The Nations Within: Aboriginal-State Relations in Canada, the United States, and New Zealand

Christine Hughes is a policy analyst at the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

This book is an assessment of aboriginal–state relations in Canada,
the United States, and New Zealand. While its primary focus is on
developments in Canada, the chapters dealing with the other two
countries provide readers with useful comparisons. Indeed, this
comparative aspect is one of the book’s greatest contributions to the
current literature on contemporary aboriginal politics.

The Nations Within is divided into four parts—one for each country
profiled and a conclusion. While there are eight chapters in the section
on Canada, there is only one each for those on the United States and New
Zealand. In the first section, the authors offer a crisp and insightful
analysis of the “inherent rights” debate in Canada. They provide a
good overall review of aboriginal self-government prior to the election
of the federal Liberal Chrétien government in the fall of 1993. There
is also a chapter on Métis and Inuit nationalism. In the American
chapter, the authors describe how Native people in the U.S. have tried
to keep their political agenda distinct from those of the country’s
more numerous racial and ethnic minorities. This chapter provides a good
historical overview of aboriginal-American relations.

A number of interesting developments have occurred in Maori–state
relationships in recent years. These are clearly documented in the
book’s New Zealand chapter. The authors’ information on the Maori is
a welcome addition to comparative works that have focused on
aboriginal-state relations in neighboring Australia. In particular,
policy-makers could benefit from reading about how successive New
Zealand Labour governments have used the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi as a
focal point for restructuring Maori–state relations along lines of
partnership and power-sharing.

The book is well-indexed and contains a comprehensive list of
references. It will likely appeal more to an academic audience than to
readers with a general interest in aboriginal issues. The sections would
work well as stand-alone case studies or as a complete text consolidated
by the concluding chapter.