Search

© The Author(s) 2020. This article presents the concept of social inclusion as a means of addressing problems of poverty and social welfare and reviews the place of social inclusion in U.S. policies toward Indigenous peoples within U.S. boundaries. We argue that there are a number of problems with the present policy application of social inclusion to Indigenous peoples in the United States, including external conceptions of needs, individualization, an orientation to distributional as opposed to positional politics, and the conditionality of inclusion. We review some of the ways that Indigenous peoples are challenging the assumptions that underlie inclusionary policy goals. We then consider how a revised concept of social inclusion that comprehends the distinctiveness of Indigenous aspirations for self-determination, nationhood, and collective self-government might benefit not only Native Americans but the United States itself and how it might contribute to a postracial America. Our argument throughout is not with social inclusion as an ideal but with the particular version of it that has characterized late 20th and early 21st century policy toward Native peoples in the United States.

© 2019, © 2019 ACSUS. Contemporary debates about poverty and its mitigation often invoke the idea of social inclusion: the effort to increase the capacities and opportunities of disadvantaged populations to participate more fully in the economy, polity, and institutions of developed societies. While practical outcomes have been inconsistent, this idea has been prominent in the social policies of both Canada and the United States. Both generally see themselves as liberal democracies committed to building socially inclusive societies, and both have adopted policies in support of that goal. However, we argue in this article that social inclusion, as presently conceived, fails to comprehend or address the distinctive situation of Indigenous peoples in both of these countries. Our critique focuses on four aspects of social inclusion as applied to Indigenous peoples: the external conception of needs, the individualization of both problems and solutions, the favoring of distributional politics over positional politics, and the conditionality of inclusion. We argue that both Canada and the United States need to reconceive social inclusion in ways that address these issues and that a more capacious conception of federalism may hold the key.

The lack of literature on Indigenous conceptions of health and the social determinants of health (SDH) for US Indigenous communities limits available information for Indigenous nations as they set policy and allocate resources to improve the health of their citizens. In 2015, eight scholars from tribal communities and mainstream educational institutions convened to examine: the limitations of applying the World Health Organization’s (WHO) SDH framework in Indigenous communities; Indigenizing the WHO SDH framework; and Indigenous conceptions of a healthy community. Participants critiqued the assumptions within the WHO SDH framework that did not cohere with Indigenous knowledges and epistemologies and created a schematic for conceptualizing health and categorizing its determinants. As Indigenous nations pursue a policy role in health and seek to improve the health and wellness of their nations’ citizens, definitions of Indigenous health and well-being should be community-driven and Indigenous-nation based. Policies and practices for Indigenous nations and Indigenous communities should reflect and arise from sovereignty and a comprehensive understanding of the nations and communities’ conceptions of health and its determinants beyond the SDH.

This highly topical collection of essays addresses contemporary issues facing Indigenous communities from a broad range of multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives. Drawing from across the social sciences and humanities, this important volume challenges the established norms, theories, and methodologies within the field, and argues for the potential of a multidimensional approach to solving problems of Indigenous justice. Stemming from an international conference on ‘Spaces of Indigenous Justice’, Indigenous Justice is richly illustrated with case studies and comprises contributions from scholars working across the fields of law, socio-legal studies, sociology, public policy, politico-legal theory, and Indigenous studies. As such, the editors of this timely and engaging volume draw upon a wide range of experience to argue for a radical shift in how we engage with Indigenous studies.

Undeniably, indigenous peoples within Canadian borders have advantages that indigenous peoples in many other parts of the world do not. Canada recognises First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples in its constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada has progressively strengthened Aboriginal authority over land, waters, and natural resources. Since the early 1990s, the provincial and federal governments of Canada have been involved in modern treaty-making to further enshrine the rights of Aboriginal communities with whom the Crown lacked historical agreements. And while progress has been variable, Canada is engaged in a process of reconciliation for some of the worse aspects of its colonial history. In 2008, for example, Canada offered an apology on behalf of Canadians for the Indian residential schools system and signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, providing redress to victims and establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. As the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples summarises in his 2013 country report, ‘Canada’s relationship with the indigenous peoples within its borders is governed by a well-developed legal framework that in many respects is protective of indigenous peoples’ rights’ (Anaya 2013, p. 5).

Utilizing a novel data set on American Indian Nations, we investigate how conditions at critical junctures of development can have long-lasting economic effects. We investigate the effect of the party of the US President at the time when American Indian tribes adopt a written constitution for the first time. Our results indicate that there is a persistent effect on economic development, even after controlling for other important characteristics and conducting extensive robustness checks. We also find suggestive evidence for the constitutional design, and specifically whether the chief executive is elected directly or indirectly, being a likely channel through which the presidential party affects long-run economic development.

Health service provision has been an aspect of indigenous-United States relationships for over two hundred years, yet America's First Peoples continue to suffer from poor health outcomes when compared with other racial or ethnic groups in the United States. An important change over recent decades is that more and more tribes are managing their own health care services—a realignment of administration and authority that has the potential to substantially improve American Indian and Alaska Native health in years to come. This paper describes the history of health care provision to federally recognized American Indian tribes. It continues by documenting the sparse research literature on tribal management of health care services and identifying information still needed to bring knowledge of this topic up-to-date. Five challenges for tribal management of health-care services that should be considered by tribes and policymakers in their health-care efforts and brought to bear on future research are discussed. By addressing both tribal control of health-care services and the role of tribes in changes to federally provided health care, this paper adds the lens of tribal sovereignty to current discussions of the history and policy context for American Indian and Alaska Native health.

We test the hypothesis that property institutions are responsible for the persistent low levels of business and economic development on American Indian reservations. American Indian lands are held in trust by the US Federal government and may not be used as collateral. We exploit the uniform and equal distribution of land between the Agua Caliente tribe and non-Indians in Palm Springs, CA in our analysis. Due to the General Allotment Act of 1887, the land was divided in a checkerboard pattern with even-numbered parcels provided to Agua Caliente government or individual tribal members and odd-numbered parcels (held in fee-simple status) were sold to non-Indians. Because of this, we overcome the usual land quality selection problem between the two types of property institutions. We find that holding local amenities and other characteristics of the parcel constant, there is no difference in the level of business investment on trust and fee simple properties. These results indicate that the inability to use American Indian land as collateral does not drive the low levels of observed business investment; other mechanisms and institutions may be the culprit.

“Accounts at birth” is an important idea at the frontier of savings and asset-building policy. How to make them effective is an important topic for research. This paper presents ideas and initial findings from the experience of American Indian nations—America's first asset-builders—with such policies. It describes the motivations for creating “minors' accounts,” which are offered by approximately 70 tribes. These tribes are the only jurisdictions in the nation to offer universal, unrestricted accounts for children. Increasingly, they also are using conditions and incentives to promote their policy goals. Their experiences offer important insights for mainstream policy makers and program managers (in the United States and elsewhere) about how to design effective children's accounts policy. The paper closes by stressing a two-way flow of information, as ideas and research findings from non-tribal communities offer new ways to strengthen tribal minors' account policies and further Native nations' welfare-enhancing goals.

Climate change, the global demand for energy, and the depletion of easily accessible natural resources has led to an increase in mining activities in the Arctic, including in Nunavut, a region rich in resources but remote in comparison to the rest of Canada. Nunavut is a predominantly Inuit socio-political region created in 1999 via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA) (1993). The NLCA also enshrined the Inuit right to manage the region’s minerals and other natural resources. Yet, despite this power to “steer their own ship,” Inuit communities struggle to maximize the benefits from resource development. Pond Inlet is a coastal hamlet on Baffin Island close to the newly operational Mary River Iron Ore Mine, an open pit mine with the potential to bring significant economic opportunities to the region. Using a framework developed by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, a case study of Pond Inlet highlights factors that contribute to and hinder Arctic Aboriginal communities’ successful local development. A total of 47 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants in Pond Inlet and the territory’s capital, Iqaluit. Findings underscore the importance of Indigenous community self-determination, effective and culturally relevant governing institutions, and clear visioning for the future. In Pond Inlet, key barriers to maximizing local benefits relate to institutional and governance challenges. Evidence from this study suggests that Pond Inlet will better succeed with local community development by strengthening its governance mechanisms to support the goals of self-determination.

This paper presents an empirical examination of economic and institutional development. Utilizing a novel data set on American Indian tribal nations, we investigate how constitutional design affects economic development, while holding the broader legal and political environment fixed. Instrumental variables regressions, using the party of the US President at the time of the initial adoption of tribal constitutions as an instrument for constitutional design, indicate that parliamentary systems (versus presidential) have a strong positive effect on economic development, while ordinary least squares regressions of current economic outcomes on parliamentary systems of government show no effects. Robustness checks suggest that the results are not explained by differences in other institutions or geographic characteristics. Additional results provide some suggestive evidence that the effects may operate through channels that are typically associated with parliamentary systems, such as larger public employment, and more equitable income distribution.

In another in a series of impressive papers, McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast ("McNollgast") have deployed the machinery of positive political theory ("PPT") in order to make some sense of legislative intent and to provide guidance to those who must intuit it.1 While some have suggested that legislative intent is, in fact, senseless,2 and while McNollgast are certainly not naive about the Arrowian incoherence of collectivities (owing to preference cycles among those 535 bellies), they nonetheless have sought to provide a positive program of systematic guidance to judges on how best to make sense of legislation. This project on positive interpretive canons is important, and one to which we hope legal scholars and practitioners will pay some attention. It is, however, evolving, and therefore contains a number of provocative, but underelaborated, possibilities. This brief commentary will raise some issues that require attention. In the current article, as well as in another recent contribution,3 the authors articulate criteria according to which an interested outside observer (for example, a judge) may identify the composition of an enacting coalition and the contents of their negotiated agreement. They borrow heavily from an analogy to the theory of incomplete contracts in economics. They reason that the legislative parties to a statutory "contract" will not wish to dot every i or cross every t, since the transaction costs of doing so are excessive, and unforeseen contingencies exist. The role of courts in such circumstances, they argue, "is to fill in the gaps in legislation by interpreting the intentions of the law's enacting coalition."4 In the view of McNollgast, the act of interpreting is a process of inference in which the court should regard statutory language as "a statement of the