78
Arctic Yearbook 2015
Regional governance without self-government
An important caveat remains in thinking about regional development in Arctic Alaska. Though these
borough governments were created in Indigenous-majority regions, they are not regional Indigenous
governments. Regional Indigenous governments, such as those found in Canada, have citizenship
models based on ethnicity (in which voting members belong to a specific Indigenous group, as do all
candidates for leadership). In contrast, the borough model is a public government that has a
citizenship model based on local residency. That is not to say that public governments cannot operate
as de facto Indigenous governments, depending on population makeup. Indeed, that is very much the
case in the two northern regions of Alaska, both of which currently have majority Indigenous
populations and all-Native councils.
Table 6: Alaska’s Northern Boroughs
Borou