About Us
The Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD) is a political research and advocacy institute serving social movement groups, non-government organizations (NGOs) in development work, and progressive local government officials.
Vision, Mission, Goals
At the core of IPD’s identity is our commitment to democratization and social development. We focus on local and national issues affecting areas that continue to be economically backward and that are subject to various forms of local authoritarianism.
By orientation, we locate ourselves at the interstices of civil society, the economy, and the state. Our immediate constituency is the NGO-PO community and progressive political formations. We reach out as well to the broader community of groups and individuals who seek national reform: media, academe, and reform-minded policy-makers in government and in the business community.
IPD has updated its research agenda to meet the research-information-analysis needs of progressive groups and NGOs. We commit ourselves to a progressive agenda that puts primacy on enabling the poor and disadvantaged sectors of Philippine society to participate in national politics and the economy, and in other aspects or areas of national life.
At present IPD is Engaged in:
Interpreting Philippine realities with special focus on the factors and forces that advance or retard democracy, and elaborating the range of options and possibilities for different actors in society
Theorizing on reform and democratization in civil society
Formulating alternative frameworks and policies on democratization and development
Helping to build the intellectual and political capacities of progressive forces towards the accumulation of power and intervention in open politics and other arenas of civil society.
History
At its inception in 1986, IPD sought to define and broaden the emerging democratic space by actively promoting pluralism within the progressive movement and building coalitions for unified intervention in crucial national issues.
Over the years, it has developed institutional specialization in political research and advocacy. It pioneered in innovative analyses of elite politics and trends, and initiated education work among NGOs and POs, focusing on the then-incipient question of local democracy.
Ten years have brought profound and wide-ranging changes in the local, national and global environments, notably the consolidation of neo-liberal agenda, the onslaught of globalization and the collapse of socialist alternatives. More and more, progressive groups are looking at the arenas of open politics as strategic sites of struggle, searching for ways to intervene and accumulate strength in the arenas of civil society and open politics: elections, public discourse, governance, policy advocacy, local democracy and development.
In the context of shifting political and economic conditions, research assumes a paramount role in the pursuit of new intellectual and political instruments. It is the bedrock of all our advocacies and engagements. IPD research and advocacy in democracy and development are organized along local, national and global dimensions.