Amnesty International: Internal and External Constraints.
Amnesty International (AI) is a worldwide movement organization that works to enforce the Declaration of Human Rights throughout the world. AI is a voluntary organization that must receive money through donations. They also request that members write letters in protest of governments who are infringing on human rights. AI's main obstacle is that it must persuade people to either send money or write governments. AI uses various forms of agitation to advocate their agenda. Agitation is described as "persistent, long-term advocacy of social change, where resistance to the change is also persistent and long-term." (BOJ 3) This paper will seek the internal and external constraints AI faces, look at their various techniques used in agitation and examine their effectiveness in this venture.
Amnesty International (AI) was founded in 1961 by British lawyer Peter Benenson and has grown to include more than a million members and supporters in over 140 countries (AI Website). "The object of Amnesty International is to contribute to the observance throughout the world of human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration Human Rights" (Statute 195). Amnesty International official web site states that is impartial and independent of any government, political persuasion or religious creed. AI's work is financed largely through donations from their worldwide memberships. It can be challenging to convince people to send money when issues do not directly affect them. This leads to an internal constraint toward raising revenue. Externally AI depends on its members and potential members to send letters to human rights violators asking them to stop the infringements on human rights. AI must draw attention toward an issue that is distant to many of them. This leads to the external constraint, how are they going to get people to participate in actions that will lead to the resolution of their cause.