This chapter explores how ideas that are part of a global discourse on participatory democracy are institutionally translated into the local arena. It focuses on foregrounds state officials, elected councillors and elders who are descendants of (pre-) colonial chiefs. The chapter discusses the idea of state conveyed in its official history, ideals, constitution and laws. It also focuses on the practice of state by those people who represent and implement it: state officials, public servants, elected representatives and other persons who make reference to state and act in its name. The chapter examines the efforts state agents and elders make in translating and effecting decentralization policies imposed by the central government and circulated by transnational donor agencies. Looking at governance in Guinea many different institutions co-exist today due to the varying political regimes of the past leaving their legacies behind that can be captured in competing ideologies but also in governing institutions.