La construction du conservatisme moderne
aux États-Unis.

Foreword

By James W. Ceasser

Professeur of Politics at the University of Virginia (USA)

Anyone wishing to understand the origins and development of American conservatism can do no better than to read Bernard Sionneau's La Construction du Conservatisme Moderne aux États-Unis. In a space of less than 231 pages, Sionneau provides a remarkably full account of both the intellectual currents that led to the founding and transformation of the conservative movement, and the efforts that went into building an impressive institutional infrastructure of foundations and think tanks. Sionneau explores these topics in the course of a narrative that traces the growth of the conservative movement from a tiny and marginalized minority at the end of World War II to a political force that commanded the majority of the nation as a whole. His study culminates, fittingly, in a discussion of the conservative's most celebrated figure, Ronald Reagan, who led the movement to victory in 1980.

Sionneau's book reveals one of the most important, yet least understood features of the conservative movement. Despite the common label, conservatism in America has never comprised a theoretical unity. It has instead been a coalition of disparate elements holding different and some-times contradictory first principles. Two factors explain how these elements have been able to coalesce : a shared opposition to the American Left and the creative efforts of certain intellectuals and politicians to forge common ground. Even so, the periods of real unity have been brief and the relations among the different components have often proven unstable. Conservatives have sometimes held together better when they have been in the opposition, fighting the Left, thon when they have held the reins of power.

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Sionneau identifies two phases in the construction of a workable conservative coalition. The first took place during the 1950s and early 1960s. Known as « fusionism », it sought to bring together the two dominant conservative strands of the day : libertarianism (or economic liberalism), which praised the market and began its reasoning from the individual actor, and traditionalism, which promoted the old values of biblical religion and classical virtue, and which often took its bearings from the community. Fusionism discovered common ground by stressing a robust anti-communism. This position led most libertarians and traditionalists to reject definitively an older form of conservatism, prominent before the War, that favored isolationism and the building of a « fortress America. » The new conservatism was internationalist, though in a way that emphasized the role of the American nation and its alliances, not the United Nations. Traditionalists and libertarians also found agreement in their opposition to a growing welfare state, which threatened both a market economy and the powers and traditions of local communities.

Conservatism in this phase began as a minority within the Republican Party. Conservatives had reservations about both Eisenhower and Nixon, who were closer to the center-left of the Party. It was a matter of intense dispute among conservatives whether to stay in the Republican Party, trying to influence it from the inside, or go their own way and form a separate party. The issue was temporarily resolved in 1964 in favor of allegiance, when conservatives took over the party and nominated Barry Goldwater. But Goldwater's subsequent defeat in a landslide to Lyndon Johnson made clear, even to conservatives, that the day of conservative national majority lay somewhere in the future. It was time for a tactical retreat.

The second phase of modem conservatism, in Sionneau's account, was launched in the 1970s. It depended on the emergence of two new elements that offered an opportunity for the expansion and strengthening of the conservative movement. One was a reawakening of religious-minded [15] voters, who began to mobilize for political activity as a result of their concern over the over the growing secularization of the culture and the dramatic increase in abortions following the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973. This religions movement supplied conservatism with a mass base that it previously lacked. The other development was the rise of neo-conservatism. Neo-conservatives consisted of a group of intellectuals, all Democrats at the outset, who grew increasingly disenchanted with the direction of their party in the 1960s. For some thinkers, the problem was Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs, many of which proved to hsve harmful unintended consequences ; for other thinkers, it was the influence of the New Lefl, which preached a mix of neo-isolationism, anti-militarism, and even anti-Americanism. Although some neo-conservatives remained Democrats, hoping to restore the Party to its old roots, many cut the knot and by 1980 supported Ronald Reagan. This shift helped to change the intellectual balance of power in America, brin-ging some of the nation's best and brightest into the conservative movement.

The result of these developments was a much broader conservative movement thon had existed a decade earlier. It consisted now of four elements : traditionalists, economic liberals (in the European sense), religious conservatives, and neo-conservatives. With this breadth came the problem of trying to manage an even more diverse coalition. Could this new creature with four heads manage to develop one heart ?

It is one of the great strengths of Bernard Sionneau's book that he does not limit his account exclusively to currents of intellectual thought. In explaining the growth of conservatism, he devotes a full chapter to another critical aspect of the story : the creation of a conservative intellectual infrastructure. Conservative philanthropists teamed with intellectuals to create new foundations and think tanks to help engage the battle of ideas and to provide a counter-weight to the liberal establishment, which until then dominated [16] the scene. These institutions sponsored research, provided grants to scholars and students, and supported policy experts in the dissemination of ideas and information. Without the development of this large and impressive institutional edifice, it is unlikely that the conservative movement would have been able to consolidate its gains and sustain its influence. Many of these institutions support one kind of conservatism, but in some cases they have sought directly to promote a cross-fertilization of ideas and people.

Ronald Reagan was the political leader who in 1980 built the coalition among all four elements of the expanded conservative movement. His victory brought conservatism to the center of the Republican Party and made it the largest single ideology or viewpoint within the American public, surpassing liberalism. Reagan performed a balancing act among the coalition's different elements, embracing aspects of the agenda of each and seeking to appease or satisfy their concerns by his rhetoric. Sionneau's interesting account of the Reagan presidency shows, however, that Reagan often left each element dissatisfied. It was impossible to meet all of their conflicting demands, and the exigencies of governing sometimes led Reagan to deviate from conservative dogma. Reagan was less of a "pure" conservative than many in the movement hoped for or expected. Yet Reagan became so important a political figure that his image became valuable property, which remains the case even today. Those on the Left have sought desperately to tear that image down, while conservatives have felt compelled to rally to his support, even at the price, Sionneau observes, of concealing some of their own disappointments.

La Construction du Conservatisme Moderne aux États-Unis provides deep insights into the rise of American conservatism. It is an example of intellectual, institutional, and political history at its finest.