Countermovement

A countermovement in sociology means a social movement opposed to another social movement. Whenever one social movement starts up, another group establishes themselves to undermine the previous group. Many social movements start out as an effect of political activism towards issues that a group disagrees with. “Researchers have used resource mobilization to study all manner of social and political movements such as environmentalism, father's rights groups, religious movements, and abortion rights”. The reason for the start of countermovement groups is that people are competing for resources for political influence. Countermovement groups are a part of American society that try to compete for government legislation to support their own views.

The resource mobilization theory is an important issue in countermovements. “Research mobilization theory was a response to social psychological theories that focused on grievances and viewed movements as collective identities”. This theory suggests that social movements organize their resources to make changes in society that fits in their views. As a social movement starts growing, there are those who oppose their views and in time start countermovements. For example, pro-life and pro-choice movements are countermovements to each other. Other issues that have countermovement group have to deal with controversial issues as in global warming, fathers’ rights, religion, and war. These movements and countermovements will never have a resolution so they try to pass their views into government legislation. Countermovements main goal is to oppose the other movement to get their views into the mainstream. Many of these movements try to recruit people to gain popularity and in time gain political support.

An example of a countermovement has to deal with the environmental issues. Even with scientific facts and statistics that global warming exists, there are still groups that disagree that our environment is changing. As Jacques states, “the reality of doubt in environmental problems is not due to science, but has to deal with politics--global politics to be specific”. Many who are “environmental skeptics” are saying that there are no environmental problems that will threaten humanity. Many of these skeptics are blaming environmentalist for stopping human progress to make standard of living rise. Environmentalists on the other hand are blaming “right-wing politics” for their skepticism and are becoming an anti-environmental countermovement. Jacques explains that, “The concentration of skeptical claims from the 1990s onwards indicates an intense burst of interest in the environmental skeptical program and is consistent with a conservative countermovement against global environmental concern”. Skeptics on global warming feel as if they are not heard fairly as the environmentalists are, which they describe themselves “underdogs who are ‘speaking truth to power,’ while ‘debunking junk science’ that has been constructed ignorantly or maliciously by environmentalists”, although many of the skeptics are those who depend on industries that are accuse of harming the environment. “Many of the skepticism of a changing environment are influence by politics and culture even if the facts are shown in plain sight” ). Until "climate skeptics" use science instead of politics for their views, "skeptics" can not expect to be taken seriously by society.

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