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This article is from the Conservatism FAQ, by Jim Kalb kalb@aya.yale.edu with numerous contributions by others.

What are neoconservatives?

A group of intellectual conservatives most of whom were liberals
until left-wing radicalism went mass-market in the sixties, and whose
main concern on the whole is to preserve and extend what they see as
the accomplishments of older forms of liberalism. Their positions
continue to evolve; some still have positions consistent with New
Deal liberalism, others treat an idealized "America" as a sort of
world-wide evangelistic cause, and still others have moved on to a
more complex and principled conservatism. Many of them have been
associated with the magazines "Commentary" and "The Public Interest,"
and a neopapalist contingent (now at odds with many other
neoconservatives over the relation between religion and politics) is
associated with the magazine "First Things." Their influence has been
out of proportion to their numbers, in part because they include a
number of well-known Northeastern and West Coast journalists and
academics and in part because having once been liberals or leftists
they still can speak the language and retain a certain credibility in
Establishment circles.