Authors: Bobbio, Matteucci, Pasquino
Summary: In this entry, the a. points out the definition of the term, its origins and its contemporary meaning.
In political science, the term conservatism is referred to those ideas and attitudes aiming at the maintenance of the current political system and its procedure of working. In the current use, conservatism is defined in opposition to progressism: the latter means an optimistic attitude as regards the possibilities of perfectioning and autonomous development of the human civilization and of every individual inside it.
The opposition between conservatism and progressism was born at the beginning of the process of secularization of the European political thought: the previous Christian thought did not propose an alternative between them, because its historical perspective was static and its values of reference were ultramontane. The conservatism arised as an answer to the 18th century theories, which claimed the human possibility of increasing the command over the nature and the attainment of happiness: this phenomenon caused a break of the tradition and of the European cultural and political conscience. During the 19th and 20th centuries, progressism and, in consequence, conservatism have been emboding in many different political movements. In particular during the 19th century, progressism acquired three main features: a sceintific one, a democratic one and an historical-materialistic one: these ones together represented the interpretative models and the ideologies at the basis of the 19th century great changes.
At the end of the entry, the a. maintains that in the contemporary mass society the opposition between