Indigenous Governance Database
public policy

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…

Case Report: Indigenous Sovereignty in a Pandemic: Tribal Codes in the United States as Preparedness
Indigenous Peoples globally and in the United States have combatted and continue to face disease, genocide, and erasure, often the systemic result of settler colonial policies that seek to eradicate Indigenous communities. Many Native nations in the United States have asserted their inherent…

American Indian Reservations and COVID-19 Correlates of Early Infection Rates in the Pandemic
Objective: To determine the household and community characteristics most closely associated with variation in COVID-19 incidence on American Indian reservations in the lower 48 states. Design: Multivariate analysis with population weights. Setting: Two hundred eighty-seven American Indian…

What are the Limits of Social Inclusion? Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous Governance in Canada and the United States
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…

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…

Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School
Founded in 1997, the Leadership Institute at the Santa Fe Indian School aims to create a dynamic learning environment in which community members not only learn and teach, but are able to actively contribute to the success of their nations. Four themes guide the Institute’s work: leadership,…

Grand Traverse Band Planning and Development
Faced with a growing land base and an increasing number of visitors to the reservation, the Grand Traverse Band Tribal Council established the Planning and Development Department in 1997 to build capacity within the community to accommodate new needs. The Department addressed its challenge by…

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…

Tsawwassen First Nation: Law and Policy
Tsawwassen's story about creating laws and policies after their historic treaty signing provides important insight for all First Nations who wish to develop laws and policy.