The NGO boom of the 1990s was matched by mounting literature on the influence of NGOs on world politics. The 1998 inaugural issue of "Current Issues in Comparative Education" ("CICE")--"Are NGOs Overrated?"--brought these debates into the very center of international and comparative education. The journal issue inspired a fascinating conversation about the powers and limits of NGOs in the area of education by highlighting the variety of types, qualities, and functions of NGOs, as well as discussing various NGO roles vis-a-vis the state. Some articles emphasized the virtues of NGOs in promoting educational change, while others criticized NGOs for imposing a neoliberal agenda and maintaining systemic inequity. A decade after the initial debate, the reality is that there is still no clear answer to the question "CICE" editors originally posed. What a decade of intellectual debate and research has brought, however, is a realization that NGOs are obscure organizations, whose impact is often impossible to predict. NGOs forge contested alliances with governments, international organizations, and local communities (often contested from within and without); and, notwithstanding their success or failure in reaching their officially proclaimed goals, NGOs are capable of altering larger political, economic, and social processes in unpredictable ways. The status of NGOs as obscure organizations is most evident in the context of authoritarian or centralist states. This article argues that people should look beyond the officially proclaimed goals of NGOs in assessing their impact. Instead, they should examine the political contexts within which NGOs forge contested alliances with international organizations, authoritarian regimes, and local actors to better understand the hidden agendas inherent in the very nature of these organizations and the inadvertent consequences resulting from these complex interactions. (Contains 2 notes.)