American Indian Tribal Governance and Management: Public Administration Promise or Pretense?

Abstract

Research on tribal governance in the United States is scarce among public administration scholars. Nonetheless, tribal governance is a pre-Columbian practice that predates its acknowledgment in the U.S. Constitution and federal law. This article gives attention to work from other disciplines, demonstrating that an interdisciplinary approach offers the best historical and current information on the state of public administration research concerning American Indian tribes; tribal governance literature is most definitely not “missing” but is instead moderately “unassembled” as a subfield of public administration. This article looks to build on what remains missing and suggests areas within tribal governance that should be addressed in the future.