Conservadurism has traditionally been conceived as opposed to the great abstract schemes and ideals of political perfection while the utopian has been situated in an order of promise or a blissful non-place. This apparent polemic would entail a singular paradox, since there is a conservative utopia of a desiderative and normative nature, that is, a moralistic yearning and a critical mirror of the reality of its time, as opposed to the outlines of perfection that aspire to build a new and perfect world on the embers of a previous order.
The study of conservative utopianism that this work addresses aims to challenge the convention that polemically opposes utopianism and conservative political thought. Ultimately, it denounces the ideological reductionism that links utopia with totalitarian projects of social transformation and that, at the same time, devalues imagination as an element of political reflection that is opposed to the conservative defence of traditions, ideas and successful practices throughout the history of thought.
