government and the country into neo-liberalism.
Examples of pragmatism: Major
Some argue that conservatism rejects ideology because of its pragmatic
nature.
There is evidence for this in the policy of several Conservative Party prime
ministers.
Under Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives proposed a poll tax - something
that John Major (a more one-nation conservative) saw as being not a
pragmatic decision and was replaced with the Council Tax.
Examples of pragmatism: Cameron
David Cameron’s Conservative Party changed its policies based on coalition
compromises between 2010 and 2015.
This can be argued to be because the party changed its ideas to the most
electorally and socially pragmatic policies.
Tradition - Conservatives respect tradition. This means respecting history,
ideas and systems of the past, and relating it to today’s society to help make
decisions.
• Conservatives believe that events in the past hold knowledge for people
in the present can use.
• Tradition, paternalism and hierarchy are closely linked - the people in
history who have ruled (who are often of a higher class/income than
others) know what is best for the people they are ruling.
• New Right conservatism rejected lots of ideas of tradition, however.
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke supported ideas of tradition - he wrote after the 1789 French
Revolution about the dangers of rejecting the ideas of the past.
Because of human imperfection, we cannot just create a new society - we
should listen to the lessons and teachings of the past and society should evolve
organically to meet current needs.
Organic change
Organic change is the idea that social change should not be radical, or
mechanistic (a liberal idea, where the interactions of rational individuals
change the way society works).
Instead, society evolves through an organic process, and political processes
and leaders emerge as a result of this organic process.
The society itself is more important than the individual parts within it.
Organic change is gradual rather than revolutionary and is supported by
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