Economic reform was the most pressing question for African and other Third World countries during the 1980s, and it will continue to dominate their public policy agendas. In this examination of the political economy of adjustment in Ghana, Jeffrey Herbst describes the causes of Ghana's dramatic economic decline and reviews the politics of reform that began in 1982. Ghana was one of the first African countries to adopt a comprehensive reform programme and the one that has sustained adjustment longest. As Africa confronts the possibility of total economic collapse by the turn of the century, the Ghanian experience will have profound ramifications across the continent in the debates regarding stabilization and structural change.