1. The Interest Group for the Anthropology of Public Policy (IGAPP) seeks to provide an institutional framework to identify and foster the work of anthropologists studying public policies as social, political, and cultural phenomena.

Public policy is more important than ever before because of the increasing prevalence of complex forms of governance at and among all levels—whether involving state, international, nongovernmental, or business organizations or networks.  Given its pervasive role in directing and regulating mass society, policy warrants explicit anthropological attention.

IGAPP endeavors to promote the development and discussion of theories and methods that provide insight into the workings of public policies, their frequently unforeseen consequences, and the under-valued factors that often shape their outcomes.  Although anthropologists have long engaged in research that implicitly dealt with these issues, IGAPP’s goal is to make these contributions more salient and to further the development of a systematic body of research in the anthropology of policy. 

IGAPP does not seek to “take action” on policy issues (although some of its members might be so engaged as individuals) but, rather, to strengthen the contributions of the anthropology of policy to anthropology more generally and to interdisciplinary theory on policy.  The following three overall goals guide IGAPP’s