Conservatism elsewhere in western Europe was generally represented by two or more parties, ranging from the liberal centre to the moderate and extremeright. The three types ofconservative party were theagrarian (particularly in Scandinavia), theChristian Democratic, and those parties allied closely with big business. These categories are very general and are not mutuallyexclusive.

The Christian Democratic parties had the longest history, their predecessors having emerged in the 19th century to support the church and themonarchy against liberal andradical elements. AfterWorld War I, supporters of business became the predominant element in these parties. InItaly clerical interests remained strongly represented in the Christian Democratic Party (from 1993 theItalian Popular Party), which dominated governments in that country for four decades from 1945. This party never possessed acoherent policy, however, because it was little more than adisparate alliance of moderate and conservative interest groups. The Christian Democrats anchored a long series of governing coalitions with smaller centrist parties and theItalian Socialist Party. These coalitions, while often politically ineffective and increasingly corrupt, served to exclude the large Italian Communist Party (from 1991 theDemocratic Party of the Left) from power through the end of theCold War. When theSoviet Union collapsed in 1991 andcommunism was no longer perceived as a threat to Europe, the Christian Democrats lost much of their support. Theireclipse coincided with the growth of other conservative and nationalist groups formerly outside the mainstream of Italian politics—such as the Northern League, which called for the creation of a federated Italianrepublic, and theNational Alliance (until 1994 the Italian Social Movement), which many regarded asneofascist—and with the founding in 1994 of a new conservative party, Forza Italia (“Go, Italy!”), by the media tycoonSilvio Berlusconi.

InGermany, a country divided between Roman Catholics and Protestants, the church played a far less significant role in the main conservative party, theChristian Democratic Union. After 1950, following an internal debate over economic and social questions, the party adopted a program that included support for a market economy and a strong commitment to maintaining and improvingsocial insurance and othersocial welfare programs. Illustrating the conservative temper of Germany’s political climate since the end ofWorld War II, the oppositionSocial Democratic Party of Germany progressively eliminated the socialist content of its program, to the point of embracing the profit motive in a party congress atBad Godesberg in 1959. In power continuously from 1982 to 1998, the Christian Democrats presided over the unification ofEast Germany withWest Germany following the collapse of Soviet-supported communist regimes across eastern Europe in 1989–90. From the 1990s, Germanconservatives tended to adhere to anideology of minimal government,deregulation, privatization, and the reining-in of thewelfare state. Putting these ideas into political practice, however, proved difficult if not impossible, since many Germans continued to support an extensive safety net ofunemployment insurance and other social welfare programs.

In contrast to Italy and Germany, no Christian Democratic party emerged inFrance to represent moderate conservative opinion. Instead, a large proportion of French conservatives supported parties such asRally for the Republic (renamed Union for a Popular Movement in 2002 and the Republicans in 2015)—which espoused a highly nationalistic conservatism based on thelegacy ofCharles de Gaulle, president of France from 1958 to 1969—or anti-immigration groups such as the National Front, led until 2011 byJean-Marie Le Pen and subsequently by his daughter,Marine Le Pen; the latter party, some argued, was not so much conservative as reactionary or neofascist. Gaullist conservatism emphasized tradition and order and aimed at a politically united Europe under French leadership. Gaullists espoused divergent views on social issues, however. The large number of Gaullist and non-Gaullist conservative parties, their lack of stability, and their tendency to identify themselves with local issues made it difficult to categorize these groups in simple terms. In the early 21st century, French conservatives of several stripes were united by a number of developments. One was the theme of “law and order,” sounded strongly by interior minister (and later president)Nicolas Sarkozy. Unemployed youths in suburbanParis and elsewhere—many of whom were immigrants or the children of immigrants—engaged in periodic rioting to protest their plight and were met with stiff (and popular) police resistance. Another thread uniting French conservatives was the perceived threat to French values from immigrants, especially Muslims. One of the values allegedly in danger was theconviction that public education should be strictlysecular. When young Muslim women insisted on wearingveils to school, the French state reacted strongly—a reaction that may have succeeded less in reaffirming French values than in further alienating Muslims from French society.

In general, conservatism in Europe has exerted apervasive political influence since the start of the 20th century, finding expression in parties of very different character. These parties have espoused traditional middle-class values and opposed unnecessary state involvement in economic affairs and radical attempts at income redistribution. They also have been characterized by an absence ofideology and often by the lack of any well-articulated political philosophy.