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Institute for Policy Studies

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not to be confused with the UK-based Policy Studies Institute
Institute for Policy Studies
AbbreviationIPS
Formation1963
Typepolicy think tank
HeadquartersWashington, DC, United States
DirectorJohn Cavanagh
Websitewww.ips-dc.org

Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is a left-wing]]think tank based in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1963 by Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet (two former aides to Kennedy administration advisers), it has been directed by John Cavanagh since 1998. Its work is organized into over a dozen projects, all of which work collaboratively.

History

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The organization was founded in 1963 with a stated mandate to provide "an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in Washington."

The institute was founded in 1963 by two former aides to Kennedy administration advisers: Marcus Raskin, aide to McGeorge Bundy, and Richard Barnet, aide to John J. McCloy. Start-up funding was secured from the Sears heir, Philip Stern, and banker, James Warburg.

IPS' current director is John Cavanagh.

The Institute sponsors an annual awards ceremony to honor the memories of two employees that were murdered in 1976 by operatives of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The Letelier-Moffitt human rights awards are named for Chilean exile Orlando Letelier, a former member of Salvador Allende's cabinet and Ronni Karpen Moffitt, who was a junior IPS staffer.

On September 21, 1976, a car bombing killed Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier and American Ronni Karpen Moffitt. Letelier and Moffitt were colleagues at the Institute for Policy Studies, where Letelier had become one of the most outspoken critics of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Moffitt was a 25-year-old fundraiser who ran a "Music Carryout" program that made musical instruments accessible to poor communities. A massive FBI investigation traced the crime to the highest levels of Pinochet's regime. The Institute for Policy Studies has continued to host an annual human rights award in the names of Letelier and Moffitt to honor these fallen colleagues while celebrating new heroes of the human rights movement from the United States and elsewhere in the Americas. The award recipients receive the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award.

IPS has played key roles in the civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s, the women's and environmental movements in the 1970s, the anti-apartheid and anti-intervention movements in the 1980s, and the fair trade and environmental justice movements of the 1990s and 2000s. In its attention to the role of multinational corporations, it was also an early critic of what has come to be called globalization.

The Transnational Institute, an international progressive think tank based in Amsterdam, was originally established as the IPS's international programme, although it is now independent.

In 1986, after six years of the Reagan administration, Sidney Blumenthal claimed that "Ironically, as IPS has declined in Washington influence, its stature has grown in conservative demonology. In the Reagan era, the institute has loomed as a right-wing obsession and received most of its publicity by serving as a target."

Criticism

Harvey Klehr, professor of politics and history at Emory University, in his 1988 book Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today said that IPS "serves as an intellectual nerve center for the radical movement, ranging from nuclear and anti-intervention issues to support for Marxist insurgencies." Joshua Muravchik has also accused the institute of communophilismMuravchik, Joshua (1984). ""Communophilism" and the Institute for Policy Studies". World Affairs. 147.</ref> while Emerson Vermatt has accused the think-tank of its bitter opposition to the intelligence community, notably the CIA. Furthermore, it has been accused by the FBI as a "think factory" that helps to "train extremists who incite violence in U.S. cities, and whose educational research serves as a cover for intrigue, an political agitation."

Allegations of links with the Soviet Union during the Cold War

According to an FBI memorandum dated May 7, 1970, it identified co-founder Richard Barnet as a communist that had "known contacts with intelligence agents from Soviet and Soviet bloc countries." and whose speeches were "published by the East Coast Communist newspaper 'Daily World'." Similarly, in his book Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute for Policy Studies Steven Powell writes about his time as an intern at IPS's Washington Office, noting Soviet diplomats who sought to cultivate IPS staff members or showed up at IPS conferences in New York or Washington and his "strange encounters with communist East Bloc diplomats who frequented the Institute of Policy Studies" In particular, Powell gives an anecdotal example of how a Soviet diplomat who he claims "visited IPS over a dozen times" "perked up when I talked about the possibility of going into the foreign service or becoming a foreign correspondent."

Current list of Fellows, Research Fellows, Senior Scholars and Associate Fellows

Fellows

Research Fellows

Senior Scholars

Associate Fellows

References

  1. Blumenthal, Sidney (July 30 1986). "Left-wing thinkers". Transnational Institute. Trasnational Institute. Retrieved 2010-11-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. "Review: Discussion on The Current about minimum wages and executive compensation, January 29, 2007". CBC Radio Canada. June 14, 2007. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  3. Vermaat, Emerson (January 12, 2009). "Obama's Preferred Future Spy Chief Leon Panetta Supported Communist-Linked Anti-CIA Think Tank". Family Security Matters. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  4. Soley, Lawrence (September/October 1998). "Heritage Clones in the Heartland". Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. FAIR. Retrieved 2010-11-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  5. Ponte, Lowell (July Thursday, October 14, 2004). "The ABC's of Media Bias". FrontPageMagazine. FrontPageMagazine. Retrieved 2010-11-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. Sidney Blumenthal, Washington Post, 30 July 1986, Left-Wing Thinkers
  7. Klehr 1988, p. 177
  8. Vermaat, Emerson (January 12, 2009). "Obama's Preferred Future Spy Chief Leon Panetta Supported Communist-Linked Anti-CIA Think Tank". Family Security Matters. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  9. United States Government, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memorandum to Director, FBI, Bufile 105-185148, from Sac. WFO (100-45302) (P), May 4, 1970, p. 1 ("communist"), p. 2 (Confidential). Author's file on IPS/TNI.
  10. United States Government, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Memorandum to Director, FBI, Bufile 105-185148, from Sac. WFO (100-45302) (P), May 4, 1970, p. 1 ("communist"), p. 2 (Confidential). Author's file on IPS/TNI.
  11. United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, WFO 100-45302, Title Richard Jackson Barnet, May 13, 1971, p. 1 ("Character: Security Matter – Communist"), p. 3, 4 (Daily World). Author's file on IPS/TNI.
  12. Powell, S. (1987). Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc. p. 329. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |middle= ignored (help)
  13. Powell, S. (1987). Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc. p. 329-334. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |middle= ignored (help)
  14. Powell, S. (1987). Covert Cadre. Inside the Institute for Policy Studies. Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc. p. 333. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |middle= ignored (help)
  • Klehr, Harvey (1988), Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 9780887388750.

External links

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