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Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic and social issues.〔http://www.parties-and-elections.eu/content.html〕 or, better, a brand of conservatism strongly influenced by liberalism. ==Overview, definitions and usage== As both "conservatism" and "liberalism" have had different meanings over time and across countries, the term "liberal conservatism" has been used with quite different meanings. It contrasts with classical liberalism and especially aristocratic conservatism, both rejecting the principle of equality as something in discordance with human nature, and emphasizes instead the idea of natural inequality. As conservatives in democratic countries have embraced typical liberal institutions such as the rule of law, private property, the market economy, and constitutional representative government, the liberal element of liberal conservatism became consensual outside of the socialist and social-democratic camp. This consensus has been so complete in some countries (e.g. the United Kingdom and the United States) that the term "liberal conservatism" came to be understood simply as "conservatism" in popular culture,〔Johnston, Larry: Politics: An Introduction to the Modern Democratic State. University of Toronto Press, 2007. p.155〕 prompting some conservatives who embraced more strongly classical liberal values to call themselves "libertarians".〔Grigsby, Ellen: Analyzing Politics: An Introduction to Political Science. Cengage Learning, 2011.〕 Nevertheless, the liberal-conservative tradition in the United States often combines the economic individualism of classical liberals with a Burkean form of conservatism that emphasizes the natural inequalities between men, the irrationality of human behavior as the basis for the embrace of traditional ethics, the human drive for order and stability, and the rejection of natural rights as the basis for government.〔Grigsby, Ellen: Analyzing Politics: An Introduction to Political Science. Cengage Learning, 2011. p.106-112〕 However, from a different perspective, American conservatism, a "hybrid of conservatism and classical liberalism", has exalted three tenets of Burkean conservatism, namely the diffidence toward the power of the state, the preference of liberty over equality and patriotism, while rejecting the three remaining tenets, namely loyalty to traditional institutions and hierarchies, scepticism regarding progress and elitism.〔https://books.google.it/books?id=rDd5tKWT4D4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+right+nation+books&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR0OHNs6HJAhWCkg8KHR3_ArsQ6AEIIDAA#v=onepage&q=the%20right%20nation%20books&f=false〕 Consequently, in the United States the term "liberal conservatism" is not used and American modern liberalism is quite different from the European one. For their part, European liberal conservatives, in their embracement of liberal and free-market principles, are clearly distinguishable from those conservatives who have embraced national-conservative views, more socially conservative stances and/or outright populism, let alone a right-wing populist posture. In much of central and northwestern Europe, especially in Germanic and Protestantism-influenced countries, a divide between conservatives, including Christian democrats, and liberals persists. On the contrary, in those countries where liberal-conservative movements have more recently entered the political mainstream, such as Italy and Spain, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" may be understood as synonymous. Finally, in Latin America, economically liberal conservatism is often labelled under the rubric of neoliberalism both in popular culture and academic discourse.〔Bethell, Leslie: The Cambridge History of Latin America: Latin America since 1930. Cambridge University Press, 1991.〕 Often this involves stressing free-market economics and the belief in individual responsibility together with the defense of civil rights, environmentalism, and support for a limited welfare state. Compared to traditional centre-right politics, such as those proposed by Christian democrats, liberal conservatism is less traditionalist and more right-libertarian economically, favouring low taxes and minimal state intervention in the economy. In the modern European discourse, "liberal conservatism" usually encompasses centre-right political outlooks that reject, at least to some extent, social conservatism. This position is also associated with support for moderate forms of social safety net and environmentalism. In this sense, "liberal conservatism" has been expoused, for instance, by nordic conservative parties (the Moderate Party in Sweden, the Conservative Party in Norway and the National Coalition Party in Finland), which have seen right-wing populist parties emerge to their right and do not comprise Christian democrats who form separate parties, and the British Conservative Party under David Cameron, who, in an interview shortly after taking office as Prime Minister in 2010, said that he had always described himself as a "liberal conservative". In his first speech to a Conservative Party's conference in 2006, Cameron had defined this as believing in individual freedom and human rights, but being skeptical of "grand schemes to remake the world."〔("Full text of David Cameron's speech to the Conservative Party conference" ), BBC, October 2006〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Liberal conservatism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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