Americas, North: Indigenous Political Institutions

North America has played host to countless forms of Indigenous sociopolitical institutions over the last 15,000 years. Focusing on more “complex” institutional forms, associated primarily, though not exclusively, with agriculturally based economies, the diversity of these institutions has generally thwarted attempts at clean categorization. In attempts at global comparison, North American Indigenous political institutions have been variably cast as chiefdoms, states, confederacies, hierarchical, heterarchical, simple, complex, and others. This entry considers how Indigenous political systems have been characterized and how emerging approaches, including new institutional perspectives, network-based interpretations, and direct collaboration with descendant communities, are recasting these characterizations.