Political Apologies and Conservatism

Abstract

Conservatism and political apologies share a paradoxical relationship, commonly viewed as contradictory, yet upon closer inspection reveal more similarities than expected. This apparent contradiction stems primarily from the varying interpretations and applications of these concepts across different academic disciplines and areas of discourse. Existing interpretations, such as Michael Cunningham's claim that conservatism is more compatible with political apologies than other major western ideologies, are based on broad assumptions. This thesis expands on Cunningham's findings by adopting an intersectional approach to scrutinize the concepts of conservatism and political apologies, in particular within the context of Canadian parliamentary speeches. The thesis answers: are we or are we not able to conceptually locate political apologies within conservatism? Whatever the answer might be to this first question, can we find empirical evidence of that conceptual relationship in a real world context? Guided by the dual enquiries of the conceptual placement of political apologies within conservatism and empirical evidence of this relationship, the research draws upon the morphological analysis of ideologies as proposed by Michel Freeden. The study commences with the exploration of the conservative concept...