Most people interact with government every day without fully understanding how it works. Citizens vote, pay taxes, attend chapter meetings, seek services, file complaints, request housing, use healthcare facilities, attend schools, and rely on public safety. Yet many are never taught who has authority, who oversees government, how budgets are approved, or how laws are made.
As a result, public discussion often focuses on personalities instead of systems. A healthy democracy depends on citizens understanding both. This lesson introduces the basic structure of government, the purpose of oversight, and the role of citizens in self-government.
After this lesson, you should be able to:
Government exists because communities must make collective decisions. Every society must answer: Who creates rules? Who enforces them? Who resolves disputes? Who manages public resources? Who provides services? Who protects rights?
Without government, those questions get answered through informal power, wealth, or force. Government replaces those forces with rules, procedures, and accountability.
The Navajo Nation operates under a three-branch structure designed to balance power.
Primary function: administration. The Executive carries out laws and policies and manages programs, departments, and public services.
Primary function: lawmaking and oversight. The Council sets policy direction and approves budgets, through the 24-member Navajo Nation Council and its standing committees.
The work is divided among standing committees: HEHSC (health, education, veterans, human services, labor), BFC (budgets, finance, investments), RDC (natural resources, energy, agriculture, infrastructure), and LOC (justice, public safety, law enforcement). The Naabik’íyáti’ Committee reviews major legislation before final Council action.
Primary function: interpretation of law. The courts resolve disputes and protect legal rights, through the Supreme Court, District Courts, Family Courts, and the Peacemaking Program.
One of the most misunderstood ideas in government. Many citizens assume oversight bodies should directly run operations. That is usually incorrect.
Management performs the daily work — running a hospital, scheduling staff, processing payroll, maintaining facilities. Management asks: How do we run the system?
Oversight evaluates whether management is performing properly — reviewing audits, complaints, performance reports, and budgets, and evaluating outcomes. Oversight asks: Is the system working?
A hospital board, for example, should not schedule nurses. It should review patient-safety trends, quality, financial performance, and executive performance. That is oversight.
These are not the same thing. Authority is the legal power to make decisions — a President signs executive actions, a Council passes legislation, a Judge issues rulings. Accountability is responsibility for outcomes — Did the project succeed? Was money spent appropriately? Were citizens served? Government often fails when authority exists without accountability.
Separation of powers prevents too much authority from concentrating in one place. Instead of one institution controlling everything, the Executive administers, the Legislative legislates, and the Judicial interprets — and each branch checks the others.
Without it, corruption becomes easier, oversight becomes weaker, and citizens have fewer protections. Many debates involving Title II are really disagreements over where one branch’s authority ends and another’s begins.
Government is not self-executing — citizens are part of the system. Participation includes voting, chapter meetings, public comment, serving on boards, volunteering, requesting records, and reporting concerns.
Civic literacy means understanding how laws pass, how budgets work, how complaints are investigated, and how officials are held accountable. Without it, citizens become dependent on intermediaries. The key question: are we creating informed participants, or passive spectators?
When you evaluate a candidate, you can ask: Can they explain branch authority? Do they understand oversight versus management? How do they measure success? These are the same themes our candidate interviews and scores examine.
Further reading: Navajo Nation Code, Title II; Navajo Nation Council committee materials; Office of Navajo Government Development materials.
Official sources to learn more (these links open outside the site):