Contesting moral capital in campaigns against animal liberation

This article addresses a countermovement to the animal liberation movement and its campaigns against vivisection, factory farming, and recreational hu nting in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. As moderate welfarists, pragmatic animal liberationists (Singer 1975), and radical abol itionists who advocate animal rights, animal protectionists campaign for an imals. The countermovement defends acts that animal protectionists decry. M eanwhile, sociologists accord little study to interplay between the movemen ts (Meyer & Staggenborg, 1996). In Buechler's and Cylke's collection of 34 papers on social movements (1997), only one paper focused on countermovemen ts, describing the connection between social movement and countermovement a s "a continuous dialect of social change" (Mottl, 1980). Although extensive writings exist on the main campaigns of the animal liberation movement, li ttle scholarly material exists on the defenses mounted by the countermoveme nt. This article examines key elements of a values war, a struggle over mor al capital waged by animal protectionists and their countermovement opponen ts.