Conservatism has no shared definition even among experts

Evidence

As I noted in the Introduction, conservatism (and liberalism) mean many different things to different people. For example, some would say, “Conservatives are people who want everybody to obey the government.” But others would say, “Conservatives are people who want no government at all.” Are both kinds of people conservatives, or is neither, or only one? … That is just the first step into the quagmire. See the symposium in the September 1976 issue of Commentary, entitled ““What Is a Liberal—Who Is a Conservative?” It contains sixty-four essays on the matter by well-informed writers from many fields. Overall, they provide sixty-four different answers. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 625

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s broader project of distinguishing right-wing authoritarianism from ordinary conservatism — relevant when reading Whitehead & Perry and Cooper, which conflate these.