Tribal Governments in the United States Research Assignment (Research Paper Sample)

Tribal Governments in the United States
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Abstract
Legislation governs many tribes in the United States in the same manner as the US constitution operating under controlled structures of government and having leadership structures equivalent to the US Federal government. Due to their organization, their governments resemble the US Federal government although they lack formal means of legislation. Native Americans are one such tribe with a formal structure of government albeit unrecognized by the sovereign government. They possess branches of the government allowing for the separation of powers between the judiciary, the legislature, and the executive. Laura Evans and Erich Steinman take examine tribal governments in the United States in the past and their place in present-day politics.
Tribal Governments of the United States
Article Summaries
Both Erich Steinman and Laura Evans speak about tribal governments in the United States using two contrasting perspectives. Steinman compiles research titled, “Settler Colonial Power and the American Indian Sovereignty,” in which he examines forms of domination, and strategies for transformation (Steinman 2012). Steinman draws upon the cultural models for service delivery. Through the analysis of the movement of the American Indian sovereignty, the article analyzes the multi-institutional model for change and power. He articulates the institutionalization conception of resources and political opportunities. In so doing, Steinman shows that the frame of reference can be used in addressing the issues touching on the state together with the non-state fields. Both Laura and Steinman are elaborate in articulating their stands about the position of Native Tribes in America in the past, in the present and the where they are likely to be in the future, both intersecting at the point of examining the discrimination the tribes have failed despite writing the story of the origin of America. .
Laura compiles research titled, “Expertise and Scale of Conflict,” in which she examines the role of governments as an advocate in the politics of American Indians. Evans analyses how the tribal governments of American Indians relate to the nearby local governments (Evans 2011). The article outlines the role of insights collected from the case that illuminate the opportunities and constraints marginalized groups face within any federalism system. The article shines a light on the circumstances of marginalized governments that assist or obscure the effectiveness of such systems. According to the study, some Native American tribes have undergone a transformation of their fortunes with highly profitable casinos (Evans 2011). Most of the Native American governments continue to face various forms of disadvantages. Although some tribal governments face limited opportunities by the cultivation of political expertise and policy, they prevail locally. Laura demonstrates that such expertise can be developed despite the scarcity of resources.
Synthesis of the Material
Steinman notes that by the start of the 20th century, there were more than 250,000 Native Americans in the United States and the number represented barely 0.3 percent of the population (Steinman 2012). Most of the Native Americans lived on reservations in which they took part in a limited degree of self-government. Plenty of their land had deprived the natives by forced removal of westwards in the courses of the nineteenth century. The removal was done by the use of a succession of treaties that were not honored by the white administration. The military was defeated by the USA expanding its control over the west of the American territory. The analysis of the Indian Sovereignty Movement extends and advances a significant contribution to the framework of the politics of multi-institutionalism (Steinman 2012). The analytical focus is centered on protests geared towards the state and cleavage repertoires. The focus remains diffuse in its manifestations and the interaction of institutions and various social fields.
Like Steinman, Laura examines bureaucratic paternalism together with the binary construction of the American society. The Indian identity is represented as an oppositional identity rife with contentions of political action (Evans 2011). The study looks into the legal decisions that favor the fields of law in the process of the legitimization of the discourses of legitimate sovereignty in the promotion of pragmatic association between the state and the local governments (Evans 2011). The United States stands out in the study as a society of colonial settlers. The researchers posit that the frameworks of decolonization are reliable when compared to the ethnic or racial approaches in the process of conceptualizing the struggles of societies of Indian Americans.
Laura, as well as Steinman, takes note of the efforts by John Marshall, the American Chief Justice in 1831 in defining the status of the Native Indian American tribes. The Marshall ends up defining the tribes as ‘domestic dependent nations’ (Steinman 2012). He says such nations relate to the United States in the same way wards relate to their guardians. The Chief Justice was paying attention to the unique nature of the American Indians because of the fact they are a separate nation and part of the United States at the same time as opposed to other great nations. The theory helps in the explanation of the strained relationship between the federal government and Native American tribes. According to Marshall, the United States’ policy must stress on the assimilation of Native Americans into mainstream American culture. It follows the wisdom that a guardian prepared his ward for independence at adulthood (Steinman 2012). Theoretically, a guardian is supposed to protect the ward until the period of adulthood. Judge Marshall, therefore, mentions that the government of the United States must take care of its responsibility of caring for Native Americans.
Similarly, Laura analyses the primary goals of the tribes in traditional American society. The primary purpose of the tribes of the North Western region entails the institutionalization and the acknowledgment of the role of the tribal leaders. It means the acceptance of the status of the sovereign governments to gain access to the treatment that accrues from such kind of classification. The tribal leaders of the North West embraced the 1831 conception of the Supreme Court of the Indian tribes (Evans 2011). The Court defined the tribes as domestic dependent nations that are connected to the greater United States via the treaties. The tribes maintained sovereign rights even though they had ceded to engage on the international relations. The vision comprised only one of the many views that were articulated in the Indian country. Laura notes that some tribal leaders reject an incomplete sovereign status and the citizenship of the United States. The nations assert full independence and international sovereignty.
Unlike Steinman, Laura notes that the institutionalization of the acknowledgment of tribal status could have constituted an essential change in many fields even though such efforts only targeted fields within the state jurisdictions. One of the prime reasons is because the state field is among one of the most exclusive modern authorities. Recognition as a government can only be convened only on the event that other government agents treat it as autonomous (Evans 2011). The status of government recognition can just come about when the entity acquires a state of autonomy from the other agents of the government. State institutions have a dominant influence over the social entity created by the cultural constructions or by the governments.
Unlike Laura, Steinman complicates the story in his lucid analysis. He defines the traditional tribes, unlike other minority tribes that seek recognition in the United States. Conventional Indian communities have lived and possessed some of the most original pieces of land of which the rest of Americans have remained envious (Steinman 2012). Much of the land was lost, and hence the rest of the story has remained a case of morality. The Federal government led the ‘white Americans’ as the bad people who cheated the Americans out of their land. The Native Americans were represented as the good people who tried to maintain a traditional kind of life. They lived in harmony with nature together with the environment (Steinman 2012). They avoided the rampant capitalism that was going round in abundant measure but remained powerless in maintaining their interests.
Unlike Steinman, Laura makes a note of the many treaties the United States entered into because of its vulnerabilities as opposed to its absolute dominance. The state made many essential promises to the Indian tribes, as it was limited in its military reach and remained in constant competition with the European powers (Evans 2011). Tribal signatories believed that treaties were binding agreements of mutual friendship and peace. They were never viewed as unilateral symbols of the surrender of submission. The conventions had authority because of the consent upon which they were based and the legality they conveyed. The same foundations of culture and intellectual legitimacy that offer respect on the treaties also justified the authority of the legal official in interpreting them. The nature of the post facto interpretation of law had dominated the tribes and had severely diminished their status and rights (Evans 2011). Any essential legal principles had constrained the application of the authority of the law over the American Indian tribes.
In a note of distinction, Steinman notes that although there is a lot of truth on the history of the American...