Institute for Policy Studies

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Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is a non-profit think-tank for progressive, leftist, or liberal causes based in Washington, DC. It includes roughly fifteen projects across national and international social movements; including the peace movement, international human rights, and the environment.

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 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.

IPS' 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 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 Right frequently attacks IPS. An example of this is the Heritage Foundation’s organized efforts against IPS. Sidney Blumenthal once noted that "Ironically, as IPS has declined in Washington influence, its stature has grown in conservative demonology."