1st Edition

Negotiating Claims The Emergence of Indigenous Land Claim Negotiation Policies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States

By Christa Scholtz Copyright 2006
    268 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    268 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Why do governments choose to negotiate indigenous land claims rather than resolve claims through some other means? In this book Scholtz explores why a government would choose to implement a negotiation policy, where it commits itself to a long-run strategy of negotiation over a number of claims and over a significant course of time.

    Through an examination strongly grounded in archival research of post-World War Two government decision-making in four established democracies - Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States - Scholtz argues that negotiation policies emerge when indigenous people mobilize politically prior to significant judicial determinations on land rights, and not after judicial change alone. Negotiating Claims links collective action and judicial change to explain the emergence of new policy institutions.

    1. Introduction  2. Negotiation: Of Recognition and Delegation  3. Indigenous Land Rights and Cabinet Decision-Making in Canada (1945-1973)  4. Cabinet Decision-Making and Maori Land Rights in New Zealand (1944-1989)  5. Cabinet Decision-Making and Indigenous Land Rights in Australia (1945-1998)  6. Litigation, not Negotiation: The American Land Claims Experience in Comparative Perspective  7. Beyond Negotiation

    Biography

    Christa Scholtz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University.