On February 15, 2003, millions of citizens around the world united in protest against the US-led invasion into Iraq. As the last remaining US troops exit Iraq with little fanfare, the tumultuous months preceding the Iraq War nearly a decade ago seem like a distant memory. However, Stefaan Walgrave, Dieter Rucht, and their international team of researchers take us back to the eve of the invasion, analyzing the antiwar demonstrations that took place globally in 2003.

In The World Says No to Iraq, the goals of the editors are twofold. First, they seek to enhance our empirical understanding of the February 15 protests: Precisely, who were the protestors? What motivated them to take to the streets? How did they achieve large-scale mobilization (p. xiv)? Second, the editors are interested more generally in the comparative analysis of protest events. Adopting a theoretical framework that combines methods commonly found in the political participation literature with the contextually rich analysis characteristic of social movement studies, the contributors make a compelling case for bringing greater methodological rigor and cross-case comparison to the study of protests. Noteworthy in this endeavor is an original survey by a team of researchers in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium of antiwar protests coordinated and conducted on February 15, 2003. The data from this cross-national survey serve as the basis of comparative analysis for several of the contributors to this volume.

The key findings are presented up front in the preface: Despite superficial similarities in the timing, tactics, framing, and general atmosphere of anti-Iraq War protests across Europe and the United States, the contributors to this volume find considerable variation in the composition, attitudes, and political behavior of protestors in the eight countries. They account for this variation by examining the national context and specific political opportunity structures surrounding the protests. The editors should be commended for organizing the chapters in a logical, cohesive manner. Rather than devoting each chapter to a specific country case, the contributors stay true to the comparative thrust of this volume by choosing specific aspects of “political context” to explain similarities and differences in the February 15 protests across nations.

Following the editors' introduction, the first chapter paints a descriptive picture of the February 15 antiwar protests. The next three chapters then apply different theoretical frameworks from the social movement literature to situate protests within a specific, political, social, and cultural context. Michelle Beyeler and Rucht take the lead in Chapter 2 by exploring the relationship between open/closed political structures and the strength of progressive movement sectors (i.e., left parties and trade unions). Despite their systematic analysis integrated with quantitative data, their conclusion that political structures alone do not easily capture cross-national variation is underwhelming. However, their call for an examination of more “domain-specific” opportunities is taken up in the next several chapters (p. 37). For example, Joris Verhulst and Walgrave's contribution suggests that the relative scale of protest may depend on specific sociopolitical contexts, such as the government's initial position on the Iraq War, the opposition's reaction and mobilizing capacity, the mainstream media's portrayal of the war, and national public opinion. These authors find that protestors marched against the tide of government, media, and mainstream support for war in the United States and the United Kingdom. The opposite was found in Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland. Meanwhile, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands provide a mixed pattern, with all three governments supporting the war but the media and public opinion firmly against the US-led invasion (p. 58).

Chapters 5 through 8 turn toward the microfoundations of the February 15 protests, honing in on the protestors themselves. Drawing extensively from the original survey, the contributors examine the contextual factors discussed in earlier chapters to account for cross-national differences. Walgrave, Rucht, and Peter Van Aelst find that rather than mirroring the national population as suggested by media reports, participants in the February 15 protests more closely resembled the profile of new social movements (p. 96). To account for differences in the range of diversity among protestors within the eight countries, however, the authors examine domain-specific contexts, such as each government's position on the Iraq War, the degree of protestors' loyalty to the government, and public opinion as a possible explanation for variation. Additionally, in Chapter 6, Bert Klandermans finds that the size of protests depended not only on antiwar attitudes but on broader oppositional sentiment against the existing national government (p. 116). Wolfgang Rüdig in Chapter 8 explores the relationship between political parties and protestors.

The remaining chapters examine the channels and means of mobilization, including the effects of open (i.e., media) or closed (i.e., organizations) structures on mobilization patterns or the organizational embeddedness of the protestors. Chapter 11 stands out for taking a more serious look at the transnational dimension of the Iraq War protests—an area that was left wanting by the editors in their effort to focus on cross-national comparative analysis. In this fine chapter, W. Lance Bennett, Terri Givens, and Christian Breunig uncover the mechanisms of diffusion across networks, from the global social justice movement to antiwar demonstrations.

The final chapter prior to the conclusion breaks from the overarching political opportunity thesis that guides this volume by turning to movement frames and the framing of the Iraq War. The decision to include a chapter on the cultural/ideational aspect of movements was welcome, given the importance of framing in the antiwar protests. Despite this addition, however, some students of social movements may find themselves disappointed with the contributors' decision to place their analysis almost exclusively within a political opportunity framework. Others may also wonder why an additional chapter shedding light on antiwar protests outside of Europe and the United States was not included. Major protests took place in Syria, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and South Korea.

Although the theoretical contribution of this volume is limited, The World Says No to War makes a lasting empirical and methodological contribution to those interested in comparative politics and political sociology. First, it presents an unparalleled amount of primary information and data on what was possibly the largest global antiwar demonstration ever witnessed. Second, the editors present a potential model for future research on protest events—one that combines greater methodological sophistication with analytical rigor. Readers are especially encouraged to read Appendix A, which outlines the protest survey and fieldwork methodology adopted in this study. In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, or in the thick of Occupy Wall Street or Euro crisis protests, this volume provides a potential model for linking micro-level data with macro-level analytical tools.