Indigenous Governance Database
Joseph P. Kalt
The More Indigenous Nations Self Govern, The More They Succeed
Harvard Kennedy School Professor Joseph Kalt and senior director Director Megan Minoka Hill say the evidence is in: When Native nations make their own decisions about what development approaches to take, studies show they consistently out-perform external decision makers like the U.S. Department of…
Policy Brief: Assessing the U.S. Treasury Department’s Allocations of Funding for Tribal Governments under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (“the Act” or “ARPA”) has resulted in the single largest infusion of federal funding for Native America in U.S. history. The core of this funding is $20 billion for the more than 570 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments. As…
Policy Brief: Recommendations for the Allocation and Administration of American Rescue Plan Act Funding for American Indian Tribal Governments
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides the largest infusion of federal funding for Indian Country in the history of the United States. More than $32 billion dollars is directed toward assisting American Indian nations and communities as they work to end and recover from the devastating…
Insights from Congressional and Tribal Leaders: Coronavirus Relief for American Indian Tribal Govt
In March 2020, American Indian tribes celebrated their historic inclusion in the CARES Act, receiving nearly $11 billion in direct relief. The Act recognized that tribal governments are confronting extraordinary demands parallel to those faced by state and local governments. The relief dollars,…
Policy Brief: Federal COVID‐19 Response Funding for Tribal Governments: Lessons from the CARES Act
The federal response to the COVID‐19 pandemic has played out in varied ways over the past several months. For Native nations, the CARES Act (i.e., the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) has been the most prominent component of this response to date. Title V of the Act earmarked $8…
Policy Brief: Emerging Stronger than Before: Guidelines for the Federal Role in American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes’ Recovery from the COVID‐19 Pandemic
The COVID‐19 pandemic has wrought havoc in Indian Country. While the American people as a whole have borne extreme pain and suffering, and the transition back to “normal” will be drawn out and difficult, the First Peoples of America arguably have suffered the most severe and most negative…
Policy Brief: Proposal for a Fair and Feasible Formula for the Allocation of CARES Act COVID‐19 Relief Funds to American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Governments
Title V of the CARES Act requires that the Act’s funds earmarked for tribal governments be released immediately and that they be used for actions taken to respond to the COVID‐19 pandemic. These may include costs incurred by tribal governments to respond directly to the crisis, such as medical or…
Policy Brief: The Need for a Significant Allocation of COVID‐19 Response Funds to American Indian Nations
This policy brief addresses the impact of the current COVID‐19 crisis on American Indian tribal economies, tribes’ responses to the crisis, and the implications of these impacts and actions for the US government’s allocation of crisis‐response funds to federally recognized tribes. We conclude that…
Policy Brief: Dissecting the US Treasury Department’s Round 1 Allocations of CARES Act COVID‐19 Relief Funding for Tribal Governments
In a joint statement, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Interior Secretary Bernhardt detailed the amount of CARES Act Title V funds that would be released for federally recognized American Indian tribes starting on May 5, 2010. They noted that the US Treasury Department would “distribute 60 percent of…
HPAIED Letter to the Treasury: Allocation of COVID-19 Response Funds to American Indian Nations
Dear Secretary Mnuchin, We write to respectfully comment on the impact of the current COVID-19 crisis on American Indian tribal economies, tribes’ responses to the crisis, and on implications for the allocation of federal COVID-19 response funds to federally recognized tribes under the CARES Act…
American Indians on Reservations: A Databook of Socioeconomic Change Between the 1990 and 2000 Censuses
This study compiles 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census data on Native Americans residing on reservations and in designated Indian statistical areas in the lower 48 U.S. States. Gaming and non- gaming areas are compared to each other and to the U.S. as a whole. Data on fifteen measures ranging from income…
The First Nations Governance Act: Implications of Research Findings from the United States and Canada
In the spring of 2002, the Office of the British Columbia Regional Vice-Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) asked the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy at The University of Arizona to provide that office with an analysis of the First Nations Governance Act (…
American Indian Self-Determination: The Political Economy of a Successful Policy
Examines the changing level of congressional support for the federal American Indian policy aimed at promoting self-determination, through self-governance of federally recognized tribes.
Sovereignty and Nation-Building: The Development Challenge in Indian Country Today
The Indian nations of the United States face a rare opportunity. This is not the occasional business opportunity of reservation legend, when some eager investor would arrive at tribal offices with a proposal guaranteed to produce millions of dollars for the tribe--although such investors still…
Alaska Native Self-Government and Service Delivery: What Works?
The Native peoples of Alaska have governed themselves for far longer than either the State of Alaska or the United States. Indeed, their rights of self-government are properly defended as basic human rights that are not unilaterally extinguishable by these other governments. Yet, today an…
Reloading the Dice: Improving the Chances for Economic Development on American Indian Reservations
The experiences of a wide array of societies around the world amply demonstrate that achieving sustained, self-determined economic development is a complex and difficult task. Certainly this is the case on the Indian reservations of the United States, where numerous obstacles face tribal leaders,…
Myths and Realities of Tribal Sovereignty: The Law and Economics of Indian Self-Rule
The last three decades have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of the American Indian nations in the United States. The foundation of this resurgence has been the exercise of self-government (sovereignty) by the more than 560 federally- recognized tribes in the U.S. In this study, we explore legal…
Two Approaches to Economic Development on American Indian Reservations: One Works, the Other Doesn't
As much of the world knows, American Indian nations are poor. What much of the world doesn't know is that in the last quarter century, a number of these nations have broken away from the prevailing pattern of poverty. They have moved aggressively to take control of their futures and rebuild their…
Seizing the Future: Why Some Native Nations Do and Others Don't
Both research and the experience among Native nations daily drive home the conclusion that the so-called "nation-building" approach holds the keys to self-determined social, political, and economic development for indigenous communities. This approach emphasizes the critical role of asserting…
The Context and Meaning of Family Strengthening in Indian America
This report presents five specific, field-based case studies of successful efforts to support the well-being of Native American children. These successful programs were conceived of, implemented by, and generally funded by Tribal communities. These programs include the Ya Ne Day ah School in…