Ola Segnestam Larsson, Standardizing Civil Society: Interpreting organizational development in the tension between instrumentalism and expressivism, Santérus Academic Press, Stockholm, 2011, pp. 280

The author checks his hypothesis against three case studies of international cooperation in Nicaragua selected from the Sida database, which, in the period 2004–2010, had 500 worldwide projects focused on ‘‘organizational development’’. The first project—‘‘Strengthening an organization of people with disabilities’’— consisted of an organizational mixture including an organization in Sweden, a federative civil society organization in Sweden, a Danish intermediate organization, a consortium of Nicaraguan civil society organizations and a civil society organization in Nicaragua. The main aim was to enhance the ‘‘administrative, organizational, labour and technical capacity’’ of the Nicaraguan organization. The second project—‘‘Supporting an independent, democratic trade union’’—involved two labour organizations for teachers (one Swedish and one Nicaraguan), and a policy organization in Sweden. The focus was on institutional support to the Nicaraguan organization in order to improve its capacity of recruiting members, affiliating more local labour organizations and strengthening the role of women. The third project—‘‘Empowering a Christian youth organization’’—aimed at training youth leaders. It was based on the collaboration between two Christian youth organizations: one from Sweden and the other from Nicaragua. A Swedish policy organization was also involved.