Tribal Constitutions: Constructing Power by Developing Structures of Self-Governance

在美国大陆有345个联邦政府承认的部落，部落主权--它的起源、范围、与美国联邦政府的联系以及与美国州政府的区别--是一个有争议的复杂话题。 除了其法律的影响，它的定义影响部落文化，成员的福祉，甚至部落的生存。 部落宪法是部落主权的组成部分，许多部落政府将其宪法视为自决的基石。 但宪法并不是在真空中发展起来的;它们是塑造现代国家的历史轨迹和权力进程的结果。宪法化的决定和宪法的内容，让我们深入了解一个社会如何思考自决、自治和正义。这种关系在部落宪法的背景下是复杂的，因为部落作为主权依赖的国家，在帝国的阴影下发展了他们的自治要求。 调查人员编制了一个全面的数据库，其中包括来自304个部落的1,053个部落宪法或修正案（占美国大陆目前345个联邦承认的印第安部落的88%），代表了近150年的部落宪法历史。他们制定了一个全面的编码计划，以绘制宪法条款并跟踪历史变化。 利用这个数据库，他们将研究与主权密切相关的四个宪法领域：（1）部落宪法渊源;（2）公民身份和权利;（3）部落法院;（4）立法权。 每个研究领域都提出了权力是如何构建的问题，无论是通过胁迫，抵抗，经济发展，制度结构等，找到这些问题的答案将取决于众多制度的比较，阅读复杂的宪法文件与相互作用的制度形式，以及随着时间的推移允许可视化的变化方法。 研究人员将使用多种方法，结合计算社会科学方法，因果分析和定性法律的分析。 这项研究探索部落治理的文件和机构将扩大我们今天的部落权力及其随时间的发展的理解。 这些发现将有助于探讨部落主权以及部落与联邦政府之间的关系，并将部落治理纳入宪政和比较宪政的丰富领域。 将部落的经验集中在宪法研究中不仅会推进殖民主义和自决的工作，它将为宪法语言塑造政治话语的方式提供具体的见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

There are 345 federally recognized tribes within the continental United States, and tribal sovereignty—its genesis, expanse, interconnection with the U.S. federal government, and distinction from U.S. state governments—is a contested and complicated topic. Beyond its legal ramifications, its definition impacts tribal culture, member well-being, and even tribal survival. Tribal constitutions serve as a component of tribal sovereignty, and many tribal governments regard their constitutions as a cornerstone of self-determination. But constitutions do not develop in a vacuum; they are the result of historical trajectories and power processes that shape modern states. The decision to constitutionalize, and the content of a constitution, give insight into how a society thinks about self-determination, self-governance, and justice. This relationship is complicated in the context of tribal constitutions because tribes, as sovereign-dependent nations, developed their claims to self-governance in the shadow of empire. The investigators have compiled a comprehensive database of 1,053 tribal constitutions or amendments from 304 tribes (88% of the currently 345 federally recognized Indian tribes in the continental U.S.), representing nearly 150 years of tribal constitutional history. They have developed a comprehensive coding scheme to map constitutional provisions and track historical change over time. Using this database, they will study four constitutional areas closely connected to sovereignty: (1) tribal constitutional origins; (2) citizenship and rights; (3) tribal courts; and (4) legislative power. Each area of research raises questions of how power is constructed, whether through coercion, resistance, economic development, institutional structures, etc. Finding answers to these questions will depend on comparison of numerous institutions, a reading of complex constitutional documents with interacting institutional forms, and methods which allow visualization of changes over time. The investigators will use a multi-methodological approach, combining computational social science methods, causal analysis, and qualitative legal analysis. This research exploring the documents and institutions of tribal governance will expand our understanding of tribal power today and its development over time. The findings will contribute to discussions of tribal sovereignty and the relationship between tribes and the federal government and will bring tribal governance into the rich field of constitutionalism and comparative constitutionalism. Centering the experience of tribes in constitutional studies will not only advance work on colonialism and self-determination, it will provide concrete insights into the ways in which constitutional language shapes political discourse.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.