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CHAPTER 3 contemporary conservatives are keen to demonstrate their commitment to democratic, particularly liberal-democratic, principles, there is a tradition within conservatism that has favoured authoritarian rule, especially in continental Europe. At the time of the French Revolution, the principal defender of autocratic rule was the French political thinker Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821). De Maistre was a fierce critic of the French Revolution, but, in contrast to Burke, he wished to restore absolute power to the hereditary monarchy. He was a reactionary and was quite unprepared to accept any reform of the ancien régime , which had been overthrown in 1789. His political philosophy was based on willing and complete subordination to ‘the master’. In Du Pape ([1817] 1971) de Maistre went further and argued that above the earthly monarchies a supreme spiritual power should rule in the person of the pope. His central concern was the preservation of order, which alone, he believed, could provide people with safety and security. Revolution, and even reform, would weaken the chains that bind people together and lead to a descent into chaos and oppression.
KEY CONCEPT AUTHORITARIANISM
established leaders or the idea that social order can only be maintained by unquestioning obedience. However, authoritarianism is usually distinguished from totalitarianism (see p. 159). The practice of government ‘from above’, which is associated with monarchical absolutism, traditional dictatorships and most forms of military rule, is concerned with the repression of opposition and political liberty, rather than the more radical goal of obliterating the distinction between the state and civil society.
Authoritarianism is belief in or the practice of government ‘from above’, in which authority is exercised over a population with or without its consent. Authoritarianismthus differs fromauthority. The latter rests on legitimacy, and in that sense arises ‘from below’. Authoritarian thinkers typically base their views on either a belief in the wisdom of
Throughout the nineteenth century, conservatives in continental Europe remained faithful to the rigid and hierarchical values of autocratic rule, and stood unbending in the face of rising liberal, nationalist and socialist protest. Nowhere was authoritarianism more entrenched than in Russia, where Tsar Nicholas I (1825–55) proclaimed the principles of ‘orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality’, in contrast to the values that had inspired the French Revolution: ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’. Nicholas’ successors stubbornly refused to allow their power to be constrained by constitutions or the development of parliamentary institutions. InGermany, constitutional government diddevelop, butOtto vonBismarck, the imperial chancellor, 1871–90, ensured that it remained a sham. Elsewhere, authoritarianism remained particularly strong in Catholic countries. The papacy suffered not only the loss of its temporal authority with the achievement of Italian unification, which led Pope Pius IX to declare himself a ‘prisoner of the Vatican’, but also an assault on its doctrines with the rise of secular political ideologies. In 1864, Pius IX condemned all radical or progressive ideas, including those of nationalism, liberalism and socialism, as ‘false doctrines of our most unhappy age’, and when confronted with the loss of the papal states and Rome, he proclaimed in 1870 the edict of papal infallibility. The unwillingness of continental conservatives to come to terms with reform and democratic government extended well into the twentieth century. For instance, conservative elites in Italy and Germany helped to overthrow parliamentary democracy and bring Benito Mussolini (see p. 156) and Adolf Hitler (see p. 149) to power by providing support for, and giving respectability to, rising fascist movements. More recent manifestations of the link between social conservatism and authoritarianism have tended to be associated with neoconservatism.
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