Professor João Carlos Espada, founder and head of the Institute for Political Science at the Catholic University of Portugal delivered a public lecture on 'Winston Churchill and the Conservative Tradition of Liberty under Law' on 12th of March, in the Budapest building of the Faculty. As the title had already suggested, Professor Espada gave an excellent, comprehensive account not only of Churchill's political thought, but of the period's intellectual climate as well. It was a full house lecture, delivered in a friendly, but at the same time academic atmosphere.
As the speaker made it abundantly clear, Churchill had been one of the great political thinkers of his time. At the beginning of his political career, Great Britain still belonged to an old world, while the international order was rapidly changing. Churchill was one of the few who understood these changes, and realized that Great Britain had to join the trend, even though he himself was critical of many aspects of the latter.
The rise of the German Empire in the early 1900's, and the coming of the Third Reich in the 1930's gave reason to serious fears, and Churchill's personal experience and political intuition both led him to embrace views that eventually helped to stop Hitler. It is a relatively less known fact that his program also laid stress on social issues and welfare reforms, but always in the context of protecting market economy and free trade, which he saw as the sole remedy against pauperism. In a political framework, Winston Churchill remained a defender of parliamentary democracy and constitutional parliamentarism, representing the British tradition of conservative democracy: the idea of 'mixed government', the system of 'checks and balances' and 'the rule of law.'
At the end of the lecture, a number of highly interesting and relevant questions from the audience tackled such issues as the rise of anti-democratic sentiment in contemporary Europe; the difference between 'old' and 'new' Tories ("What would Churchill say about today's Conservative Party?"); the comparison between totalitarian and limited democracy; or whether Churchill's shifts between liberals and conservatives had affected his credibility as a politician.
After one and a half hour, the audience got a comprehensive view not only of Churchill's thought and policies, but also of those timely issues that may serve as a point of departure for further research. Professor Espada expressed his hope that future cooperation between the Catholic University of Portugal and the Pázmány Péter Catholic University would encourage both students and professors to go on with this research of conservatism in both countries.
Zsófia Anna Tábori, International Studies BA
