Karen Dolan is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and Director of the Cities for Progress and Cities for Peace projects based there. She holds an M.A. in Philosophy and Social Policy from the American University in Washington D.C. She has been a researcher, organizer, writer and activist in the peace and social justice communities for many years prior to joining IPS in 1996; she continues with public scholarship linked to movement-based activism. Karen collaborates with organizers and elected officials at the local level as well as with members of Congress and their staff. She participates in building economic and social justice coalitions at the local and national levels focused around a common, broad-based progressive agenda.
Karen’s activism at IPS has included organizing the Cities for Peace movement which facilitated the passage on anti-war resolutions in 170 towns and cities across America in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and is now facilitating a current movement to Bring the Troops Home Now. Karen has also organized town hall meetings, locally-based ad-hoc Congressional hearings, economic rights bus tours and coalition-building community meetings nation-wide in predominantly poor, low-income and minority communities. The purpose of this organizing has been political education for both citizens and policy-makers at all legislative levels, media attention, linking community-led organizations with policy-makers, and the building of a Fairness Agenda/People’s Platform, (see www.citiesforpeace.org) for transformation of our nation’s policies with adversely affect vulnerable populations.
She is currently directing a project that is solidifying the currently lose and disconnected alliances of community-led activists and locally-elected officials. They have built an organized network, Cities for Progress. This is a much needed national infrastructure that will facilitate the passage of the Fairness Agenda nationally and transform our nation’s policies from the bottom up.
Karen regularly appears in print and in broadcast addressing issues of peace and the domestic economy. Some of Karen’s publications include: Our Communities are Not for Sale; Paying the Price: the Mounting Costs of War in Iraq;A Failed Transition: The Continuing Costs of War in Iraq; and numerous articles on domestic economic issues online and in outlets such as The Nation magazine, Common Dreams and in op-ed pages of well-respected newspapers.
Recent Work
Op-Ed
Your Time Is Up, Mr. President — the National Guard Is Coming Home
February 5 - Guess what, Mr. President? Your authority to keep state National Guard troops in Iraq has expired. So says a new bill introduced this week to the Vermont Legislature by Rep. Michael Fisher and Sen. Peter Shumlin. It is supported by 30 of their colleagues. By Karen Dolan and Ben Manski, published in AlterNet.
Commentary
Foreign Policy Goes Local
January 31 - The idea of municipal foreign policy draws on such experiences as the Cities for Peace movement, the anti-Apartheid municipal movement of the 1980s, and the nuclear-free zone movement of the 1970s. It asserts that politicians who are most accessible and accountable to their citizens are in the best position to represent positions that challenge the political status quo and the large corporate powers to which national lawmakers and policymakers usually answer. Locally elected officials are certainly susceptible to moneyed interests, particularly in many large cities. But the more local the office, the greater the accountability to the public and public sentiment. By Karen Dolan, published in AlterNet, Common Dreams, Foreign Policy In Focus.
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