The policy for Native self-determination in Alaska developed by the Congress and the state has sought to replace a tribal model of governance with a body of legislation which confirms land rights without the direct political involvement of Alaska Native villages. However, the author argues, the absence of tribes as formal political structures has contributed to a loss of self-determination among Alaska Natives and to serious negative effects on Native village life.

This paper was originally presented in Symposium III, "Group Rights at the Close of the Twentieth Century: Strategies for Assisting the Fourth World; Session 3, Evaluating Strategies for Change" at the 12th International Congress, Commission on Folk Law and Legal Pluralism, International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, Jul 1988. The paper as originally presented can be found at http://hdl.handle.net/11122/7350.