Conservatism is any of a number of political philosophies supporting traditional values or an established social order. As the word implies, conservatives seek to conserve the existing social order or to reinstate a social order from the past.

Most conservative parties are on the political right, but there are countries where a conservative party falls on the left. Conservatism as a philosophy is much older than the left-right division, and it can include adherents from both. In the Netherlands, for example, defenders of ‘Dutch tolerance’ as a traditional national value and Islamist supporters of Sharia law both call themselves conservatives.

In English-speaking countries, conservatism often refers to a political philosophy presented by Anglo-Irish statesman Edmund Burke. Burkean conservatives wish to conserve heritage; they advocate the current social climate. To a Burkean, any existing value or institution has undergone the correcting influence of past experience and ought to be respected. Burkeans do not reject change, as Burke wrote "a state without the means of change is without the means of its conservation," but they insist that further change be organic, rather than revolutionary.