The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Liberal conservatism[edit]

Liberal conservatism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)

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not in sources given Darkstar1st (talk) 02:54, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

None of the top three sources mention the term in english, or were translated into such by a RS. a total of 34 citations for the top 3 sources, clearly the term does not exist elsewhere as was determined in the 1st afd and delete or redirect was the recommendation of many then. The article has been tagged for 1 year to improve sources with no success. Darkstar1st (talk) 02:40, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2012 August 17. Snotbot  t • c »  02:59, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 03:07, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. 03:08, 17 August 2012 (UTC) • Gene93k (talk) 03:08, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Articles should be about topics. Although it is possible to apply the adjective liberal to the noun conservative, as various writers have, it does not create a separate topic. TFD (talk) 03:30, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Not an encyclopedic topic. A neologism or some such, used little and even less useful. Carrite (talk) 04:00, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – This is a definite political phenomenon: you can't explain the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada or David Cameron without distinguishing liberal conservatism from other conservative strains. There's only so much you can describe in a single article on Conservatism without sapping its coherence and overloading it beyond most readers' willingness to read. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:53, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

have any sources used the term describing that party? if not, wp:OR Darkstar1st (talk) 08:10, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep A term used and very readily understood in the the context of contemporary UK politics. The evidence is the way in which it is used in the titles of books and articles in the UK as a glance at Google will demonstrate. It works as a term not just because the UK Conservative Party is in coalition with the Liberal Democrats; it explains why and how David Cameron can argue that he is being philosophically coherent in on the one hand supporting the preservation of the best of inherited values and institutions and at the same time supporting eg gay marriage as an individual freedom. --AJHingston (talk) 09:40, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

please glance thru google and paste a few of those sources here, or, in the article as requested for over a year now. Darkstar1st (talk) 11:11, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, appears to have sufficient coverage to warrant notability. Then again there is this other form of the usage of the work dating back to at least 1937, and this. Subject is notable per multiple academic sources (such as 1 and 2).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 09:44, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

the sources you listed make the case for this being merged into classical liberalism, page 106 box 5.1 liberal conservatism is classical liberalism, small government and thriving capitalism page 105, 106 box 5.1, Analyzing Politics: An Introduction to Political ScienceDarkstar1st (talk) 11:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The very fact that we have in this one debate arguments in favour of a merger with articles on conservatism and on liberalism says a lot. And no, the policies espoused by Mr Cameron (to take a contemporary example) are not simply those of classical liberalism, though of course there are ideas consistent with that. The philosophy does, for example, accept that the state can have a positive impact on social wellbeing, and that the case for state intervention and participation in any instance is essentially pragmatic. In particular, it can conserve beneficial aspects of civil society that untrammelled freedom may tend to destroy. --AJHingston (talk) 12:29, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

do you have any sources that mention the term? It doesnt really matter what you, we, or David thinks, until some eggheads writes about it, no such term exist. Darkstar1st (talk) 14:01, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If a Head of Government describes his political philosophy in a particular way, then his use of the term becomes notable in WP terms and it get written about in that way then, now and subsequently. That includes disagreeing with his use of the term to describe his views, but that is just POV. I have avoided listing examples because they are so numerous and others will make a much better job of picking out the most useful, but one is here. --AJHingston (talk) 14:46, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

could you tell us what page, or even add the source to the article? Darkstar1st (talk) 15:23, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Conservatism-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 10:51, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The 1937 source uses the term "Liberal-Conservatism" (in capitals) as a reference to the Canadian "Liberal-Conservative Party" (which was a coalition of conservatives and some liberals). E.A. Houseman's article, which is also about Canada, says, "By liberal conservatism I refer to a discourse of liberalism...that consciously styled itself in opposition to the more radical forms of liberalism...." Your next source uses the term to distinguish the free market liberalism of Margaret Thatcher from the Tory paternalism of Ian Gilmour. Your next source, which is an introductory US textbook, uses the term "classical liberal conservatism" to refer to free market liberalism. So apparently these sources are mostly using the term to refer to neoclassical liberalism, which is what the article should be called. TFD (talk) 13:45, 17 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps then the due to the multitude of different meanings of the word/subject perhaps this article should be recreated as a disambiguate article, with different articles (with slightly different names) speaking about those different usages of the work.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 06:17, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

that would still leave us with the problem of no sources in english, or translated, using such a term. Were you able to find the term in print? if so, please share and/or add to the article. Darkstar1st (talk) 10:03, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• failed verification in the 1st source, Liberal conservatism is neither on page 2 as cited, nor anywhere else in the book. the other sources include a video of a david cameron making a speech, www.parties-and-elections.de(dead link), and source 2-5, which comprise the majority of text explaining the term, is from 2 pages of an obscure text. Darkstar1st (talk) 11:36, 18 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Being the one that put in the second and third source, maybe I should have a say on that. I am a political sociologist and have known the term "liberal conservative"for quite a long time. There`s nothing particularly controversial about its use. When I looked it up on wikipedia I found the article wasn`t particularly good, so what I did was to look for an online politics handbook, as those are better at putting long academic discussions into a compact form and that is a good way to go if you want to improve the intro of an article on a political ideology. There`s nothing obscure about a mainstream politcs handbook. From my experience I found it to be in agreement with academic literature and well phrased, so I used it. Trying to check it now on google, I found out they have taken the 2007 edition out and you can only access the 2008 edition (nothing obscure about yearly editions, right?), where this discussion goes on item 4.5 Liberal or Market Conservatism (p.117-120).

Now, I understand other users have found the term "clearly not to exist elsewhere" and "no improvement with sources have been made", but since my contributions are not that old and any person with knowledge on the field could attest that this is common political parlance, I must say, respectfully, they have no idea what they are talking about. Of course it would be nice to discuss in more detail how Burke, Tocqueville, Aron, Oakeshott and others relate to this ideology, and we could do a much better job about how political parties relate to it. That is no reason to delete the article, it is a reason to improve it!

On the matter of "neologism": a simple google academic search shows a lot of references to it, including a citation to this:

A View of Reform: By a Liberal Conservative. With Some Suggestions for a Reform Bill - 1866 - Dorrell

On the matter of David Cameron: yes, it is highly relevant that he identifies himself as such, and no, the fact that he does is not in any case necessary for this article to be considered important.

On the matter of "this is classical liberalism": no, what confuses people is that the "liberal" part in liberal conservatism is not what many (mostly americans) consider to be liberalism: it is the defense of capitalist property rights, free markets, guarantee of contracts, praise of meritocracy, and yes, small government. That is called classic liberalism in the united states and I`ve got no problem with that as long as it doesn`t cloud our vision from the fact that in political science and philosophy the definitions are different from those you see on your favorite news channel or paper. The conservatism comes from the defense of tradition and natural inequalities as inherent to human nature.

On how come people think this should be deleted: this is just a guess, but I think some people are confused to learn that much of what is called "true conservatism" in american everyday parlance is completely embedded in a liberal (classical liberal, if you wish) ideology that perpasses the whole of american mainstream political organizations. Some of those confused get angry with the idea that somehow what they consider conservatism is widely understood by academics to be closely related to liberalism, as they confuse liberalism with what they hear is liberalism on the news. Again, that is fine and understandable and nobody owns words. But come on, this is an encyclopedia people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marco.natalino (talk • contribs) 22:43, 23 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.