In Canada, discussions about democratization tend to be limited to the achievement of responsible government and the enlargement of the franchise. Recent search on settler colonialism has contributed to challenge this conventional narrative of democratization as finished business and to expose the persisting barriers to meaningful democratic politics (see Julien Mauduit and Jennifer Tunnicliffe, Constant Struggle: Histories of Canadian Democratization. 2021). Roberta Rice’s Doing Democracy Differently: Indigenous Rights and Representation in Canada and Latin America falls within those efforts to broaden discussions about democratization. In Rice’s account, Canada is yet to achieve democratic decolonization.

While scholars of democracy often work with the notion of models of democracy, decolonized democracy is not a new regime. Decolonizing democracy involves changing patterns in Indigenous-state relations that rely on “democratic innovation,” meaning “institutional arrangements that open up the policy-making process to citizen participation, deliberation, and decision making” (27). It is a decolonization process in that democratic innovation not only combats former exclusion but promotes Indigenous rights and effective control over land and surface and subsurface resources.

Doing Democracy Differently thus analyzes how democratic innovation is promoting democratic decolonization (or not) in four leading cases of institutional change: the Yukon, Nunavut and the plurinational states of Bolivia and Ecuador. Rice’s comparative study offers two major contributions to debates on how Indigenous-state relations may further democratization and unsettle mainstream practices of liberal settler states.

First, by asking what is being done (rather than what ideally should be done), Rice explains current patterns of change and their shortcomings. Focusing on the “here and now” of Indigenous-state relations, she highlights the articulation between formal and non-formal institutions through governance (and not government). Second, by comparing cases in northern Canada and the Andean region, Rice challenges the predominantly Anglo-settler focus of settler colonialism studies. There are certainly tremendous differences among the cases, but “viewed through a comparative Indigenous politics lens, states in Canada and Latin America have an uncanny resemblance” (5). That is, settler colonialism has structured politics and society in the South no less than in the North. Recent images of Indigenous peoples breaking through the COP30 to protest their exclusion should remind us that Brazilian settler colonialism is not fundamentally different from, say, Canadian settler colonialism.

As different pathways to Indigenous autonomy and self-government, nation-to-nation relation under Yukon’s Umbrella Agreement, Nunavut’s public government, the third order of Indigenous government in Bolivia and municipal-style Indigenous autonomy in Ecuador illustrate that Indigenous autonomy and institutional participation are not mutually exclusive but also reveal the scope and limits of working with the state. The articulation of formal and non-formal institutions is key to preventing the state from taking control of the process. In this sense, Rice’s democratic innovation echoes Coulthard’s critique of state-sponsored reconciliation and his considerations on how Indigenous peoples can survive to their strategic engagements with the settler state. Readers familiarized with resurgence authors may nevertheless question if democratic decolonization is ever decolonization.

Relying on Frances Abele and Michael Prince’s conceptual framework on Indigenous models of self-determination (See American Review of Canadian Studies 36(4): 568–95), Rice notes that not every democratic innovation is leading to decolonization (as with Ecuador’s mini-municipality limited form of autonomy). She argues instead that democratic decolonization is being advanced where strong Indigenous movements, while cooperating with state actors willing to share power, remain accountable by a vibrant civil society that continuously works to close the gap between official discourse, real practice and substantial change. Comparing South and North experiences shows that while the treaty relation in northern Canada is more effective in ensuring Indigenous control of land, the constitutional entrenchment of plurinationality and interculturalism opens the state to Indigenization, as seen in the integration of the Andean Indigenous conception of Buen Vivir in Bolivia and Ecuador. Decolonizing through democracy therefore requires mutual action in multiple venues that challenge mainstream notions of democracy.

As political scientists are only beginning to grapple with settler colonialism and how it operates in contemporary polities, comparative studies (and political action) between Canada and Latin America has great potential to identify how democratization relates to decolonization. Experiences in the Yukon, Nunavut and the plurinational states of Bolivia and Ecuador show that although democratic innovation in course may have promoted democratization more than decolonization, they stress that overcoming the idea of liberal democracy as an end point is crucial to move beyond formal recognition. Roberta Rice’s foundational work is convincing in that any discussion about democratization in Canada and Latin America countries must include democratic innovations to advance democratic decolonization. Changing patterns of Indigenous-state relations is a fundamental aspect of our history and future, with democracy.