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, anti-abortion and abortion rights movements are countermovements to each other. There are countermovements relating to 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.

In some cases an apparent countermovement group may be crerated deliberately by a party with a financial stake, a process known as Astroturfing. The Global warming countermovement is one example.