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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 (IPS) is a left-wing think tank based in Washington, D.C. Its work is organized into over a dozen projects, all of which work collaboratively. IPS is described by various scholars as a socialist, radical-left, Marxist or hard-left organization.

Harvey Klehr, professor of politics and history at Emory University, in his 1988 book Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today says that IPS "serves as an intellectual nerve center for the radical movement, ranging from nuclear and anti-intervention issues to support for Marxist insurgencies."

History

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."

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

Fellows

Research Fellows

Senior Scholars

Associate Fellows

See also

References

  1. W. Dent, David (1995). U.S.-Latin American policymaking: a reference handbook. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 108. ISBN 9780313279515. The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) - a left-wing think tank - was formed in 1963, about the same time that CSIS was organized.
  2. Fernández-Morera 1996, p. 6
  3. W. Dent, David (1995). U.S.-Latin American policymaking: a reference handbook. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 108. ISBN 9780313279515. Studies critical of IPS such as Powell, Covert Cadre - Inside the Institute for Policy Studies (1987), considers it radical left or Marxist in its policy interpretations with unfounded opposition to weapons systems in particular and American foreign policy in general.
  4. W. Dent, David (1995). U.S.-Latin American policymaking: a reference handbook. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 108. ISBN 9780313279515. The Institute of Policy Studies' overall decline was not due just to time and the influence of the Reagan administration, but also to reduced funding, the absence of serious scholars in its ranks, rifts within the leadership, and its hard-left ideological position.
  5. Klehr 1988, p. 177
  6. Sidney Blumenthal, Washington Post, 30 July 1986, Left-Wing Thinkers
  • Klehr, Harvey (1988), Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 9780887388750.
  • Fernández-Morera, Darío (1996), American Academia and the Survival of Marxist Ideas, Praeger, ISBN 9780275952648.

External links

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