Book Reviews Book Review Private Voluntary Organizations in Egypt: Islamic Development, Private Initiative, and State Control 269 Denis J. Sullivan. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1994. Over the past five years or so, the considerable western interest in the role played by nongovernmental voluntary associations in Egypt has been reflected in a growing English-language literature on the subject. Researchers tackle the question from a range of perspectives. One approach, relatively state-centered and legalistic, focuses on how Cairo manages to control, co-opt, or "corporatize" autonomous organiza­ tions including labor and professional syndicates, agricultural and other cooperatives, and private not-for-profit groups. The principle tool for rein­ ing in private voluntary and community associations is the notorious Law 32 of 1964. Under Law 32, the Ministry of Social Affairs can interfere directly in all aspect of associational life-articulation of goals, election of officers, pursuit of projects, allocation of funds, and so on. Among the well­ known secular nonprofit groups with international linkages that have been denied licenses from the Ministry are the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights and the Arab Women's Solidarity Association. In this legal and pol­ icy milieu, many scholars and human rights activists argue that no regis­ tered association in Egypt can properly be deemed "nongovernmental." Other analysts, however, accept Cairo's position that the threat of radical Islam justifies authoritarian restrictions on independent organizations. The second group of studies is inspired partly by these concerns over the radicalization of Islamist associations. Scholars familiar with social, eco­ nomic, and political circumstances in the Nile Valley usually try to counter­ act hysterical mass media portraits of "Muslim terrorists" with inquiries into the structure, function, membership, activities, and ideologies of a range of Islamist institutions including welfare and charitable associations. The par­ ticular strength of politicized Islam in the 1990s, this research suggests, rests on the capacity of Islamist charities to provide a crucial layer of social ser­ vices to a burgeoning, underemployed, increasingly impoverished popula­ tion. Opinion is divided, however, on the question of whether this circum­ stance favors containment and stability or frustration and insurrection. A third set of studies, sometimes overlooked by scholars, comes from within the Cairo-based donor community, the "development practitioners" 270 working with bilateral, multilateral, and nongovernmental assistance agen- cies. Advisors and financiers of development projects produce policy- oriented studies explicitly directed to the stated overall goals of privatiza- tion, sociopolitical stability, and meeting basic human needs. Such concerns have inspired voluminous studies of what development practitioners call PVOs and NGOs (private voluntary or nongovernmental organizations), seen as autonomous grassroots self-help institutions whose projects agree with the largest donors’ concerns for rapid economic adjustment coupled with gradual political reform. According to the many surveys commissioned by prospective donors, Egypt’s 14,000 legally registered NGOs and PVOs- Muslim and Coptic, local and national, specialized and communitywide- may help decentralize, privatize, and rationalize welfare activities. Drawing on his extensive interviews, reports to international develop ment agencies, and a range of published materials to construct dozens of minicase studies of Egyptian PVOs and NGOs, Sullivan addresses all three perspectives and contributes something to each. Law 32 is shown to stifle local initiative, centralize authority, and inhibit self-reliance in ways that are contrary to the regime’s own interest and stated policies. Organizations whose names have an Islamist ring differ from Coptic associations mainly in that the latter have been well-funded by western churches and govern- ments throughout this century. Religious and secular associations often offer parallel services. In response to broader debates about the relationship of the Egyptian state to Islamist organizations, Sullivan argues for reform of Law 32 in ways that allow various organizations greater autonomy. The book’s principal audience, however, is the donor community whose lanpage, propensity for acronym, and frame of reference Sullivan em- braces. The ultimate objective of self-reliance, always articulated (unironi- cally) by donors, is a given. “Small is beautiful,” also a popular notion in the donor community, is offered as a hypothesis. The well-documented narra- tive case studies of PVOs and NGOs-among them, Community Develop- ment Associations (CDAs), the Young Entrepreneurs Society (YES), the Young Men’s Muslims Association (YMMA), the Coptic Evangelical Organization for Social Services (CEOSS), and the Mustafa Mahmud Association-include a policymaker’s appraisal of the development poten- tial of each. Despite a legal environment that imposes certain shapes and activities, the associations pmfded show wide variation and considerable ingenuity. In providing essential services that the government can no longer afford to provide, they help cushion the most vulnerable groups in society from the deleterious effects of structural adjustment and thus help ward off social upheaval. The explicit argument offered in the conclusion is a plea for international funding for small-scale, community-oriented groups regardless of their religiosity or secularism. Criticisms of profiteering from NGOs or foreign aid or of the trendiness of PVOs, and NGOs among donors are men- tioned as factors policymakers may want to keep in mind. Sullivan’s book is thus “must” reading for development practitioners. Those in the Cairo donor community, especially, will find it accessible, The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 13:2 Book Reviews 271 impeccably re earched, thorough, hard-hitting, and full of clear and direct policy recommendations. It will, moreover, serve as a reference for anyone studying the role of nongovenunental organizations or indeed of foreign donors and international NGOs in Egypt. Sheila Carapico Department of Political Science University of Richmond Richmond, Virginia