American Conservatism Research Articles

Toward an American Conservatism: Constitutional Conservatism during the Progressive Era. Edited by Joseph Postell and Jonathan O’Neill. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 288p. $105.00.

Toward an American Conservatism: Constitutional Conservatism during the Progressive Era. Edited by Joseph Postell and Jonathan O’Neill. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 288p. $105.00.

“It Has to Come from the Hearts of the People”: Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Race, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act

In recent years historians and scholars of religious studies have chronicled and debated the critical role that black and white liberal Protestants, Catholics, and Jews played in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s. At every stage of the movement, mainline and traditional black churches proved vital. Less is known about the actions and reactions of conservative or moderate white believers. The churches that these fundamentalists and evangelicals belonged to would grow tremendously in the coming decades, eventually claiming roughly 26 percent of the American population. From the 1960s forward, conservative Protestants would also become key political players, helping to decide national elections. Their responses to the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, which intended to end discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin, and the heated debates that led up to the law reveal much about how conservative Christians related to the state and to a changing society. Responses to the bill ranged from resigned acceptance to racist denunciation. But believers were united in their antistatism and in their opposition to political and theological liberalism. This article examines how evangelicals and fundamentalists engaged in politics and understood race and racism in personal terms. It also analyzes the religious dimensions of modern American conservatism.

Queer Provisionality: Mapping the Generative Failures of the Transborder Immigrant Tool

Alison Reed investigates the border- and boundary-crossing performance of Electronic Disturbance Theater 2.0’sTransBorder Immigrant Tool (TBT), an incomplete cell phone program that offers GPS, guidance, and poetry to those attempting to cross into the United States across the Mexico/US border. Reed suggests a provocation-based performance of “queer provisionality,” revealing the aesthetics of oppressive power structures by juxtaposing them to social utopias. Interrogating the national neoliberal project of both US liberalism and US conservatism, Reed’s essay is also a transcription of the performances launched around TBT, the social and political machinery set into motion by Electronic Disturbance Theater’s failed utopian project.

Book Review: Scanlon, The Pro-War Movement: Domestic Support for the Vietnam War and the Making of Modern American Conservatism, by Joseph Crespino

Book Review: Scanlon, The Pro-War Movement: Domestic Support for the Vietnam War and the Making of Modern American Conservatism, by Joseph Crespino

Ideology of the image in the Albanian films of socialist realism

By means of this paper, I will try to introduce you with a very clear analysis of the important impact of Albanian cinematography, where films like: Mountains covered of green (Malet me Blerim mbuluar) or “The bride and the curfew”(Nusja dhe shtetrrethimi) had an essential role in promoting communist ideology, as well as movies such as „Rambo“, „Full Metal Jacket“ or „Rocky that were also characterized by the reflection of American conservatism in the late 80s, a period that reached its peak with President Reagan coming in power. This analysis will be accomplished through a comparative approach of these kinds of films that publicly show the heroism of a nation as well as a clear boundary between the good and the bad, the hero and the coward, being characterized often by a kind of delirium outbreak of racial superiority. This culture of collective image perceived as art, will be analyzed in ideological field that the culture itself intends to convey to operative mechanisms of images policy. In this theoretical journey, I will rely on analysis that Douglas Kellner made for Hollywood movies in his article: “Films, politics and ideology: Reflections on Hollywood Film in the age of Reagan”.

Why Do Conservatives Report Being Happier Than Liberals? The Contribution of Neuroticism

Previous studies suggest that conservatives in the United States are happier than liberals. This difference has been attributed to factors including differences in socioeconomic status, group memberships, and system-justifying beliefs. We suggest that differences between liberals and conservatives in personality traits may provide an additional account for the "happiness gap". Specifically, we investigated the role of neuroticism (or conversely, emotional stability) in explaining the conservative-liberal happiness gap. In Study 1 (N = 619), we assessed the correlation between political orientation (PO) and satisfaction with life (SWL), controlling for the Big Five traits, religiosity, income, and demographic variables. Neuroticism, conscientiousness, and religiosity each accounted for the PO-SWL correlation. In Study 2 (N = 700), neuroticism, system justification beliefs, conscientiousness, and income each accounted for PO-SWL correlation. In both studies, neuroticism negatively correlated with conservatism. We suggest that individual differences in neuroticism represent a previously under-examined contributor to the SWL disparity between conservatives and liberals.

The Libertarian Right and the Religious Right

A key dynamic in American conservatism is the relationship between conservatives adhering to broadly libertarian views and those whose conservatism is more closely tied to religious traditionalism, a difference we hypothesize is rooted in psychological predispositions of the sort considered by Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory. To better understand the structure of cooperation and competition between these groups, we construct an anatomy of the American center-right, which identifies them as incipient factions within the conservative movement and its political instrument, the Republican Party. In addition, we find two other potential factions, an “Establishment” group without strong ideological commitments beyond general conservatism, and a smaller “Activist” group, associated with the Tea Party, that fuses libertarianism and strong religious views. Although successful cooperation among conservative factions is critical to electoral success, we suggest this is threatened by conflicting attempts to appeal to heterogeneous “moderate” constituencies with either religious or libertarian leanings. We conclude with a discussion of the tendency of the contemporary conservative movement to reconcile its tensions by emphasizing conservative libertarianism (i.e. “classical liberalism), while at the same situating this in a natural rights framework that provides a role for religion.

A Conservative Conversation Worth Having: Alasdair MacIntyre and John Finnis on Morality, Politics and the Common Good

In “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching” Patrick Deneen identified and elaborated upon an important division within “conservative“ American Catholicism. That division turns on competing conceptions and evaluations of liberalism, and, by extension, America. A parallel division exists within American conservatism more generally. On the one hand are what can be called “Front Porch Republicans” (named after the website around which these conservatives are organized). Front Porch Republicans regard liberalism of any kind as inherently corrosive, and because liberalism is written into the genetic code of the American political order, they are also critical of the American regime. On the other hand are what can be called “Natural Law Liberals” (a term coined by Christopher Wolfe). Natural Law Liberals distinguish between a positive form of classical liberalism that is continuous with the natural law tradition, and a form of modern liberalism that is not. For Natural Law Liberals, the principles of the American founding embody a form of Natural Law Liberalism. Whereas Front Porch Republicans often appeal to Alasdair MacIntyre in defense of their arguments, Natural Law Liberals often appeal to John Finnis. That such a division exists between MacIntyre and Finnis is often taken for granted. But a close examination of their writings suggests more common ground between them than either Front Porch Republicans or Natural Law Liberals usually acknowledge. In this paper I attempt to identify that common ground by exploring MacIntyre and Finnis's conceptions of morality, politics and the common good. I also attempt to indicate places where there is disagreement, and where further clarification is required. This essay is intended to be the first word, and not the last word, on this subject. It is a call to conversation, rather than a showdown, between Front Porch Republicans and Natural Law Liberals.

Introduction to the Symposium: Alasdair MacIntyre and American Politics

In the early months of 2014, Notre Dame politics professor Patrick Deneen published a provocative article in The American Conservative magazine titled “A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching.” Deneen o...

Be mindful of a self-reported gap

Political Psychology Happiness is a notoriously hard to pin down quantity possibly best described by the phrase, “I know it when I see it.” Self-reported ratings of happiness are generally higher for political conservatives in the United States than for those with more liberal leanings. Wojcik et al. examined three data sets based on behavioral measures, such as tweets and smiles. Despite self-reported claims to the contrary, liberals exhibited more happiness than their more conservative counterparts. For instance, as judged from their photographs on a business-oriented social network, more employees of the New York Times smiled genuinely than did those of the Wall Street Journal . Science , this issue p. [1243][1] [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1260817

Conservatives report, but liberals display, greater happiness.

Research suggesting that political conservatives are happier than political liberals has relied exclusively on self-report measures of subjective well-being. We show that this finding is fully mediated by conservatives' self-enhancing style of self-report (study 1; N = 1433) and then describe three studies drawing from "big data" sources to assess liberal-conservative differences in happiness-related behavior (studies 2 to 4; N = 4936). Relative to conservatives, liberals more frequently used positive emotional language in their speech and smiled more intensely and genuinely in photographs. Our results were consistent across large samples of online survey takers, U.S. politicians, Twitter users, and LinkedIn users. Our findings illustrate the nuanced relationship between political ideology, self-enhancement, and happiness and illuminate the contradictory ways that happiness differences can manifest across behavior and self-reports.

The Decline of Military Adventurism in the Conservative Big Tent

It is now clear that the American conservative movement can no longer be easily categorized as “hawkish” on foreign policy. This essay examines the different perspectives, ranging from intellectuals and experts to grassroots conservatives and popular political culture, to grasp the widening range of foreign policy preferences that currently make up the conservative movement (or conservative big tent). Second, this essay considers the challenges that these hawks, mainly the neoconservatives, are likely to face due to the realities of generational politics. This essay will therefore provide a useful analysis of the different foreign policy preferences in the American conservative movement in the 21st century.

Recession Resonance: How Evangelical Megachurch Pastors Promoted Fiscal Conservatism in the Aftermath of the 2008 Financial Crash

Abstract Jesus often spoke about the Christian obligation to provide for the poor. Yet, public opinion polls and scholarly studies consistently find that conservative Protestant voters favor economic policies of low taxes, limited state spending on welfare, and personal responsibility for financial success. This study uses evangelical sermons as a means for analyzing how conservative economic discourse, defined as a preference for limited government interference in market activities, proliferated inside American megachurches over four years following the 2008 recession. It also examines how pastors of large congregations rhetorically justified support for policies that scholars have shown work against the economic interests of middle-class and poor citizens alike. The study found that when megachurch pastors speak about economic issues, they deploy language and arguments that emphasize American economic providence and the need for individuals to take personal responsibility for financial outcomes, premises that afforded pastors the discursive space necessary for making claims about the superiority of private charity over public welfare. These findings suggest that, contrary to arguments that situate the public discourse of conservative Protestants as being mostly about social issues, there is inside evangelicalism a robust conversation about financial questions. This economic discourse is strikingly similar to that of nonreligious conservatives in the United States, a confluence that works to create a rhetorical resonance among the base constituencies inside the Republican Party and so fortify its ideological appeal and strength.

Formulating an anti-environmental opposition: neoconservative intellectuals during the environmental decade

Neoconservative intellectuals – men and women who, in the 1950s and 1960s identified as liberals and leftists – began to move steadily rightward in the 1970s. Transformations within the American environmental movement played a formative role in this process. In the 1960s, future neoconservatives supported environmental protection, but their perception of environmentalism as a radical movement driven by class interests and hostile to capitalism led them to enlist within the ranks of American conservatism. They fashioned an anti-environmental ideology that helped ensure lasting opposition between environmentalists and conservatives in late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century America.

Mitochondrial Genetic Structure and Matrilineal Origin of White Sharks, Carcharodon carcharias, in the Northeastern Pacific: Implications for Their Conservation.

White sharks (Carcharodon carcharias, WS henceforth) are globally and regionally threatened. Understanding their patterns of abundance and connectivity, as they relate to habitat use, is central for delineating conservation units and identifying priority areas for conservation. We analyzed mitochondrial data to test the congruence between patterns of genetic connectivity and of individual movements in the Northeastern Pacific (NEP) and to trace the matrilineal origin of immature WS from coastal California and Baja California to adult aggregation areas. We analyzed 186 mitochondrial control region sequences from sharks sampled in Central California (CC; n = 61), Southern California Bight (SCB; n = 25), Baja California Pacific coast (BCPC; n = 9), Bahía Vizcaíno (BV; n = 39), Guadalupe Island (GI; n = 45), and the Gulf of California (GC; n = 7). Significant mitochondrial differentiation between adult aggregation areas (CC, GI) revealed two reproductive populations in the NEP. We found general concordance between movement patterns of young and adult WS with genetic results. Young sharks from coastal California and Baja California were more likely born from females from GI. Mitochondrial differentiation of young-of-the-year from SCB and BV suggests philopatry to nursery areas in females from GI. These results provide a genetic basis of female reproductive behavior at a regional scale and point to a preponderance of sharks from GI in the use of the sampled coastal region as pupping habitat. These findings should be considered in Mexican and US management and conservation strategies of the WS NEP population.

The Republican Party in the Age of Roosevelt: Sources of Anti-government Conservatism in the United States

Journal Article The Republican Party in the Age of Roosevelt: Sources of Anti-government Conservatism in the United States Get access Elliot A. Rosen. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014. xvi, 229 pp. $39.50.) Journal of American History, Volume 101, Issue 3, December 2014, Pages 975–976, https://doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jau594 Published: 01 December 2014

“Red China” and the “Yellow Peril”: How Ideology Divides Americans over China

Based on a 2011 national survey, I argue that while US conservatives feel somewhat cooler toward the East Asian democracies than US liberals do, they feel much cooler toward China. Greater average conservative than liberal prejudice lingers, cooling attitudes toward the “Yellow Peril” of all Asian countries, but communism is a larger source of ideological differences over China. For cultural, social, economic, and political reasons, conservatives feel substantially cooler than liberals toward both communist countries in general and “Red China” in particular. I conclude by suggesting that with gerrymandering and ongoing ideological sorting, these ideological differences over China on Main Street may come to play a greater role in the making of US China policy.

Big Man with a 3D-Printed Gun: One Possible Solution to the Public Safety Problems Presented by Manufacturing Non-Metal Firearms with 3D Printers

At this very moment, anyone who wants to murder a judge, legislator or even president candidate could do so with an untraceable plastic gun built at home for about $1,500. This is possible due to advances in 3D printing, a manufacturing process which could revolutionize how everything from toys to buildings is made in the United States in the coming decades. But as the buzz around 3D printing has grown, so to has a culture seeking to use this technology to build firearms that circumvent federal gun regulations. While some pundits have speculated that 3D-printed guns are an unstoppable threat to gun control, several states and cities have already tried to enact laws to regulate these “wiki weapons.” While these flat bans are a start to protect public safety, they all fail to take into account how 3D-printed guns could be stopped at the source: 3D printers. This article argues that all 3D printers sold within the United States should be mandated to ship with software that can detect and refuse to manufacture working firearm parts. It uses Second Amendment jurisprudence, specifically Heller v. D.C. to argue that the federal government has the power to ban 3D-printed plastic firearms, and that Congress could enact such laws because of its powers under the commerce clause. While gun control is unpopular among conservatives in the United States, this article also argues that traditional opponents of gun control laws such as the NRA could actually favor laws banning 3D-printed firearms because of the threat these weapons to pose to the profits of gun manufacturers.

Establish No Religion: Brevard Hand's Civil-Libertarian Turn

An important dimension of American conservatism is its moral-cultural character. That character often manifests itself as a celebration of nonurban “real Americans” and resentment toward educated, (post)modernist liberals and the minority groups whose interests those liberals defend. Conservatism since World War II, considered in moral-cultural terms, has essentially been a majoritarian impulse, even when cloaked in civil-libertarian terms. Although conservatives have sometimes understood themselves as political outsiders, they have consistently claimed the status of true, essential Americans whose political dominance could, through new strategies, somehow be restored. Although this majoritarian impulse can be studied in regard to anticommunism and desegregation, this essay traces its impact on religion in public education. In response to the minority rights activism of the left and rulings by the Supreme Court, conservatives have again and again reiterated William Jennings Bryan's insistence that plainspoken taxpayers had the right to fashion whatever public educational policies they wished. Traditionally religious Americans—recently, evangelicals joined by Catholics—have portrayed themselves as genuine, faith-driven Americans entitled to manage local schools as they chose, as long as their chosen policies did not violate the explicit prohibitions of the Constitution. Conservative intellectuals have defended this right by lauding representative democracy, especially at the local level, while bemoaning Alexander Bickel's counter majoritarian problem.1

The Pro-War Movement: Domestic Support for the Vietnam War and the Making of Modern American Conservatism

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