Gambling on Decentralization: How Sub-National Regulatory Interests Condition the Impact of Federal Policy

Intergovernmental relations scholars note a decentralizing trend transferring authority from national to state and local government in the American federalist system. Theory suggests that a misalignment of the interests of national and regional actors may lead to variation in sub-national regulatory environments. We investigate how different sub-national regulatory environments condition the impact of Tribal gaming. Using tribal-state gaming compacts and amendments from 1990–2010, we examine how restrictions in sub-national regulatory agreements condition intended impacts of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. We find that revenue sharing and market restrictions differentially influence the impact of gaming on tribal per capita income but not levels of unemployment. Through the case of Tribal gaming, we determine how sub-national agreements condition the relative accomplishment of policy goals important to Native nations.

Making Sovereignty Mean Something: Native Nations and Creative Adaptation

Scholarship regarding Native Nations has often focused on the problems of Native Nations caused by a brutal history of genocide, repression and forced assimilation. Relatively little attention has been paid to how Native Nations creatively adapt to their circumstances in a continual process of reinvention. This article provides insights into Native Nations through examples in the lower 48 states and Alaska. This study, based on 16 interviews the author conducted with Native Nations leaders in Alaska and the lower 48 states, demonstrates how Native Nations adapt to their unique circumstances to make sovereignty meaningful, because of and in spite of federal legislation that seeks to govern Nation Nations. Ultimately, I argue that many Native Nations today are purposefully modernizing by creatively adapting to their circumstances, transforming systems of governance, and leveraging economic tools, integrating their own evolving cultural practices. While modernization implies following a Western developmental path, purposeful modernization is driven by the choices of the people. While change was forced upon Native Nations in numerous, often devastating, ways since colonization, they have nevertheless asserted agency and formed governments and economic institutions that reflect and reinforce their own cultural norms. This article highlights examples of how Native Nations and the lower 48 have adapted given the very different circumstances created in part by state and federal policies such as the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).

Gaming Opportunities: American Indian Casinos, Cash Transfers, and Income Mobility on the Reservation

We examine the impact of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act on the income rank of American Indian (AI) reservation residents. We assemble a panel dataset at the individual level for tax filers residing on AI reservations in 1989. We examine the effect of casino operations and cash distribution payments (from casino revenues) on the income-rank evolution over time. Casino operations provide an unambiguous increase in family income rank for those residing on reservations with an operating casino relative to those on reservations without a casino. The presence of an operating casino increases relative income rank by half a percentage point.

The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and Its Effects on American Indian Economic Development

The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), passed by the US Congress in 1988, was a watershed in the history of policymaking directed toward reservation-resident American Indians. IGRA set the stage for tribal government-owned gaming facilities. It also shaped how this new industry would develop and how tribal governments would invest gaming revenues. Since then, Indian gaming has approached commercial, state-licensed gaming in total revenues. Gaming operations have had a far-reaching and transformative effect on American Indian reservations and their economies. Specifically, Indian gaming has allowed marked improvements in several important dimensions of reservation life. For the first time, some tribal governments have moved to fiscal independence. Native nations have invested gaming revenues in their economies and societies, often with dramatic effect.