Institute for Policy Studies
Encyclopedia : I : IN : INS : Institute for Policy Studies
Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American lobby for progressive or leftist causes based in Washington, DC.
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." From the very start, the organization associated itself with "progressive" and revolutionary causes.
Although primarily a public relations lobby, the IPS describes itself as a scholarly think tank and uses pseudo-academic titles to describe its employees, e.g. fellow and associate fellow, but it produces little peer-reviewed resesarch. The IPS's most famous fellow was Chilean exile Orlando Letelier, a former member of Salvadore Allende's cabinet. Letelier was assassinated in 1976 by agents of the Pinochet regime while carrying a pay receipt from Cuban DGI station chief Luis Fernandez Ona.
IPS's current director is John Cavanagh.
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 claims to have "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 right takes IPS seriously, as can be seen both in some of the remarks that contributors have inserted in this article, and in an indictment calling it "America's premier radical left-wing think tank, funded by the heirs of the Fabergé cosmetics fortune and . . . [e]ntirely dedicated to opposing American policies -- if it's American policy, IPS is agin it. . . . the IPS goal is to create a society in which IPS restrains your personal freedom, IPS limits your wealth, and IPS tell you what you may buy and sell."[link] Sidney Blumenthal once noted that "Ironically, as IPS has declined in Washington influence, its stature has grown in conservative demonology."
Current list of fellows, associate fellows, and research fellows
- Noam Chomsky
- Sarah Anderson
- Phyllis Bennis
- Steve Cobble
- Karen Dolan
- Stacie Jonas
- Saul Landau
- Eric Leaver
- Nadia Martinez
- Miriam Pemberton
- Marcus Raskin
- Sanho Tree
- Daphne Wysham
References
- [The Left-Leaning Think Tank] by Peter Kovler, from Change magazine
- [Richard Barnet, IPS, and early critiques of globalization] by Abe DeJamminen, [United for Peace of Pierce County]
External links
- [Institute for Policy Studies website]
- [Extended critical history of the IPS] at the Heritage Foundation
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