Michael J. Oakeshott (1901-1990) is the most significant British conservative political philosopher of the 20th century. He was a student and later a member of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
During the war, he used his knowledge of German in military intelligence. In 1950, he was appointed head of the political science department at the LSE in London, a position he held until his retirement. So far, one of his works has been published in Hungarian, Political Rationalism (2001).

Oakeshott's published work was not published during his lifetime. Its origins can be traced back to the time of his appointment as professor, 1951-52, when a significant part of his writings in his book Political Rationalism were also prepared. This volume also deals with contemporary European politics. Oakeshott saw the problems of European politics as stemming from the monopoly of religious politics since Francis Bacon. In the case of religious politics, political activity and its interpretation are based on the belief that man can redeem himself in earthly life, and the task of government is to facilitate this.
The goal is to finally get rid of politics. And the political order - in which there are governors and governed - is necessary so that human life is not lonely, poor, ugly, animalistic and short. As in his other writings, he does not see a sharp difference between the so-called totalitarian governments and the welfare state that triumphantly conquered everywhere after the war. The exclusive rule of religious politics cancels out what it promises: peaceful, orderly coexistence; on the other hand, freedom of action.