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Political Research Associates (PRA) is an American research group which studies the U.S. political right wing. It was founded in 1981 and is located in Somerville, Massachusetts. It has a full-time staff of eight. The founder and first president of PRA is Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. The current director is Roberta Salper. Nikhil Aziz is associate director and director of research. Chip Berlet is senior analyst. Researchers include Palak Shah and Pam Chamberlain.
There are some critics of PRA who claim the group, especially Chip Berlet, has a bias against persons and groups who see conspiracies as driving history and current events. One such critic is Daniel Brandt, who describes PRA as a "private intelligence agency," a type of organization that will "generally inbreed with their adversaries and mutate into a peculiar political animal." "John Singlaub's Western Goals, and Political Research Associates (PRA) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, both extremely tiny compared to the ADL, are two additional examples of this phenomenon. All three groups identify with certain constituencies as a flag of convenience: the ADL with the Jewish community, Western Goals with the right, and PRA with the left. But by using the same methods of collecting information -- garbage surveillance, infiltration of target groups, and the use of guilt-by-association in their propaganda -- each of these three groups has perverted itself with clandestinism and denunciation for its own sake."
Most progressive and liberal groups and leaders, however, are supportive of PRA, including Anne Braden of the Southern Organizing Committee and Suzanne Pharr of the Highlander Research Center .