1 the third nation - native american issues covering the border: issues from the us-mexico...
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3 Overview Missions of the HPAIED and NNI Research findings on economic development –Sovereignty –Institutions –Native culture Implications for policy and journalismTRANSCRIPT
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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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• 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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.