JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. African Studies Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Studies Review. Abstract: Recognizing limitations associated with past reforms, and taking account of current efforts at democratization, this article suggests that public administration in contemporary African society should be conceptualized more broadly than it has been in the past, and that it should include building relationships and bridging gaps among public administrators, citizens, and communities. Drawing from Ghana's experience, it argues that over-reliance on a restrictive notion of administrative reform-one that emphasizes structures and material welfare-overlooks the normative public purposes central to the field of public administration. The paper concludes by suggesting ways to ground public administration reform in the concrete, lived experiences of the people in Ghana.R6sumn: Tout en reconnaissant les limitations assocides aux reformes passees, et en tenant compte des efforts actuels de democratisation, cet article sugge're que l'administration publique devrait ?tre conceptualisee d'une manie're plus large qu'elle ne l'a ete dans le passe, et qu'elle devrait inclure la construction de relations et le rapprochement entre les administrateurs publics, les citoyens et les communautes dans la societe africaine contemporaine. En nous inspirant de l'experience ghaneenne, nous avangons que la sur-dependance d'une notion restrictive de reforme administrative, une notion qui met l'accent sur les structures et le bien-etre materiel, ndglige les buts publics normatifs centraux au domaine de l'administration publique. Notre article conclut en sugg6rant des moyens d'asseoir la reforme de l'administration publique sur les experiences concretes v6cues du peuple ghaneen.
