ABSTRACT
Like other anti-war movements, the movement against the second Gulf war articulated a range of grievances against governments in favour of military intervention. Among these grievances, several issues were identified for an oppositional stand against the first George W. Bush administration – the dominant interventionist administration – and combined together amounted to a justification for the substantial anti-Americanism of this movement. Anti-Americanism constitutes a cultural current which is a recognized and recurrent component of some European national cultures and of several social movements (SMOs) in particular. Social movements mobilize on the basis of an array of connected grievances that constitute their ideological system of reference. A central ideological core that defines the movement – typically principled opposition to wars – is connected to a set of peripheral ideological elements that are more likely to vary across situations and over time. AntiAmericanism is one such contingent element that has arguably increased in recent years.
