In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Manali Baruah scrutinizes elite formation and elite capture through the case of a Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) in western Ghana.

In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Susan Chomba focuses on the local institutions chosen as partners by a prominent United Nations’ Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation programme (REDD+) project in Kenya and the implications of this choice for local democracy.

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, 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.