Abstract: | The focus on cultural variables as a determinant of 'receptivity' to planned change has acquired a long and powerful tradition in African and other Third World studies. This paper critically reviews such an approach and raises the question of whether it has not suffered from a degree of mystification. The search for final explanations of social and political change incurs the danger that elegant and highly abstract interpretations are made at the risk of missing out the obvious, concrete objectives and the primary relevance of the parameters within which these are pursued. Bibliogr., ref. |