ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the relationship between democracy and bureaucracy in Africa. In most countries, military intervention, which was often accompanied by administrative reform, has greatly reduced the power and influence of the bureaucracy. An interpretation of bureaucracy as overextended and all-powerful underestimates the constraints that do prevail, especially those relating to breaking down the nexus of bureaucrats emanating from elected politicians and the reliance that the same politicians, whether democratic or military, have on the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy provides political elites with the most immediate and effective means of achieving their civilizing, public or self-interest, and yet it is regarded as the most threatening source of opposition. Achieving any professed form of democracy inevitably requires an efficient and effective bureaucracy. Taking democracy seriously in Africa has to do with producing institutions that will judiciously handle the allocation of available scarce resources among ethnic, religious, and regional factional groups.
