Professor Emeritus, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)

M.P.A., Economics and Government, Harvard University

M.C.P., City and Regional Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

B.A., Engineering and Sociology, University of Wisconsin

 

afvf@uaa.alaska.edu

Victor Fischer was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1924. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1948 and a Master's Degree in Community Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1950. He also received the Littauer Fellowship in public administration from Harvard University (1961-1962). Fischer worked as a town planner in New Hampshire and later held several planning related positions in Alaska. He was a delegate to the Alaska Constitution Convention (1955-1956) after which he served in the territorial House of Representatives (!957-1959) and the Alaska State Senate. He was a member of the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and of the University of Alaska Anchorage. He was primarily associated with the Institute for Social and Economic Research for which he was director for ten years. His current work includes studying Alaska Native and regional governance issues.

Achieving Alaska Native Self-Governance

Preface from the Publication     Four years ago, the Alaska Natives Commission noted that "a common theme" in the hearings it conducted with Native people over the pre-ceding two years was "the need for Alaska Native villages—‘ tribes’ in the federal terminology—to regain governmental control of their own communities and to exercise authority" in areas ranging from subsistence resources to criminal justice to social programs. The theme, in other words, was self-governance: the freedom and ability of Native peoples to control their own affairs and determine their own futures.     To follow up on the Commission’ s report and to pursue its implementation, the Alaska Federation of Natives in 1998 engaged the Economics Resource Group, Inc. (Stephen Cornell, Jonathan Taylor, Kenneth Grant) and the Institute of Social and Economic Research of the University of Alaska Anchorage (Victor Fischer, Thomas Morehouse) to examine Native self-governance in Alaska. The objective was to explore the range of options available to Alaska Natives as means of furthering self-determination and participation in decision making. This included, for example, an evaluation of existing and emerging institutions being utilized by Alaska Natives in developing the capacity for greater and more efficient self-governance.     Since the Alaska Native community has initiated its own process of setting goals and developing recommendations to the Congress, this AFN version of the ERG/ISER September 1998 Final Report eliminates the authors’ specific recommendations. Aside from this change in the last section, the analysis and conclusions are those of the authors. Julie Kitka,  President Alaska Federation of Natives [May 1999] To view the publication in Adobe Acrobat click here.