ABSTRACT
Administrative reform is a relatively minor factor in the totality of social change compared with acculturation, technological innovation, modernization, and migration. The application of the idea of system to social phenomena has important bearings on theories of social change and of administrative reform. As social systems do not have equal capacity for dealing with problems, the requirements of modernization conflict differently with traditional patterns of social action. The process of absorption without resistance is considered administrative change; the process of absorption with resistance is considered administrative reform. Modernization is a revolution that transforms an order unaccustomed to systematic change to an order based on ceaseless change. The possibility of reform is increasingly admitted; that is, man can choose among different changes according to a scale of values and priorities and select a particular path even if the chosen values must be imposed on dissenters.
