In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Robert Mbeche argues that even though REDD+ claims to be democratic and participatory, the Uganda program allows the input of only a few selected stakeholders – mainly the government actors and a limited number of NGOs.
In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Melis Ece argues that Senegal’s 1996 regionalization reforms narrowed down local democracy via neoliberal processes.
In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Gretchen M. Walters and Melis Ece analyze the project development negotiations in a World Bank-led REDD+ capacity building regional project, involving six Central African countries between 2008 and 2011. It explores how the project created a “negotiation table” constituted of national and regional institutions recognized by the donors and governments, and how this political space, influenced by global, regional and national political agendas, led to “instances” of recognition and misrecognition among negotiating parties.
In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Emmanuel Sulle and Holti Banka explore the impacts of taxes imposed on tourism activities occurring on communal lands and the emerging politics of resource and revenue sharing among Wildlife Management Area (WMA) member villages in Tanzania.
In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Swati Sidhu, Ganesh Raghunathan, Divya Mudappa, and TR Shankar Raman discuss human-leopard coexistence in the Anamalai Hills, India. They suggest a combination of measures to mitigate negative interactions and support continued human-leopard coexistence.
In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Dan Brockington reviews the book Democracy in the Woods: Environmental Conservation and Social Justice in India, Tanzania, and Mexico (Studies in Comparative Energy and Environmental Politics) by Prakash Kashwan.
In this Special Section on the Green Economy in the South, Peter Howson reflects on the Sungai Lamandau REDD+ demonstration activity in Indonesia. He focuses on “intimate exclusions” – everyday processes of accumulation and dispossession among villagers and small-holders – to highlight the hazards of developing REDD+ projects structured with limited sympathy for marginalized actors.
Kimberly R. Marion Suiseeya draws attention to the persistent justice debates in Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation plus the enhancement of carbon stocks (REDD+) and the role of norms in constraining and shaping policy designs and outcomes.
Synthesizing ethnographic case studies from mainland Southeast Asia, the authors critically review the implementation of REDD+, a UN project to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. They argue that REDD+ maps onto local power structures and political economies in its implementation, rendering it blunt as a tool for change.
Beth A. Bee studies the implementation of decentralized forms of environmental governance in Jalisco, Mexico, and the political and economic forces resulting in the marginalization of the municipalities affected by this project.
