“This book explores the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in social change, focusing on what they do and how they are organized, and assesses their impact on state formation in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh under capitalist modernity. I examine the important ideas that emanate from NGOs, and the various practices that shape their agency and their ties with each other and the state. Using the NGO-state relationship as a focus, an analysis of theories of social change in general and development theory in its “postmodern” and “postcolonial” phases in particular, employing a historically grounded critical perspective on current claims about the progressive transformative potential of NGOs as “third sector” institutions is included.”