Right Web Will Retain its Focus Analyzing Militarist Groups and Individuals
Political Research Associates, the 26-year-old progressive think tank focusing on the Right and anti-democratic movements, will be the new home of Right Web, the internet’s leading watchdog on efforts by neoconservatives and other hardline individuals and organizations to influence U.S. foreign policy.
The International Relations Center in Silver City, New Mexico, launched Right Web in 2002 to monitor the role and the influence of the Right in shaping U.S. foreign policy. Its profiles of individuals and organizations are well-used resources on the web, with the site receiving tens of thousands of unique visitors a month. Every week, Right Web News provides links to new or updated profiles as well as feature articles and analyses for 1,800 subscribers.
When IRC shut its doors in the fall of 2007, its board agreed to transfer the project to PRA. Since investigating foreign policy in the 1980s, PRA has largely focused on the Right’s organizing around domestic issues, such as reproductive justice and LGBTQ equity. Its researchers track the Christian Right, conspiratorial and white supremacist movements, and government repression. In the 1990s, its staff warned of the rise of the militia movement.
“We are sad to lose a good ally in IRC, but thrilled that we could make a home for such an important project as Right Web,” said Katherine H. Ragsdale, director of PRA. “We’ve seen the gruesome consequences of militarist thinking in this administration.”
“The IRC board and staff are so pleased that Political Research Associates, an organization we have long admired for its excellent work tracking the Right, is the new home for Right Web,” said IRC director Tom Barry, “We are certain that in PRA’s hands the Right Web program will continue helping us understand how the neocons and their think tanks shape U.S. foreign policy.”
Right Web will retain its independent website, which PRA will link to on its own homepage. PRA’s website has long been a popular resource, averaging 1.5 million page hits a month. It is the home of special “portal pages” guiding readers to resources in PRA’s key research areas: LGBTQ equity, reproductive justice, civil liberties, economic and racial justice and immigrant rights. It is also the home of Public Eye magazine, the think tank’s quarterly about the US Right.