In Riggs's analysis, "formalism" refers to:

The gap between formally prescribed norms and actual practice

The performance of all functions by one structure

Strict adherence to written rules in every case

The coexistence of modern and traditional institutions

Which of the following are features of Riggs's prismatic society? Select all that apply.

Complete functional specificity of structures

A fully impersonal market economy

The ecological approach to public administration was pioneered by John M. Gaus in:

*Reflections on Public Administration* (1947)

*The Administrative State* (1948)

*Reflections on Public Administration* (1947)

*Administration in Developing Countries* (1964)

Assertion (A): In a prismatic society, official salaries and formal rules often fail to determine how administrators actually behave. Reason (R): Overlapping means that older, undifferentiated structures such as family, caste and community continue to shape behaviour inside formally modern institutions. Choose the correct option.

Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A

The "bazaar-canteen" model describes, in Riggs's scheme:

The economic sub-system of prismatic society, where prices vary with the buyer's status and relationship

The market economy of a diffracted society

The household economy of a fused society

The canteen facilities provided to civil servants

Which of the following correctly describe the administrative systems named in the syllabus? Select all that apply.

France: prefects represent the state in each department

Japan: amakudari is the re-employment of retired senior officials in firms and public bodies

USA: the Senior Executive Service was created by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978

France: prefects represent the state in each department

Japan: amakudari is the re-employment of retired senior officials in firms and public bodies

UK: the Next Steps programme of 1988 abolished ministerial responsibility

USA: the Senior Executive Service was created by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978

Which statement best captures the "imbalance thesis" associated with Riggs?

In developing societies the bureaucracy tends to grow more powerful than the political institutions meant to control it

Urban areas receive more services than rural areas

Economic growth always outpaces administrative capacity

In developing societies the bureaucracy tends to grow more powerful than the political institutions meant to control it

Line agencies dominate staff agencies

Comparative Public Administration: Concept, Scope and Significance; Administration and its Environment; Institutional, Behavioural, Structural-Functional, Ecological and Systems Approaches; Riggs's Typology and the Prismatic-Sala Model; Problems of Comparative Research; the UK, USA, France and Japan

Unit V opens: "Comparative and Development Administration: Comparative Public Administration: Concept, Nature, Scope and Significance of Comparative Public Administration; Public Administration and its Environment. Approaches and Methods to the study of Comparative Administration: Institutional, Behavioural, Structural-Functional, Ecological and Systems Approaches. Fred Riggs's Typology of Societies and Features; Problems of Comparative Research; Comparative Studies –Influence of Globalization; Salient Features of the administrative systems of UK, USA, France and Japan." Comparative administration was born of Dahl's third problem — that principles drawn from one society cannot be assumed to hold in another — and of the practical failure of American technical assistance abroad after 1945. Its central figure is Fred W. Riggs, whose prismatic model is the most examined theory in this unit and is set out here in full.

1. Concept, nature, scope and significance; administration and its environment

Comparative public administration (CPA) is the study of administrative systems across nations and cultures in order to identify similarities and differences, explain them, and build theory that is not bound to one culture. Nimrod Raphaeli described it as the study of public administration on a comparative basis; Riggs saw a movement in its early years along three trends — from normative to empirical, from idiographic to nomothetic (from unique case descriptions to generalisations), and from non-ecological to ecological study. The Comparative Administration Group, formed in 1960 under the American Society for Public Administration with Riggs as chairman and later funded by the Ford Foundation, was its institutional base through the 1960s.

Scope: whole administrative systems (macro), particular institutions such as civil services or budgeting across countries (middle range), and specific behaviour or processes (micro).
Significance for theory: a science of administration needs comparison to test whether its generalisations hold beyond one culture.
Significance for practice: it explains why administrative reforms transplanted from one country fail in another, and informs development and reform programmes.
Administration and its environment: administration is shaped by — and shapes — its economic, social, cultural, political and historical setting, which is the ecological insight that runs through this whole unit.

2. Approaches: institutional, behavioural, structural-functional, ecological and systems

Five approaches to comparative administration
Approach	What it compares	Associated with	Limitation
Institutional	Formal structures, laws, constitutions and organisation charts	The traditional descriptive study of foreign governments	Descriptive, formal and legalistic; misses how institutions actually work
Behavioural	The actual conduct, attitudes and decisions of administrators	Simon; survey and case research	Hard to operationalise across cultures; can neglect structure
Structural-functional	Which structures perform which functions in a society — the same function may be done by different structures	Talcott Parsons, Marion Levy, Gabriel Almond; Riggs	Static, biased toward equilibrium; functions hard to define
Ecological	Administration in interaction with its environment — people, place, technology, ideas, catastrophe, personality	John M. Gaus, Reflections on Public Administration (1947); Riggs, The Ecology of Public Administration (1961)	Environment is so broad that causal explanation becomes difficult
Systems	Administration as a system converting inputs (demands, supports) into outputs (decisions, policies), with feedback	David Easton; Ludwig von Bertalanffy's general systems theory	Abstract; treats the conversion process as a "black box"

Riggs also classified the models of comparative study themselves: a bureaucratic (Weberian) model that compares civil services against the ideal type; a general systems model; and middle-range theories. Ferrel Heady's classification of approaches is similar — modified traditional, development-oriented, general-system model-building and middle-range theory formulation — and Heady judged the Weberian bureaucratic model, used as a yardstick rather than an ideal, to be the most fruitful for middle-range comparison.

3. Fred Riggs: agraria–industria and the fused–prismatic–diffracted typology

Riggs first contrasted two ideal types of society, Agraria and Industria (1956–57), with an intermediate "transitia". Finding this too static, he borrowed the imagery of light passing through a prism. In a fused society, like white light before the prism, a single structure performs all functions — the royal household is at once the government, the court, the economy and the temple; roles are undifferentiated and diffuse. In a diffracted society, like the spectrum of colours emerging from the prism, each function has its own specialised structure — markets, courts, parties and bureaucracies — and roles are highly differentiated and specific. The prismatic society is the one inside the prism, where differentiation has begun but is incomplete: new, formally specialised structures exist side by side with older, diffuse ones. The model was set out in Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society (1964); The Ecology of Public Administration (1961) had already placed administration in its social environment.

The three features of prismatic society
Feature of prismatic society	Meaning
Heterogeneity	The simultaneous presence of modern and traditional practices, institutions and attitudes — a modern city beside traditional villages
Formalism	A wide gap between what is formally prescribed (laws, rules, official structures) and what is actually practised — the degree of discrepancy between norms and reality
Overlapping	New, differentiated structures exist formally but older, undifferentiated structures continue to perform their functions — administrative behaviour is actually determined by non-administrative criteria such as family, caste and religion

Overlapping has several dimensions in Riggs's analysis: poly-communalism (several ethnic, religious or caste communities coexisting in mutual hostility, the dominant one monopolising power), clects (associations that look modern and voluntary but act on communal lines for a particular group), poly-normativism and lack of consensus (traditional and modern norms both invoked, selectively), a mix of ascription and achievement as the basis of recruitment ("attainment", in which status goes to those who can deploy connections), and nepotism in the name of merit. The economy of the prismatic society is the bazaar-canteen model: prices are neither fixed by custom (as in the fused household economy) nor set by an impersonal market (as in the diffracted economy), but vary with the buyer's status and relationship — favoured groups are served as in a subsidised "canteen", disfavoured ones pay inflated "bazaar" rates; "price indeterminacy" is the result.

The sala is Riggs's name for the administrative sub-system of the prismatic society — the counterpart of the "chamber" in the fused society and the "office" or bureau in the diffracted society (the word is used in Spanish, and in several Asian languages, for a hall or room that serves as reception room, office and personal space at once). In the sala, officials hold formally rational, bureaucratic positions but act on particularistic considerations; appointments go to relatives and community members; corruption is widespread because official salaries are low and loyalty runs to family and clect; rules are applied selectively; power is unevenly distributed — the bureaucracy often grows more powerful than the weak political institutions that are supposed to control it (Riggs's "imbalance thesis"), and administrative efficiency is inversely related to bureaucratic power.

Riggs's parallel sub-systems
Society	Administrative sub-system	Economic sub-system
Fused (traditional, agrarian)	Chamber	Household economy — reciprocity and redistribution
Prismatic (transitional)	Sala	Bazaar-canteen
Diffracted (modern, industrial)	Office (bureau)	Market

⚠️ Prismatic is not a stage on the road to the West

Riggs insisted that the three types are analytical models, not stages every society must pass through, and that even diffracted societies have prismatic features. Critics nonetheless charged the model with an implicit Western bias (diffraction as the norm), with over-generalising from Thailand and the Philippines, where Riggs did his field work, with negative stereotyping of developing countries, and with neglecting the external (colonial and economic) causes of their condition. Riggs answered his critics and revised the model in Prismatic Society Revisited (1973).

4. Problems of comparative research and the influence of globalization

Conceptual equivalence: the same term (a "district", a "secretary", "corruption") may mean different things in different settings — Giovanni Sartori warned of "conceptual stretching" when concepts travel.
Too many variables, too few cases: nations differ in so many ways that isolating the cause of an administrative difference is hard.
Data that are scarce, unreliable or not comparable, especially for developing countries.
Ethnocentrism: judging other systems by the observer's own — the charge laid against much American CPA of the 1960s.
Excessive abstraction in grand models versus parochialism in single-country studies; and, from the 1970s, a loss of funding and direction that Heady and others called a "crisis" of the field.

Globalization revived comparison in a new form. It produced pressures toward convergence — the international spread of New Public Management, performance budgeting, agencies, regulatory bodies and e-government through the OECD, the World Bank and consultancies — and a literature on policy transfer and diffusion. Against this, historical institutionalists stress path dependence: reforms are filtered through national traditions, so that the Anglo-American, Napoleonic, Germanic and Scandinavian administrative traditions respond differently to the same pressures. The comparative field today studies both the convergence of rhetoric and the divergence of practice.

5. Salient features of the administrative systems of the UK, USA, France and Japan

Four administrative systems compared
Country	Salient features
United Kingdom	Unitary, parliamentary system with an uncodified constitution and ministerial responsibility; a permanent, politically neutral and anonymous civil service headed by permanent secretaries, founded on the Northcote–Trevelyan Report (1854); the Treasury as the controlling central department; the Fulton Report (1968) against the generalist; the Next Steps programme (1988) that hived off service delivery to executive agencies; the Citizen's Charter (1991); devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (1998–99)
United States	Federal and presidential, with separation of powers and checks and balances; the President heads a large executive branch with the Executive Office of the President (1939) and the Office of Management and Budget; cabinet departments alongside independent regulatory commissions; a history of the spoils system replaced by merit after the Pendleton Act (1883); thousands of political appointees at the top; the Civil Service Reform Act (1978) created the Office of Personnel Management, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Senior Executive Service; strong congressional oversight through committees
France	The Napoleonic tradition of a centralised, hierarchical and legalistic state; a semi-presidential executive under the Fifth Republic (1958); the prefect as the state's representative in each department, whose tutelage over local government was relaxed by the decentralisation laws of 1982; the elite grands corps (the Council of State, the Court of Audit, the Inspectorate of Finance); the École nationale d'administration (founded 1945), replaced from 1 January 2022 by the Institut national du service public; a separate system of administrative law and administrative courts headed by the Conseil d'État; ministerial cabinets of personal advisers
Japan	A parliamentary monarchy under the 1947 Constitution; a powerful, prestigious career bureaucracy recruited by competitive examination (graduates of the University of Tokyo long dominant), which led the post-war developmental state — Chalmers Johnson's MITI and the Japanese Miracle (1982); the "iron triangle" of bureaucrats, the long-ruling party and business; amakudari ("descent from heaven"), the re-employment of retired senior officials in firms and public corporations; the National Personnel Authority as the independent personnel agency; the 2001 central government reorganisation, which consolidated ministries and strengthened the Cabinet Office

Key takeaways

Comparative administration moved from normative to empirical, idiographic to nomothetic and non-ecological to ecological; the Comparative Administration Group (1960) under Riggs was its base.
Gaus (1947) and Riggs (1961) founded the ecological approach; the structural-functional approach draws on Parsons and Almond, the systems approach on Easton.
Riggs's fused, prismatic and diffracted societies correspond to chamber, sala and office in administration and household, bazaar-canteen and market in the economy.
The prismatic society is marked by heterogeneity, formalism and overlapping — including poly-communalism, clects, poly-normativism and a bureaucracy more powerful than political institutions.
The UK has Northcote–Trevelyan, Fulton and Next Steps; the USA the Pendleton Act and the 1978 Senior Executive Service; France the prefects, grands corps and ENA (replaced by INSP in 2022); Japan a developmental bureaucracy with amakudari.

Practice questions (10)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

In Riggs's model, the administrative sub-system of a prismatic society is called the:
1. Clect
2. Bureau
3. Sala
4. Chamber
Show answer
Answer: C — Sala
The sala is the prismatic counterpart of the fused society's chamber and the diffracted society's bureau or office. A clect is a prismatic association, not the administrative sub-system.
In Riggs's analysis, "formalism" refers to:
1. The gap between formally prescribed norms and actual practice
2. The performance of all functions by one structure
3. Strict adherence to written rules in every case
4. The coexistence of modern and traditional institutions
Show answer
Answer: A — The gap between formally prescribed norms and actual practice
Formalism is the discrepancy between what laws and rules prescribe and what is actually done. Coexistence of old and new is heterogeneity, and one structure performing all functions describes the fused society.
Which of the following are features of Riggs's prismatic society? Select all that apply.
1. Complete functional specificity of structures
2. A fully impersonal market economy
3. Overlapping
4. Heterogeneity
Show answer
Answer: C — Overlapping; D — Heterogeneity
Heterogeneity, formalism and overlapping define the prismatic society. An impersonal market and complete functional specificity belong to the diffracted society; the prismatic economy is the bazaar-canteen.
The ecological approach to public administration was pioneered by John M. Gaus in:
1. The Administrative State (1948)
2. Reflections on Public Administration (1947)
3. The Ecology of Public Administration (1961)
4. Administration in Developing Countries (1964)
Show answer
Answer: B — *Reflections on Public Administration* (1947)
Gaus's Reflections (1947) listed the ecological factors — people, place, physical technology, social technology, wishes and ideas, catastrophe and personality. The 1961 and 1964 books are Riggs's, and The Administrative State is Waldo's.
Assertion (A): In a prismatic society, official salaries and formal rules often fail to determine how administrators actually behave. Reason (R): Overlapping means that older, undifferentiated structures such as family, caste and community continue to shape behaviour inside formally modern institutions. Choose the correct option.
1. Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
2. Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A
3. A is true, but R is false
4. A is false, but R is true
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A: because non-administrative criteria still govern conduct in the sala, formal rules and salaries do not determine behaviour — which is also why formalism and corruption are characteristic.
The "bazaar-canteen" model describes, in Riggs's scheme:
1. The economic sub-system of prismatic society, where prices vary with the buyer's status and relationship
2. The market economy of a diffracted society
3. The household economy of a fused society
4. The canteen facilities provided to civil servants
Show answer
Answer: A — The economic sub-system of prismatic society, where prices vary with the buyer's status and relationship
In the bazaar-canteen, favoured groups get "canteen" prices and others "bazaar" prices, producing price indeterminacy — neither custom-fixed nor market-set.
Which of the following correctly describe the administrative systems named in the syllabus? Select all that apply.
1. France: prefects represent the state in each department
2. Japan: amakudari is the re-employment of retired senior officials in firms and public bodies
3. UK: the Next Steps programme of 1988 abolished ministerial responsibility
4. USA: the Senior Executive Service was created by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
Show answer
Answer: A — France: prefects represent the state in each department; B — Japan: amakudari is the re-employment of retired senior officials in firms and public bodies; D — USA: the Senior Executive Service was created by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978
The first three are correct. Next Steps created executive agencies to deliver services under chief executives, but ministers remained responsible to Parliament for policy.
In which year did Riggs publish Administration in Developing Countries: The Theory of Prismatic Society? Type a number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 1964
The prismatic theory appeared in 1964, three years after The Ecology of Public Administration (1961); Riggs revisited it in Prismatic Society Revisited (1973).
Which statement best captures the "imbalance thesis" associated with Riggs?
1. Urban areas receive more services than rural areas
2. Economic growth always outpaces administrative capacity
3. In developing societies the bureaucracy tends to grow more powerful than the political institutions meant to control it
4. Line agencies dominate staff agencies
Show answer
Answer: C — In developing societies the bureaucracy tends to grow more powerful than the political institutions meant to control it
Riggs argued that where political institutions are weak, bureaucratic power grows unchecked, and that administrative efficiency tends to fall as bureaucratic power rises.
The Comparative Administration Group, formed in 1960 under the American Society for Public Administration, was chaired by:
1. Herbert Simon
2. Dwight Waldo
3. John M. Gaus
4. Fred W. Riggs
Show answer
Answer: D — Fred W. Riggs
Riggs chaired the CAG, which with Ford Foundation support became the hub of comparative and development administration research in the 1960s.