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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

The Third Nation - Native American Issues

Covering the Border: Issues from the US-Mexico BorderlandWestern Knight Center for Specialized Journalism

and The Institute for Justice and Journalism,Annenberg School for Communication

University of Southern California

November 5, 2003Tucson, Arizona

Jonathan Taylor

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

• The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, at the JFK School of Government, Harvard University– ksg.harvard.edu/hpaied

• The Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, Univerisity of Arizona– udallcenter.arizona.edu/nativenations/index.html

HPAEID & NNI

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Overview

• Missions of the HPAIED and NNI• Research findings on economic

development – Sovereignty– Institutions– Native culture

• Implications for policy and journalism

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Missions:

• Research and teaching on the causes and consequences of American Indian economic development.

• Applied research for Indian governments.

• Executive education.

• Governance awards program.

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

The Research: A Time to be Optimistic?

• Long legacy of problems and challenges

• Growing number of success stories• Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (Mississippi)• Confederated Salish and Kootenai (Montana)• Winnebago Tribe (Nebraska)• Louden Tribe (Alaska)

• Why are some tribes successful while others cannot get off the dime?

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Two Approaches to Economic Development

1. The Standard Approach:– “We’ve got a problem…poverty.”– Solution: Get Something Going!

• get businesses started,• find a grant, • find a program.

– Produces familiar results: single-cycles of investment in businesses that fail.

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Two Approaches to Economic Development

2. The Nation-Building Approach:– “We’ve got a problem…poverty.”– Solution: create an environment that is conducive

to investment of all types.– Views development primarily as a political

challenge: sovereign, stable, and capable institutions of government.

– Produces outcomes: capital investment, return migration,

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Components of Nation-Building

1. Sovereignty

2. Capable Institutions

3. Culture

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1. (De Facto) Sovereignty

• Genuine decision making control over the tribe’s affairs.

• In virtually every case we’ve seen of sustained economic development, the tribe is in the driver’s seat—outsiders cannot get development going.

• De facto control translates into dollars and cents results and a host of qualitative benefits.

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Why “Sovereignty”?

• Four sovereigns in the US Constitution.• “Quasi-sovereign, domestic dependent

nations” (the Marshall Trilogy)• The “Self-determination Era”

– Tribes’ assertion of de facto control– Public Law 93-638 and extensions– Tribal capacity-building

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Why does Sovereignty Matter?

• Who is the self in self-government• Property rights• Decision-makers and consequences

closer together • Heterogeneous preferences—cultures• Responsiveness to local conditions

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

2. Capable Institutions

• Stable institutions and policies• Fair and effective dispute resolution• Separation of politics from business

management• A bureaucracy that can get things done

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Stable Institutions

• Investors of all kinds avoid instability.• Tribes are reforming their institutions:

– Staggered terms for elected, regulatory, and judicial officials;

– Separation of powers and checks and balances;

– Judicial review in times of crisis.

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Fair & Effective Dispute Resolution

• Robust, fair, speedy, and independent judicial systems foster development

• Court independence has a measurable effect on unemployment.

• Judicial systems do not have to look like “western courts”

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Separation of Politics & Business Management

• Government ownership of enterprise is a regular feature of economic activity in Indian Country.

• Enterprises that are formally insulated from politics are four times as likely to be profitable

• Tribes are building boards and commissions to protect the functioning of enterprise.

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

An Effective Bureaucracy

• Getting things done fairly, predictably, and efficiently

• Civil service, solid record keeping, independent audits, etc.

• Hiring and retaining some of best employees available.

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3. Cultural Match

• The match between governing institutions and the prevailing norms/attitudes about how authority should be organized and exercised is essential to government functioning.

• Legitimacy of government is at the core of socioeconomic development.

• Constitutional and institutional reform is at the core of socioeconomic development.

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jonathan_taylor@harvard.edu

Why might (political) culture matter?

• Culture helps principals discipline their agents.

• Culture can be a check on end-runs around institutions.

• Culture can be the basis for policy consensus.

• Culture defines the legitimate application of authority.

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Implications for Policy

• Government-to-government relationship vs. government-to-dependent

• Dispersion vs. centralization of resources, objectives, & solutions

• Investments in governing capacity vs. adherence to rules

• Flexibility in understanding the self in self-government.

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Implications for Journalism• More than the usual investment in stories,

because the history, policy, and culture of relevant tribes is important.

• Cultural assumptions & bias – What culture says about organizing society– What culture says about Indian policy

• Indians and the melting pot• ‘The Indian wars are over’• ‘Surplus’ wealth of Indians• ‘We gave the Indians…XYZ’

– Coward, John M., The Newspaper Indian: Native American Identity in the Press, 1820-90.