ABSTRACT
It is much easier to join the Scottish National Party (SNP) or the Vegetarian Society than the Children’s Rights Movement. The two former organizations have headquarters to which prospective members can send their application forms along with the appropriate membership fee. In return they will receive the organization’s written constitution which: articulates a set of consensually agreed aims and objectives; offers an agreed procedure for making changes to those objectives; establishes the rules governing the conduct of the organization’s affairs, and; articulates the various power relationships between individual members, constituent organizations and the local and regional branches which constitute the larger group. Joining the SNP or the Vegetarian Society, moreover, is an act which publicly expresses commitment to a clearly articulated ideology, or set of moral values and principles, which informs the activities of the group and provides them with a degree of organizational cohesion.
