Liberalism, conservatism and contested boundaries

Within contemporary liberal democracies, the relationship between liberalism and conservatism is a contested one. Some political parties, seeking to challenge a more egalitarian left-wing tradition, have sought to combine both within their political agenda. This article uses a debate between two professional politicians, George Brandis and John Howard, concerning the relationship between liberalism and conservatism, and the respective place of these political traditions within the Liberal Party of Australia, as the impetus for an investigation of both political traditions and the extent to which each are compatible as political philosophies. The discussion extends to an investigation of key liberal political philosophers - John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, Friedrich von Hayek and James Buchanan. We shall see that these thinkers split on the extent to which liberalism is capable of incorporating conservative principles, thereby revealing the contested boundaries of the liberal tradition. As a result of this investigation, we shall see that the liberal tradition is in fact far more plural, and at times less individualist, than some of its most rigorous proponents proclaim.