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ABSTRACT
Political events since 2016 have prompted rapidly growing sociological interest in varieties of conservative, populist, and nationalist politics. This article lays out an initial challenge for studying these varieties of politics effectively: the discipline’s knowledge of conservatism is relatively limited, but members of the discipline possess strong beliefs and opinions about the phenomenon, and are regular consumers of media accounts that commonly rely upon doubtful or unsociological assumptions. The article presents a brief overview of work still to be done. It then discusses common habits of mind that may produce explanations that are incomplete or asymmetric – that is, explanations that account for right-leaning political sentiments or activities using categories essentially distinct from those commonly used to explain left-leaning analogues. The article concludes by discussing several viable approaches to explaining political conservatism and related phenomena.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This belief is readily understandable, given that “states’ rights” is a phrase that will call to mind the American Civil War or massive opposition to civil rights reform. But it may also be noted that state governments have often been the motors of progressive social and political change. In the 19th Century, abolitionism and women’s suffrage were both political goals that met with important success in the states (on women’s suffrage see Keyssar Citation2009). In the 20th Century, the reforms of the Progressive Era were also substantially state-based. Although the discipline is rightly critical of the racial and anti-immigrant motives underlying important features of the Progressives’ reform agenda (see FitzGerald and Cook-Martin Citation2014), it remains the case that Progressives’ involvement in state government was the source of public primary elections, direct democracy, direct election of senators, merit-based civil service systems, banking and securities regulations, campaign finance regulations, municipal home rule, and the “labor relations” approach to industrial conflict, as well as many of the social welfare efforts that would later become the central features of the New Deal (see, for instance, Amenta Citation1998; Clemens Citation1997). Today, the most meaningful opposition to the Trump Administration’s restrictive immigration agenda arises from state and local governments. The predominance of state and local control of universities, libraries, and cultural investment has undoubtedly protected the vibrancy of these institutions during recurring periods of deeply anti-intellectual sentiment in national government.
2. These examples are offered, first, because they are especially likely to be described as secretive. But they are also useful examples because they are so often mentioned when conservatism is a topic of sociological conversation; these are organizations whose importance and influence is widely assumed. This is not to say that they are unimportant. However, readers who hold a belief in the importance and influence of these organizations might ask themselves the following question: how was this belief acquired, and on what grounds?
3. This discussion proceeds on the view that explanatory symmetry in the study of progressive and conservative views is desirable. The claim that similar categories or frameworks of explanation ought to be used, however, does not imply that researchers themselves must be politically neutral or that “ideological balance” must be sought in the composition of the discipline itself. As this section notes, more overtly proclaimed value commitments could, in some cases, also produce stronger research.
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Ben Merriman
Ben Merriman is an assistant professor at the School of Public Affairs & Administration at the University of Kansas. Merriman’s book, Conservative Innovators: How States are Challenging Federal Power, was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2019. Merriman’s ongoing research examines the increasing politicization of administrative and legal forums in American government.