Abstract

Indian reservation system in United States has being a historical issue that is unique and full of controversy. Since its formulation in the 1830s，the system has gone through the stages of expelling and isolation，assimilation，elimination，termination due to the constant policy adjustment from the federal government，and finally achieved the self-governance status after the release of the “Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act” in 1975.

Since then，the Indian tribes have acquired more and more sovereign powers through consistent political fighting with the federal government，and developed their self-governance models under different systems. Due to the distance，Chinese experts merely knew about the development of such models of American Indian reservation system. Meanwhile，due to the the historical hatred and cultural resistance，detailed case studies towards the reservation system are lacked among the mainstream academia in the U.S.

This research went through a long and difficult application process and acquired the final approval from the S nation in the northwestern U.S. and conducted a 2-year field study about the self-governance system with the great support from China Scholarship Council. Through the methods of personal observations，surveys and in-depth interviews，this paper made a comprehensive introduction and deep examination of all the S Nation’s institutions from the top to bottom，and present the data in an analytical table with 24 terms in 6 factors in accordance with the good-governance theory. Upon the analysis of strengthens and challenges faced by the S Nation self-governance model，this article formulated following suggestions for the improvement of the system：

First，as the supreme power institution of S nation，the General Council has the strength in engaging the participation and decision making of all the tribe members，which was based on its absolute openness during the discussion process and “one person one vote” voting policy without any limits or discrimination in the meetings. However，inadequate public participations and weak supervision on the governments’ resolution，reports made the General Council not so powerful as it should be.

Secondly，the Business Council，the tribal governing body which leads the whole government，is quite open，democratic，participative and equal，which largely due to the excellent annual elections and collective decision-making mechanism. However，improvement should be made in the areas like preventing the aggregation of power through the resolution setting and decision-making，and information disclosure in all the officers’ formal and informal reports，which should receive more outside substantial supervision.

Thirdly，Committees like the traditional systems are benefited from the expanding of public participation，reducing in the administrative costs and supervising the kinds of departments and programs；while the informal appointments of most committee members，especially when the relevant directors are also in the committee，jeopardized the neutrality and fairness of its supervising. The General Manager system also in the middle ground It is in urgent need of to resolve the systematic dilemma：on one hand，the manager has to manage some department directors who are elected in the Business Council，on the other hand，those directors have the final authority to decide whether to employ or fire him/her even during the arranged terms. Although the manager is very good at improving the total efficiency and standardization，due to him/her contradictory position，unstable term，weak authority，it is very difficult for him/her to perform the duties.

Fourthly，the departments and programs at the local level of S Nation also have many systematic defects：the lack of the tribal organization law made its establishment and adjustment quite informal and frequent. Some closely linked programs are managed through different departments and are in need of a unified reorganization. Without limits on the terms of service nor supervision and evaluation，the department heads often serve for many years and become so powerful that can challenge their superior，such as resisting the general manager. Besides，the traditional departments and emerging programs under federal standard have different performance in the participations，transparency，accountability and efficiency.

Finally，a list of suggestions were proposed to S Nation for improving their self-governance system：reorganize the whole system by adjusting all the institutions，complete the legislation frame to enhance the supervision and build the E-government to have a better transparency to promote more effective and efficient public participation and so on.

It is worth noted that this paper is not perfect in the reliability，which due to the incomprehensive analytic tables partly and as a foreign researcher who conducted her first field visit，S Nation is relative closure to the author. A subsequent survey at the possible revisit of S Nation and contrastive research with another tribes are expected to be done in the future.