Fred W. Riggs theory of prismatic society, is that of a society mid-point between traditional and industrual societies. Riggs analogised the prosmatic society based on light nalogy - the white light representing the fused structures of a traditional society, the rainbow - the refracted structures of an industrialise society.. The prismatic model refracts fused light and it was a transitional society. According to Riggs " The prismatic situation was neither traditional nor modern, but it contained novel elements generated by the juxtaposition of old and new social structures".To understand public administration in a prismatic society, Riggs insisted, one had to understand the particular features of that situation.



The most important feature was what Riggs called formalism. Hoping to benefit from the material goods of the outside world, leaders of transitional societies imported structures from industrialized countries. They borrowed banks and bureaus, markets and ...more

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