Jude L. Fernando explores the paradoxical relationship between NGOs and capitalism, showing that supposedly progressive organisations often promote essentially the same policies and ideas as existing governments.

The book examines how a diverse group of NGOs have shaped state formation in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It argues that, rather than influencing state formation for the better, NGOs have been integrated into the capitalist system and their language adopted to give traditional exploitative social relations a transformative appearance.

This enlightening study will give pause to those who see NGOs as drivers of true social change and will encourage students of development studies to make a deeper analysis of state formation.

Jude L. Fernando is Associate Professor of International Development, Clark University, Massachusetts and Visiting Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Yale University. He has edited many books including Microfinance: Perils and Prospects (2005), Rethinking Sustainable Development (2003) and Children's Rights (2001).

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction: Beyond the Impasse: Theorizing Social Change
1. The Emergence of the Unified Nation State: Pre-Colonial NGOs in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka:.
2. Welfare State to National Security State: The Post-Independence NGO-State Relations in Sri Lanka, 1948-2010
3. Secularism, Religion and Parallel States: The Post-Independence NGO-State Relations in Bangladesh, 1971-2010
4. The NGO Industrial Complex: Modernizing Post-Modernity
Bibliography
Index