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CHAPTER 3 Neoconservatives have developed distinctive views about both domestic policy and foreign policy. The two principal domestic concerns of neoconservatism have been with social order and public morality. Neoconservatives believe that rising crime, delinquency and anti-social behaviour are generally a consequence of a larger decline of authority that has affected most Western societies since the 1960s. They have therefore called for a strengthening of social disciplines and authority at every level. This can be seen in relation to the family. For neoconservatives, the family is an authority system: it is both naturally hierarchical – children should listen to, respect and obey their parents – and naturally patriarchal. The husband is the provider and the wife the home-maker. This social authoritarianism is matched by state authoritarianism, the desire for a strong state reflected in a ‘tough’ stance on law and order. This led, in the USA and the UK in particular, to a greater emphasis on custodial sentences and to longer prison sentences, reflecting the belief that ‘prison works’. Neoconservatism’s concern about public morality is based on a desire to reassert the moral foundations of politics. A particular target of neoconservative criticism has been the ‘permissive 1960s’ and the growing culture of ‘doing your own thing’. In the face of this, Thatcher in the UK proclaimed her support for ‘Victorian values’, and in the USA organizations such as the Moral Majority campaigned for a return to ‘traditional’ or ‘family’ values. Neoconservatives see two dangers in a permissive society. In the first place, the freedom to choose one’s own morals or lifestyle could lead to the choice of immoral or ‘evil’ views. There is, for instance, a significant religious element in neoconservatism, especially in the USA. The second danger is not so much that people may adopt the wrong morals or lifestyles, but may simply choose different moral positions. In the neoconservative view, moral pluralism is threatening because it undermines the cohesion of society. A permissive society is a society that lacks ethical norms and unifying moral standards. It is a ‘pathless desert’, which provides neither guidance nor support for individuals and their families. If individuals merely do as they please, civilized standards of behaviour will be impossible to maintain. The issue that links the domestic and foreign policy aspects of neoconservative thinking is a concern about the nation and the desire to strengthen national identity in the face of threats from within and without. The value of the nation, from the neoconservative perspective, is that it binds society together, giving it a common culture and civic identity, which is all the stronger for being rooted in history and tradition. National patriotism (see p. 125) thus strengthens people’s political will. The most significant threat to the nation ‘from within’ is the growth of multiculturalism, which weakens the bonds of nationhood by threatening political community and creating the spectre of ethnic and racial conflict. Neoconservatives have therefore often been in the forefront of campaigns for stronger controls on immigration and, sometimes, for a privileged status to be granted to the ‘host’ community’s culture. Such concerns have widened and deepened as a result of the advance of globalization. The threats to the nation ‘from without’ are many and various. In the UK, the main perceived threat came from the process of European integration. Indeed, in a process that commenced in the 1980s under Thatcher and
culminated in withdrawal from the EU (Brexit) in 2020, UK conservatism was increasingly defined by ‘ Euroscepticism ’. Since the turn of the twenty- first century, however, neoconservatism has been associated more and more clearly with right-wing populism. (See Chapter 8 for a discussion of the rise and implications of right-wing populism.)
Euroscepticism: Hostility to European integration based on the belief that it is a threat to national sovereignty and/or national identity.
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