A Native American Proposal: De-Europeanizing Liberalism [pdf]
This PDF article proposes de-Europeanizing liberalism by incorporating Native American political thought, arguing that Indigenous traditions of governance and sovereignty can offer alternatives to Western liberal frameworks.
Background
- This essay, published in *Isonomia Quarterly* (Summer 2026), proposes that liberal political theory shed its exclusively European philosophical genealogy and instead integrate Indigenous (specifically Native American) traditions of governance, liberty, and social order.
- The author argues that core liberal concepts like individual freedom, consent of the governed, and federalism have close analogues in pre-colonial Native political systems, and that ignoring these roots amounts to a kind of intellectual colonialism.
- This is part of a broader, ongoing conversation in political theory and Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS) about decolonizing academic disciplines, recovering suppressed intellectual traditions, and rethinking the West's monopoly on concepts like "democracy" and "rights."
- The piece should be read against the backdrop of debates over land-back movements, tribal sovereignty, and the 2020s push to reexamine founding American narratives, including the influence of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy on the US Constitution—a historical claim that remains contested among scholars.