Project overview

International Perspectives on Conservatism is a research project that aims to support a deeper understanding of what conservatism is and how it can contribute to stable, free, prosperous, and secure democratic societies.

The project will begin with a series of public lectures and conversations, hosted by the Blavatnik School of Government, by leading academics and policymakers from around the world. This will lead to the publication of an edited volume on international conservative thought by a major academic press, intended to help provide intellectual diversity for civic and political education in universities.

About the project

The world seems to be stuck in the inflection point of the last few years, with domestic turmoil in democracies leading principally to polarisation. This has been compounded by a newer, adversarial turn in international relations, as authoritarian regimes and democracies try to determine what an era of competition, verging on confrontation, will look like.

For countries committed to democratic governance, marked by the rule of law and guaranteed human rights, can a new consensus be forged for this new order, within which parties compete for political power? It is now more important than ever to understand what conservatism is, how it informs the political right, and how it might contribute to such a consensus.

What can we learn from the conservative intellectual tradition about trust, justice, order and good government? How might conservative ideas help us to articulate what a ‘responsible right’ would advocate for, both in foreign policy and its domestic agenda? And what might this look like in different national contexts?