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I. NNI Research
This study summarizes changes in socioeconomic conditions among Native Americans residing on reservations and in designated Indian statistical areas in the lower 48 U.S. states, as shown in 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census data. Using fifteen different measures, it compares gaming and non-gaming areas to each other and to the U.S. as a whole. The data indicate that significant economic development is taking place among both gaming and non-gaming tribes, as measured by per capita incomes, family poverty, extent of crowded housing, unemployment, and other indicators. While the positive changes in these indicators are significant in and of themselves and generally greater than those in the larger population, very substantial gaps remain. Should policies supporting tribal self-determination and self-government be eroded further, the gains of the 1990s could be reversed. (The supporting database and an annotated bibliography on the social and economic impacts of gaming also are available on the Harvard Project's website-see link above.)
Research and experience among Native nations daily drive home the conclusion that nation building holds keys to self-determined social, political, and economic development for indigenous communities. Nation building emphasizes the importance of asserting rights of self-rule and backing up those assertions with governing institutions that are legitimate in the eyes of the people and efficient in their operation. This paper examines the question of why is it that some Native nations seize upon the nation-building strategy and take effective control of their futures while others do not. We suggest that foundational change in a community arises when the external and internal conditions a people face interact with their interpretations of their situation to produce a new, shared "story" of what is possible and how it can be achieved. The keys to changing a community's "story" are found in proactive decisions to alter internal and external situations, acquire concrete knowledge of the feasible, build on the community's cultural assets, and exercise leadership-especially in educating people in a new vision.
This paper addresses some of the needs Native leaders face as they work to rebuild, reunite, and revitalize their nations. Its particular interest is the need for tribal leaders to shift from reactive thinking to strategic thinking in both day-to-day decision-making and long-term planning. After a discussion of key tasks before Native leaders, the paper presents Irving Janis's constraint model of decision-making. Janis identifies the constraints that often hinder strategic thinking and that lead to errors in decision-making, and he proposes a concept called "vigilant problem-solving" as a way to overcome these constraints. King and Begay extend the model by introducing relevant indigenous concepts such as "smoothness of mind," an attribute viewed by Western Apaches as essential to leadership under stress. They also review some of the characteristics and educational needs of Native leaders as those leaders engage in nation building.
II. Recommended Reading
Trosper is interested in the relationship between indigenous governance systems and the sustainability of eco-systems, including the peoples that are integral parts of those eco-systems. In the first of these papers, he takes the archeologically established longevity of indigenous societies on the northwest coast of North America as evidence that these societies had developed effective institutional responses to ecological challenges. He sets out to discover what those institutional responses were. He argues that these societies had created governance systems-sets of rules-that effectively promoted sustainability of local natural resources, salmon in particular, and the peoples who depended on them. These systems included six key principles. One, rights of community proprietorship allowed groups to exclude others from access to resources. Two, those rights were contingent on good resource stewardship. Three, good stewardship was defined by the preservation of long-term productivity. Four, systems of reciprocity promoted conservative use of resources. Five, transparency and publicity promoted accountability in resource use. And six, security of leaders depended on their ability to enforce the governance system that in turn sustained resources on which the community depended. This system of governing institutions maintained sustainable levels of fishing over long periods of time and thereby promoted the sustainability of Northwest Coast societies as well. The second paper focuses similarly on institutions but specifically on resilience resulting from the potlatch system. That system contributed to social-ecological resilience by providing Northwest Coast societies with methods of buffering disturbance (from any part of the ecosystem, including humans), the ability to reorganize after disturbance, and the ability to learn.
While taking different approaches, the authors of these two pieces reach essentially similar conclusions. Wilkins and Richotte argue that, in its recent decisions and without reference to judicial precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court has been systematically diminishing the powers of American Indian nations. Using a case-by-case examination of Court decisions from 1998 to 2003, they show that the Rehnquist Court has argued that rights claimed by tribes must be supported by specific treaty provisions or acts of Congress, thereby reversing long-established assumptions that tribes retain such powers as have not been explicitly taken away. While tribal self-determination remains federal policy, it is being steadily undermined by these decisions, particularly in the matter of jurisdiction over non-Indians and in Indian tribes' relations with state governments. In the second of these papers, Getches likewise is concerned with this pattern in Court rulings, but his particular interest is in why the Court has moved in this direction, ignoring longer Court traditions that generally supported tribal rights to self-government and resolved ambiguities in favor of tribes. This leads him to examine Court decisions outside the domain of Indian law. There he finds three consistent trends: a privileging of states' interests; a disregard for specific rights of minorities; and protection of mainstream values. Regardless of the contexts in which these patterns have emerged, they have implications for most Indian law cases. In advancing these principles in such cases, the Court has ignored the historical context in which ideas of tribal sovereignty emerged. It also has ignored the contemporary context in which sovereignty can be a critical instrument in achieving tribal economic independence.
This paper addresses relationships between American Indian nations and U.S. state governments. Steinman argues that these relationships, largely unspecified in the U.S. constitution, recently have been changing. The federal policy of tribal self-determination in the 1970s made clear that tribes were not going to disappear from the political map. This encouraged states, whose relations with tribes had often been combative, to explore more constructive interactions. At the same time, some Indian tribes and leaders-Steinman focuses in particular on the State of Washington during the 1980s-were working to establish more cooperative, government-to-government relations between states and tribes. The result has been new sets of intergovernmental relations that encourage dialogue, flexibility, and cooperation. These relations are hardly conflict-free, as tensions over gaming and other issues amply demonstrate. But the intergovernmental policy framework that has emerged in recent years has made communication and collaboration between tribes and states easier to sustain, and it has had significant payoffs for both in policy domains such as law enforcement. While further actions at federal levels and in the courts could undermine these developments, they are embracing a growing number of states and tribes.
III. Pro jects
An academic paper reviewing grantmaking over the years 1989-2002 and a pamphlet summarizing highlights of the analysis will soon be available. For more information on this project, contact Miriam Jorgensen at miriam_jorgensen@harvard.edu
IV. Bulletin Board An important new book on Indigenous issues is being published in Australia . Treaty , by Sean Brennan, Larissa Behrendt, Lisa Strelein, and George Williams, explores the idea of forming a treaty-based relationship between indigenous peoples and Australia . The book, whose authors are specialists in Aboriginal law and policy, is being published by The Federation Press in May. We will provide more information in the next issue of NNI Research Report.
V. Networking New links listed here include mission-relevant quotes taken from their websites; links we've listed before include no such quotes but identify the issue of NNIRR in which the link and quote first appeared. Issues are archived on this site; simply go to the opening page of this issue to access previous ones.
New Links First Nations Development Institute Mira Szászy Research Centre for Mäori and Pacific Economic Development
Links from Previous Issues of NNI Research Report Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship, College of Law, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York (NNIRR No. 1) Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), The Australian National University, Canberra (NNIRR No. 1) Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia (NNIRR No. 1) Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (NNIRR No. 1) Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program, Rogers College of Law, The University of Arizona, Tucson (NNIRR No. 1)
Native Nations Law and Policy Center, School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles (NNIRR No. 1) Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute, Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington (NNIRR No. 1)
VI. Basics The Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy (NNI) is part of the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, a research and outreach unit of The University of Arizona. Founded in 2001 by the university and the Morris K. Udall Foundation, NNI serves as a self-determination, development, and self-governance resource to Native nations in the United States and elsewhere. Its programs include research and policy analysis, leadership and management training, and strategic and organizational development. Much of NNI's work builds on and continues research originally carried out by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard University . The two organizations share some staff and work closely together in a variety of research and educational activities. Introductions to the research on which NNI/Harvard Project work is based can be found in: Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt, "Sovereignty and Nation-Building: The Development Challenge in Indian Country Today." American Indian Culture and Research Journal 22, no. 3 (1998): 187-214 http://www.jopna.net/pubs/JOPNA03_Sovereignty.pdf Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt, "Where's the Glue: Institutional and Cultural Foundations of American Indian Economic Development." Journal of Socio-Economics 29 (2000): 443-70. NNI Research Report is published under the direction of the Native Nations Institute's Associate Director for Research, Dr. Miriam Jorgensen. It is posted every few months on NNI's website www.nni.arizona.edu. "Subscribers" are notified by email, free of charge, whenever a new issue is posted. Past issues are archived on the site.
To subscribe or unsubscribe to email notification of new issues of NNI Research Report, or to notify us of material you think we should consider for mention in a future issue, please contact us at nnirr@u.arizona.edu .
Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy
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American Indians on Reservations: A Databook of Socioeconomic Change Between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses