Restoring Democracy: Implications of American Indian Efforts to Return Tribal Governance to Participatory Values

U.S. Government's attempts at democratization and providing assistance have often failed from insufficiently taking account of local values and conditions. Consultants have often achieved poor results by assuming what worked in one place would succeed in another. American Indian Nations, struggling to overcome the problems of imposition of culturally inappropriate forms of tribal government by the U.S. government have achieved some instructive successes in returning governance to traditional inclusive participatory values, while providing useful lessons in some incomplete or aborted cases. This paper focuses on the efforts of the Southern Ute Tribe, The Comanche Nation and the Navajo Nation. This has involved applying traditional values through appropriately adapting contemporary means along with traditional ways for current circumstances with an eye for future development.