Blackwell Reference Online

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Neoconservatism is a particular variant of American conservatism. The label was first applied in the 1970s to a group of dissident liberal intellectuals around particular journals such as the Public Interest and Commentary . They included Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Bell, and Seymour Martin Lipset. Unlike the term neoliberal, the neoconservatives adopted the label with enthusiasm, describing it as a persuasion rather than as a faction. As an important if small intellectual elite, they became a component of the growing conservative movement in America through the 1980s and 1990s. Some neoconservatives were influential in the Reagan administration, but they appeared to be in decline in the 1990s. Nevertheless, several neoconservatives were appointed to significant posts in the George W. Bush administration, and speculation on the influence of neoconservatism on the policies of the administration after 9/11, particularly the war against Iraq, mounted. Most of the neocons did not start off as conservatives. They came from a range of ideological backgrounds, including various kinds of liberalism as well as Trotskyism. The formative experience which made them neocons was their reaction to the events of the 1960s, in particular the student movement, the anti-war movement, and the counterculture with its strident denunciations of traditional culture. They criticized the ... log in or subscribe to read full text