American Indian Tribal Governments Research Articles

Recommendations for the Allocation and Administration of American Rescue Plan Act Funding for American Indian Tribal Governments

Recommendations for the Allocation and Administration of American Rescue Plan Act Funding for American Indian Tribal Governments

Expertise and Scale of Conflict: Governments as Advocates in American Indian Politics

How do American Indian tribal governments relate to nearby local governments? Do insights gleaned from these cases illuminate the constraints and opportunities that marginalized groups face within any system of federalism? What circumstances of marginalized governments help or hinder their effectiveness? Although some Native American tribes have transformed their fortunes with highly profitable casinos, most continue to face stark disadvantages. Some tribal governments, despite limited opportunities prevail locally by cultivating policy and political expertise. This analysis demonstrates that such expertise can be developed, even when resources are scarce.

Geographic Information Networks in American Indian Governments and Communities

This article describes advantages and disadvantages of federal government centralized geographic information networks and decentralized peer-to-peer geographic information networks as they pertain to North American Indian tribal governments and communities. Geographic information systems (GIS) are used by indigenous groups for natural resource management, land claims, water rights, and cultural revitalization activities on a global-scale. North American groups use GIS for the same reasons, but questions regarding culturally appropriate GIS, cross-cultural understandings of geographic knowledge, and cultural assimilation through Western digital technologies have been raised by scholars. Two network models are germane to American Indian government operations and community organizations. The first is a prescriptive top-down network emanating from federal government agencies. Federal agencies are responsible for the diffusion of nationwide GIS programs throughout indigenous communities in the United States. A second, potentially more inclusive model is a decentralized peer-to-peer network in which all nodes are responsible for the success of the network.

American Indians and the United States Constitution

The status of American Indian tribal governments as sovereign entities and American Indians as citizens of their governments was recognized by the Founding Fathers of the United States and is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. This article demonstrates the truth of these statements from the text of the Constitution itself.

Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: A Survey of State-Recognized Tribes and State Recognition Processes Across the United States

This article provides a national overview of the legal status of state-recognized American Indian tribal governments - specifically, those tribes that have been recognized by their respective states, but not the federal government. Part One discusses how state recognition functions within our federalist system and why it has become increasingly important for states and tribes. Part Two categorizes the various state recognition schemes into state law, administrative, legislative and executive recognition processes. Part Three lists the tribes recognized by each state and summarizes each state's regulatory approach to tribal-state relations. Part Four concludes with a brief argument in favor of greater rights on the part of state tribes.

Violence Against American Indian Women and the Services-Training-Officers-Prosecutors Violence Against Indian Women (STOP VAIW) Program

When Congress appropriated funds to develop ways to reduce violence against American Indian women, tribal elders faced a challenging task: find ways to cooperate with various tribal and nontribal criminal justice agencies and navigate the maze of law enforcement authority. An evaluative study was conducted of these programs and the different approaches used to help keep women safe by American Indian tribal governments. This study found that the tribes rose to the challenge; the money was making a difference. The grants to stop violence against Indian women have made a significant impact in the 134 native communities that received awards.

American Indian Tribal Governments, Law, and Courts

This selective bibliographic essay on American Indian tribal governments, law and courts provides a much needed update on research in tribal law. Professor Carter's essay provides a guide to primary and secondary materials on tribal law and government, tribal courts and tribal judges. As tribes grow in number and influence there is a renewed interest in the jurisprudence of these “third sovereigns.”

The Growth and Development of Tribal Police

American Indian tribal governments have the opportunity to expand tribal sovereignty subsequent to the passage of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, and the Indian Self-Governance Act. The legal window created by these acts, coupled with cutbacks in Bureau of Indian Affairs Law Enforcement Services, has created an environment in which tribal governments are developing and expanding tribal law enforcement services. The legal minefield in which tribal governments and law enforcement personnel operate is a complicated one, but one which must be successfully negotiated if tribal sovereignty is to be advanced through the assertion of police authority.

American Indian tribal government support of office-seekers: Findings from the 1994 election

How and why do American Indian tribal governments support political office-seekers? Using results from an extensive survey of tribal governments in Arizona and Oklahoma, our findings suggest that issues, rather than cultural ties or political party affiliation, are the primary impetus for American Indian tribal government support of candidates. Additionally, we examine several ways in which American Indians support candidates for office other than voting. This includes official endorsement, financial contributions, get out the vote efforts (GOTV), and volunteering for a candidate. Ultimately, our findings begin to uncover how and why American Indian tribal governments seek to influence the political process in the current era of evolving “government-to-government” relationships.

The Navajo Gaming Referendum: Reservations about Casinos Lead to Popular Rejection of Legalized Gambling

Numerous American Indian tribal governments have introduced legalized gambling to enhance revenues. There have been notable financial successes as well as some confrontations with state governments and the exacerbation of factionalism on some reservations. The largest tribal entity in the United States, the Navajo, has not established a gaming industry. In 1994 the Navajo Tribal Council, following a veto of enabling legislation, referred the issue to the voters. Navajo voters rejected the referendum in the November, 1994 tribal general election. This article examines the Navajo electorate's rejection of gaming. Results varied by voting district (chapter). Exit polling conducted in a half-dozen chapters is used to analyze the effects of sex and age on the outcome and to describe the voters' reasons for their vote.

The U. S. Supreme Court's Explication of "Federal Plenary Power:" An Analysis of Case Law Affecting Tribal Sovereignty, 1886-1914

tutional issues and circumstances that influence tribal-federal affairs. A central feature of this dynamic dialogue is the incongruous relationship between the United States Congress's exercise of plenary power and the tribes' efforts to exercise their sovereign political rights. This essay traces the historical, legal, and political origins and transformation of this pivotal concept from 1886 to 1914, an important period in its development. Analysis of 107 federal court cases and of the plenary power concept reveals that congressional plenary power has several distinctive definitions. Depending on which definition is used by the court and whether the term is based on constitutional or extra-constitutional doctrine, determines whether the court's decision will adversely or positively affect tribal sovereignty, political rights, and resources. One of the perennial puzzles in intergovernmental relations and constitutional law is the following question: What is the relationship between American Indian tribal governments, that exercise certain sovereign rights, and the United States government which presumes a plenary power with regard to tribes? Despite the federal government's presumptioni of vast authority over tribes,2 plenary power remains a problematic concept, particularly when paired with the doctrine of tribal sovereignty.

American Indian Tribal Governments

American Indian Tribal Governments

American Indian Tribal Governments

American Indian Tribal Governments

American Indian Tribal Governments.

American Indian Tribal Governments.

Review: American Indian Tribal Governments, by Sharon O'Brien

Review: <i>American Indian Tribal Governments</i>, by Sharon O'Brien

American Indian tribal governments

American Indian tribal governments

American Indian Tribal Governments

American Indian Tribal Governments

The Comparative Political History of Two Tribal Governments

The recent history of two American Indian tribal governments, the Navajo Nation, and the Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, provide background for the examination of the paths followed by two tribal governments in seeking to establish and maintain legitimated self-rule within the federal governmental structure of the United States. The Navajo Nation has its capitol at Window Rock, on a reservation of 25,000 square miles, in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and a small area of southeastern Utah. The Navajo population is estimated between 160,000 and 170,000 people. It is the largest American Indian tribe in the United States. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe of Arizona has the Pascua Pueblo Reservation, with a land area of 892 acres, near Tucson, Arizona, and off-reservation membership in four major villages, Yoem Pueblo in Marana, Guadalupe near Tempe, Barrio Libre in South Tucson, and Old Pascua in Tucson. All of the communities are in southern Arizona. The tribal enrollment was 8,200 at the time of the first election in June, 1988. These two Indian nations are unalike in many ways, but, then, no two tribes are alike, and each tribal government has its own unique history of how it came to be. Both tribes trace their ultimate origins to mythological events in the pre-columbian past. Both have been, in more recent history, included within the political boundaries of the Spanish colonial empire, the Mexican national state, and now the United States. The Navajo Nation retains a part of its ancestral homeland within the boundaries of its present reservation. The Pascua Yaqui communities are separated from their homeland in the Mexican state of Sonora by the United States/Mexican border. Each of these governments, whatever their historical origin, share the commonalities of having passed through the process of receiving federal recognition as a tribal entity (sovereign) from the federal government. These tribes, as all other tribes, have been forced to spend much of their time and energy either resisting negative federal policy or trying to obtain the benefits of favorable policy. Under recent policy as formalized in the Indian Self-Determination Act, P.L. 93-638, tribal governments have moved from being toy governments totally controlled by the federal government, to official establishment as parts of the American governmental structure of states, under the supremacy of the federal government (Wilkinson:1987,86). Some tribal goverments have used this status in some pragmatic ways to develop as governments utilizing the concept of tribal sovereignty of P.L. 93-638 policy to gain control over their own internal affairs. The Navajo Nation is one of those tribal governments which has developed in its particu56

BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS Get access American Indian Tribal Governments, by Sharon O'Brien, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989, 321 pp., $29.95 cloth. Anne Merline McCulloch Anne Merline McCulloch Columbia CollegeColumbia, SC Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Volume 20, Issue 4, Fall 1990, Pages 167–168, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubjof.a037903 Published: 01 January 1990