Center-Right Parties in Britain and Australia: What Do They Stand For?

If there is anything that’s characterized American conservatism over the past ten years, it is ever-fiercer debates about ideas. Once-ostensibly settled positions on issues such as trade, originalism, and foreign policy have come up for discussion in ways that few anticipated. Many has been the occasion when I’ve heard some conservatives express frustration about this state of affairs. It’s a distraction, they say, from the important work of winning elections.

Elections do matter, and debates about ideas can certainly degenerate into navel-gazing exercises. But consider the alternative: a world in which conservative and classical-liberal ideas play little to no role in center-right politics.

About the Author

Samuel Gregg

Samuel Gregg is Friedrich Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research and the author, most recently, of The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World (2022).

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If there is anything that’s characterized American conservatism over the past ten years, it is ever-fiercer debates about ideas. Once-ostensibly settled positions on issues such as trade, originalism, and foreign policy have come up for discussion in ways that few anticipated. Many has been the occasion when I’ve heard some conservatives express frustration about this state of affairs. It’s a distraction, they say, from the important work of winning elections.

Elections do matter, and debates about ideas can certainly degenerate into navel-gazing exercises. But consider the alternative: a world in which conservative and classical-liberal ideas play little to no role in center-right politics.

About the Author

Samuel Gregg

Samuel Gregg is Friedrich Hayek Chair in Economics and Economic History at the American Institute for Economic Research and the author, most recently, of The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World (2022).