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
Director
John Cavanagh
Websitewww.ips-dc.org

Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is a progressive think tank based in Washington, D.C.. It has been directed by John Cavanagh since 1998

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."

Founding and 1960s

The institute was founded in 1963 by two former governmental workers, Marcus Raskin, aide to McGeorge Bundy, and Richard Barnet, aide to John J. McCloy.

As soon as IPS opened its doors in 1963, it plunged into the anti-Vietnam War movement. In 1965, Raskin and Associate Fellow Bernard Fall edited The Vietnam Reader, which became a textbook for teach-ins across the country.[1] In 1967, Raskin and IPS Fellow Arthur Waskow penned "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,"[2] a document signed by dozens of well-known scholars and religious leaders that helped launch the draft resistance movement. IPS also organized Congressional seminars and published numerous books that challenged the national security state, including Gar Alperovitz’s Atomic Diplomacy and Barnet’s Intervention and Revolution. The FBI responded by infiltrating IPS with more than 70 informants, wiretapping its phones, and searching through its garbage. The Nixon Administration placed Barnet and Raskin on its "enemies list."[3]

In 1964, several leading African-American activists joined the staff and turned IPS into a base of support for the civil rights movement in the nation’s capital. Fellow Bob Moses organized trainings for field organizers of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Council on the links between civil rights theory and practice, while Ivanhoe Donaldson initiated an assembly of African-American government officials.

IPS was also at the forefront of the feminist movement. Fellow Charlotte Bunch organized a historic women’s liberation conference in 1966 and later launched two feminist periodicals, Quest and Off Our Backs. Rita Mae Brown wrote and published her path-breaking lesbian coming-of-age novel Rubyfruit Jungle while on the staff in the 1970s.

1970s

In 1976, the Institute's destiny became irrevocably linked with the international human rights movement when agents of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet murdered two IPS colleagues on Washington’s Embassy Row.[4] The target of the car bomb attack was Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean official, one of Pinochet’s most outspoken critics and the head of IPS's sister organization, the Transnational Institute (TNI). Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a 25-year-old IPS development associate, was also killed.

The Institute for Policy Studies hosts 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.

The Transnational Institute, an international progressive think tank based in Amsterdam, was originally established as the IPS's international program, although it became independent in 1973.[5]

In its attention to the role of multinational corporations, it was also an early critic of what has come to be called globalization. Richard Barnet's 1974 examination of the power of multinational corporations, Global Reach was one of the first books on the subject.[6]

1980s

In the 1980s, IPS became heavily involved in supporting the movement against U.S. intervention in Central America. IPS Director Robert Borosage and other staff helped draft Changing Course: Blueprint for Peace in Central America and the Caribbean, which was used by hundreds of schools, labor unions, churches, and citizen organizations as a challenge to U.S. policy in the region.

In 1985, Fellow Roger Wilkins helped found the Free South Africa Movement,[7] which organized a year-long series of demonstrations that led to the imposition of U.S. sanctions.

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."[8]

1990s

In the early 1990s, IPS began monitoring the environmental impacts of U.S. trade, investment, and drug policies.

Since 1994, IPS has also published an annual report on the disparity between CEO and worker pay that has garnered widespread coverage in the mainstream media and helped put the issue of economic inequality at the center of the political debate.[9]

Examples of activities

  • When the Soviet Union sought to weaken NATO in the Netherlands and Denmark, the IPS undertook efforts such as planting suitable articles and arranging international conferences.[10]
  • The IPS opposed the Iraqi no-fly-zone that was set up to protect Kurds and Shias after the Gulf War.[11]
  • The IPS opposed the NATO war undertaken to stop Slobodan Milošević's alleged ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo.[11]

Criticisms

The Institute is considered a far left-wing[12][13][14][15][16] organization by antagonists.[17] 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."[18] Joshua Muravchik has also accused the institute of communophilism.[19] while Emerson Vermatt has accused the think-tank of "its bitter opposition to the intelligence community, notably the CIA."[14] 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."[20]

In 1974, the Institute created an 'Organizing Committee for the Fifth Estate' as part of its "Center for National Security Studies" which published (and still publishes) the magazine CounterSpy. CounterSpy has in turn been the subject of scrutiny by officials and intelligence agencies, who claim that the magazine's "driving force"[21] was ex-CIA agent and alleged Cuban/KGB agent[22][23][24] Philip Agee and accused by US President George H.W. Bush[25] and others[26] of leading to the murder of the then CIA Station Chief in Greece, Richard S. Welch.

Role of Russian and Cuban intelligence agencies

Further information: Active measures and Russian influence operations

In his book The KGB and Soviet disinformation: an insider's view Ladislav Bittman, a former StB agent who worked in misinformation operations such as the IPS, covered the IPS's role in the Soviet intelligence network. It should be noted that not all of IPS fellows were on intelligence agency payroll and not every publication originated from the KGB.[27][28] Brian Crozier, director of the London-based Institute for the Study of Conflict, described IPS as the "perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB."[29]

Administration

Staff

Fellows

Research Fellows

Senior Scholars

Associate Fellows

Leadership and Board

  • Harriet Barlow, Senior Advisor, HKH Foundation
  • Harry Belafonte, Singer, Actor, Producer, Activist
  • Robert L. Borosage, President, Institute for America’s Future
  • Elsbeth Bothe, Retired Baltimore Circuit Court Judge
  • John Cavanagh, Global Economy Senior Fellow
  • James Early, Director, Cultural Studies and Communication, Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Heritage, Smithsonian Institution
  • Barbara Ehrenreich, Writer
  • Ralph Estes, Executive Director, Stakeholder's Alliance; Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies
  • Jodie Evans Co-Founder, CODEPINK: Women for Peace
  • Frances Farenthold, Attorney; Former member, Texas legislature
  • Lisa Fuentes, Scholar, Latin American Studies; Activist
  • Larry Janss, Filmmaker
  • Saul Landau, IPS Fellow
  • Nancy Lewis, Activist
  • E. Ethelbert Miller, Director, African American Resource Center, Howard University; Poet
  • Marcus Raskin, Paths for Reconstruction in the 21st Century Distinguished Fellow
  • Andy Shallal, Owner, Busboys & Poets; Artist
  • Lewis Steel, Civil rights attorney, Outten & Golden, LLP
  • Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor and Publisher, The Nation
  • Daphne Wysham, Sustainable Energy and Economy Network Fellow

Funding

Start-up funding was secured from the Sears heir, Philip Stern, and banker, James Warburg. Most of the money came from a foundation of Samuel Rubin.

References

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ [2]
  3. ^ History of IPS, IPS website[3]
  4. ^ Letelier case
  5. ^ IPS 30th Anniversary Report
  6. ^ Amazon [4]
  7. ^ [5]
  8. ^ Sidney Blumenthal, Washington Post, 30 July 1986, Left-Wing Thinkers
  9. ^ Executive Compensation studies [6]
  10. ^ America, Europe, and the Soviet Union: selected essays, Volume 2 By Walter Laqueur. p. 42
  11. ^ a b "Profile: Institute for Policy Studies". discoverthenetworks.org. 25 February 2011.
  12. ^ Blumenthal, Sidney (July 30, 1986). "Left-wing thinkers". Transnational Institute. Trasnational Institute. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  13. ^ "Review: Discussion on The Current about minimum wages and executive compensation, January 29, 2007". CBC Radio Canada. June 14, 2007. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  14. ^ a b 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.
  15. ^ 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)
  16. ^ 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)
  17. ^
  18. ^ Klehr 1988, p. 177
  19. ^ Muravchik, Joshua (1984). ""Communophilism" and the Institute for Policy Studies". World Affairs. 147 (1).
  20. ^ 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.
  21. ^ Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst, Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) (confidential Dutch intelligence report, 1982), p. 7, 8.
  22. ^ Andrew p. 230, referencing Kalugin, Oleg (1995). Spymaster: The Highest-ranking KGB Officer Ever to Break His Silence. Blake Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-85685-101-X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) p. 191-192 Andrew states: "The KGB files noted by Mitrokhin describe Agee as an agent of the Cuban DGI and give details of his collaboration with the KGB, but do not formally list him as a KGB or DGI agent. vol. 6, ch. 14, parts 1,2,3; vol. 6, app. 1, part 22."
  23. ^ Andrew, p. 231
  24. ^ "Once Again, Ex-Agent Philip Agee Eludes CIA's Grasp", Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1997
  25. ^ "Philip Agee, 72; Agent Who Turned Against CIA". Washington Post. 2008-01-09. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
  26. ^ Staff report (January 5, 1976). Kidnaping in Vienna, Murder in Athens. Time
  27. ^ Ladislav Bittman (1985). The KGB and Soviet disinformation: an insider's view.
  28. ^ S. Steven Powell (1987). Covert cadre: inside the Institute for Policy Studies. p. 359.
  29. ^ The War Called Peace: Glossary, published 1982
  • Klehr, Harvey (1988), Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today, Transaction Publishers, ISBN 9780887388750.

External links

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