ABSTRACT
Applying the principles of adaptive administration requires changing the perceptions of planners and administrators about the nature of development and of social problem-solving. Conventional approaches to development administration are based on inaccurate assumptions about the process of development, the tasks of development planning, the conditions under which change is possible, and the means through which it occurs in developing societies. In 1977, W. Siffin concisely summarized the weaknesses of the "tool oriented" approach: in attempting to create rational, politically impartial, and efficient government it assumed the existence of western values that usually did not prevail in other societies. The structural adjustment and macroeconomic reform policies of the 1980s and early 1990s tried to swing the pendulum too far in the other direction. The structural adjustment policies of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank frequently assumed that only market mechanisms were needed to promote economic growth and that government's role had to be reduced drastically.
