Seminar explores historical roots of American conservatism

To understand American conservatism, Hoover scholar Peter Berkowitz finds it helpful to start with one question: What is this person, group, or movement trying to conserve? The query might seem straightforward – simple, even – but its answer reveals the complexities within a major political tradition. 

This past quarter, Stanford students delved into some of those nuances in Berkowitz’s seminar, POLISCI 237: Varieties of Conservatism in America, which he has taught each spring since 2022. The course is offered through the Stanford Civics Initiative (SCI), a joint endeavor between the School of Humanities and Sciences (H&S) and the Hoover Institution to examine the ideas and practices of democratic citizenship through teaching and research. 

As Berkowitz explained to students, there is no one American conservatism; rather, it is comprised of distinct and sometimes divergent assumptions, ideas, and factions. For example, one branch may prioritize preserving individual freedom, while another may prioritize upholding traditional morality and religious faith. 

An academic lens on conservatism 

Berkowitz has been studying the history of modern conservatism and progressivism for decades, beginning with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. At the time, debate had arisen about how to describe then-President George W. Bush’s style of conservatism. While Bush had campaigned as a “compassionate conservative” and an opponent of nation-building abroad, his actions after 9/11 to engage the U.S. in war in Afghanistan and Iraq prompted debate within the Republican party. 

“The question arose, was that conservative?” said Berkowitz, the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a former law and political science professor. While some applauded the intervention, others feared lengthy, foreign entanglements. “I was intrigued by the controversy, and I wanted to understand the issues better.” 

Berkowitz described the students who took his course as “particularly adventurous.” The class was politically diverse and all shared a similar goal: to engage in intellectually rigorous and respectful discussions that consider perspectives from across the political spectrum. 

“Everyone in the seminar approached the material with good faith,” said David Sacks, a third-year law student at Stanford Law School, who was eager to take a course with Berkowitz, a political philosopher he has long admired. Sacks first encountered SCI when he took POLISCI 330A: Origins of Political Thought, taught by its founder, Josiah Ober.

From the very first class, Berkowitz emphasized the importance of asking questions and encouraged students to play devil’s advocate to challenge any preconceived notions, whether their own or in the texts they study. “I return to John Stuart Mill again and again on the value of free speech,” Berkowitz said. “To use Mill’s language, a mind cannot be well furnished and adroit unless it's gone to school with both progressives and conservatives.” He added that “I also regularly remind students that Edmund Burke’s ‘standard of a statesman’ is ‘[a] disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together.’” 

Illuminating a rich history in political thought 

The first half of the course provided an overview of political thought from across American history. Students read the 18th-century political philosopher John Locke, who articulates principles of freedom on which America is based, and Karl Marx’s 19th-century critique of individual rights and capitalism, because “understanding conservatism also requires an appreciation of the leading alternative to the American experiment in ordered liberty,” Berkowitz said. 

They turned to the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Federalist Papers – seminal texts that articulate what conservatives in the 20th and 21st centuries sought to preserve. 

Students then delved into the writing of Friedrich Hayek and Russell Kirk, two thinkers who shaped modern conservatism, which Berkowitz explained did not coalesce into its own “self-conscious” movement until after World War II. Here, too, were differing perspectives, with Hayek arguing for a constitutional framework that respects individual liberty, private property, and limited government, and Kirk proposing a framework rooted in tradition and religious faith.

For sophomore Alexander Chasun, the course gave him a deeper understanding of what drives political disagreement, and it’s not always the issues themselves. Rather, it is the perspective they bring to them. 

“What people value also drives how they view the world and approach policy,” Chasun said. “Competing values cause much of the tension between liberals and conservatives.” 

As Berkowitz explained to students, democracy in America rests on a system that reflects the collective will of its citizens, often realized through majority decision-making. But when Americans think about democracy, they also mean the protection of their individual rights. 

“We have a complex form of government in which we’re engaging in two tasks simultaneously that are in tension with one another,” Berkowitz said. “One task gives expression to majority will, but the other task ensures everyone’s rights are protected by putting some actions and goals beyond the reach of majorities regardless of how large and impassioned. To understand conservatism – and to understand America – you must grasp the interplay of conflicting principles and opinions,” Berkowitz said. 

Seeing how people can govern across political differences was one of the reasons computer science major Diana Zawadzki, ’25, took the class. 

“I wanted to get a well-rounded, empathetic understanding of what is happening in the world, and to understand what the flaws of each system are and how we can prevent going too far to the left and going too far to the right,” she said. 

Zawadzki found it interesting to learn about the iterative process of political change. Students examined how individual rights have grown across U.S. history, reading reformists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton on expanding the right to vote, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln on abolishing slavery, Franklin Delano Roosevelt on advancing human rights abroad, and Martin Luther King Jr. on building a civil rights movement. 

Here, students encountered a fertile complexity: These figures sought to improve America in the spirit of progressive reform, yet to guide that reform, they appealed to America’s founding principles and constitutional ideals in the spirit of conservative respect for tradition. Berkowitz sees conservatism and progressivism as incomplete on their own; American democracy requires that they work together. 

Zawadzki found this inspiring. “I think that if we can agree on the fundamentals – protecting individual rights and fostering virtue – and find a way to balance both, I think that’s a very inspiring vision for the future,” she said. 

The course culminated with a discussion of conservatism today. Students discussed shifts in foreign policy, including a move away from free market principles implemented under President Ronald Reagan to an approach known as “economic nationalism” unfolding today under President Donald Trump.   

Berkowitz hopes that as a result of the course, students will be “more thoughtful” about conservatism and American politics in general, and appreciative of what has been achieved since the country’s founding, “even with our deficiencies,” he said.

“Every class at Stanford, whatever the topic, should encourage students to acquire knowledge by asking questions, exchanging opinions, seeing matters from differing points of view, and thinking for themselves,” Berkowitz said.