New policies have the potential to enhance the role of specific public administrations in relation to other agencies active in a particular field. This is especially true for international interventions, which are often used by domestic actors to increase their power capabilities. International, donor driven initiatives on community forestry (CF) is a timely example forest policy. Before this background, this study aims to (i) analyse the distributive effects of international and domestic community forestry policies on the power capabilities of relevant public agencies in Bangladesh, and (ii) identify the bureaucracies, which, relative to their competing agencies, gain most power capabilities over time. The analytical framework combines concepts derived from power theory and bureaucratic politics to explain increases in an organisation’s power, based on a full survey of domestic public and foreign donor-induced CF policies (n = 68) from 1992–2014. Policy-derived tasks assigned to specific bureaucracies are used as indicators of power capability gains. The results indicate that forest bureaucracies, as well as others, such as planning and finance ministries, gain substantial power from CF policies, as do foreign donor agencies. The study concludes that influential bureaucracies set limits and directions for national CF policy development.