Voluntas readers are a prime audience for Erica Bornstein’s 2025 book, A Revolution of Rules: The Regulatory Reform of India’s Nonprofit Sector. Bornstein’s ethnographic approach is effective and rigorous, contributing to the debates and currents of nonprofit regulation, philanthropic protectionism and foreign funding restrictions, and democracy. India’s regulation of the nonprofit sector unfolds in a first-person telling, having clear protagonists in a setting that is unique culturally, politically, and historically while undoubtedly having global relevance.

At its core, the book scrutinizes what Bornstein calls “sites of struggle over the nonprofit form and it’s regulation” (p. 5) which she proposes underscores the sector’s relationship with democracy. Throughout the manuscript, the actors profiled set out to shape public opinion, debate and scrutinize rulemaking, and propose reform for the Indian nonprofit sector’s regulatory policy. Analytically, she proposes archetypes which contribute to the storyline, she calls these Activist Donors (private philanthropists and foundations), Professional Critics (larger nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) active in policy making), and Accountability Guides (professionals who aid the sector in navigating the regulatory context). Laced into the story, the reality that the nonprofit sector is vast and hard to categorize, thus notably hard to regulate.

Chapter 1 is about what she calls the horizon line for nonprofits. This is “an orienting frame that controls perspective” (p. 22). From here, she explores the idea of nonprofit-ness and what that means through the case of India. Proceeding chapters provide important context. Chapter 2 includes the legislative, historical narrative of government and nonprofit relations in India, while maintaining a backdrop of global politics and governance, including the reliance on and debates about nonprofits in social welfare and development. Chapter 3 centers on India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA, 1976) and its amendments over the years (2010, 2020) which have shaped nonprofits and philanthropy in India. Chapter 4 focuses on the process of legibility to the state through rules and interaction.

Chapters 5 and 6 outline where the sector has come together, at times critiquing and at other times negotiating, with government. In Chapter 5, “the Workshop” itself evolves into a key actor, whereas in Chapter 6, it is “the Report” that takes center stage. This analytical approach to Bornstein’s research is persuasive. For example, the process of public interest litigation (PIL) in India involves “report based advocacy” where Indian nonprofit organizations engage collectively to advocate for the sector as a group. Through workshops and report writing, thorny questions such as “what is the sector?” emerge and are proposed. Indeed, throughout the book’s pages, there are several opportunities for Bornstein to underline in her analysis the sector as a “diverse” (p. 193) and “unwieldy” category (p. 209).

Chapter 7 covers the institutionalization of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India through the passing and implementing of the 2013 Companies Act. This launched social welfare in India into a model of corporate design. It changed the nature of social welfare, from not only the state pushing forth its development strategies through nonprofit service provision, but it also determined a role for corporations to support state oriented, social welfare. The book concludes with nonprofits as key players in policymaking and democratic practice in India. The Indian case demonstrates strategies (and in Bornstein’s work, these strategies are elevated to actors) such as the workshop and report writing as ways in which nonprofits use discursive practices, debate, and negotiation to make themselves legible, emphasized by Bornstein as legible “first to themselves as a group, and then to the state” (p. 244).

Bornstein’s meticulous fieldwork and research are a triumph. Still, she observes the limitations of what she explains as ethnography relying “on partial perspective” (p. 29). Additionally, with her ethnographic and first-person approach, she does not shy away from theory, drawing throughout on heavy hitters, from Antonio Gramsci to Hannah Arendt. If there is one thing I hope Bornstein’s work continues to explore and contribute, it is the understanding about and recognition of the analytical categories she creates: Activist Donors, Professional Critics, and Accountability Guides. These are woven throughout but sometimes I wanted more.

In sum, A Revolution of Rules adds to our knowledge about nonprofit regulation and nonprofit repression, at a time when we need to be attentive to the global trends. Indeed, the book is not only a snapshot of nonprofit regulation in India, but also as Bornstein so effectively weaves in throughout the book, it reflects a global setting where nonprofits are increasingly targets of government regulation. Bornstein’s research and analysis provide a gaze into the everyday of NGOs in complex and, at times, repressive environments. She shows what is now the somewhat business as usual work of nonprofits: to frame, define, and defend the sector. This book is for students and scholars who are interested in nonprofit and government relations, nonprofit regulation and repression, and social welfare provision and human rights work. It is for learners who want to understand the debates about what is nonprofit-ness, as well as how do we define, make legible, and regulate the nonprofit sector. It is for those who are interested in the Indian case but see and understand this book’s inherently comparative and global perspective.