Argyriades, General Rapporteur, and the four Workshop Reports: 'The Rule of Law and Public Administration in a Global Setting' by Karl-Peter Sommermann; 'New Information and Management Technologies for the 21st Century Public Administration' by Maria del Carmen Pardo; 'The Changing Position and Status of Civil Servants' by Barbara Kudrycka; and 'Governance and Civil Society' by Akira Nakamura. The Individual Papers List and the List of Participants are given in appendixes. 2 -La politique de préservation de la ressource en eau destinée à la consommation humaine. Rapport d'évaluation. Paris: La Documentation française (www.ladocfrancaise. gouv.fr), 2001. 402 pp. ISBN: 2-11-004993-6. E30.00. (Conseil national de l'évaluation; Commissariat général au Plan.)The conclusions of the report of the official body commissioned to assess drinking water conservation policy contain reservations. However, the position in France appears to be satisfactory. Nevertheless, some resources do appear to be under threat, identified by the experts as follows: underground water supplies will soon be contaminated by chemicals seeping through the ground and the sub-soil and the degraded condition of some stagnant water restricts their use. These conclusions lead the experts to recommend a coherent global policy combining a regulatory framework, economic instruments and voluntary agreements. The report refers to European Union Directives intended to guarantee the quality of water expanses and introducing well-targeted action plans. Drinking water quality, far from being achieved, must be conserved through ongoing initiatives carried out at both national and community level. The report aims to identify the necessary ways of achieving this objective.

This book describes the organization of local authorities, their powers and means. Topics discussed include the basic principles of decentralization in France, the financial resources of local authorities and the structures of cooperation within local government. The study also points out that there are three levels of local government -communes, departments, regions. The administrative edifice is complex but seeks a middle way between the trend towards local freedoms and respect for national unity. -Le nouveau visage de la mondialisation industrielle. Fusions -acquisitions et alliances transnationales. Paris: OECD (www.oecd.org), 2001. 220 pp. ISBN: 92-64-28677-2. E50.00. (Industrie, services et échanges.)The globalization of industry has led to the development of a mosaic of international business activities. New combinations of international mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and investments are extending the possibilities of worldwide activities. The influence of multinational companies on domestic companies is increasing. These phenomena have repercussions on the results of companies and government policies. This publication brings together a series of analyses concerning globalization and performance. The document contains an assessment of the trend in industrial globalization in the 1990s

This work is a collection of basic texts relating to the general status of civil servants and administrative texts relating to the status of state officials. The reader will find, for example, texts concerning the body responsible for the civil service, length of service, the position of civil servants, the rules of access to the civil service, rules relating to ethical codes of practice, discipline etc. 221 -Vies de percepteurs. Fragments autobiographiques. 1918Fragments autobiographiques. -1993 Morceaux choisis et commentés par Catherine Jumeau. Paris: Comité pour l'histoire économique et financière de la France (www.finances.gouv.fr), 2001. 706 pp. ISBN 2-11-092600-7. E19.00. This work is a collection of autobiographical fragments, with commentaries placing them in their historical context, from 1918 to 1993, from men and women who recall their childhood and later when, after a period as assistants, they became tax inspectors and found their first professional appointments. They recall their time in public service, their tellers and the way in which they became representatives of the Ministry of Finance. In an

E54.88. This 23rd edition of the Annuaire européen is dedicated to the problems of public administration and artistic creation in Europe. As Jacques Bourdon emphasizes in his opening, there are three questions underlying this study: should the administration open up to artistic creation; can the administration open up to artistic creation; and, finally, can the administration make a choice? After some preliminaries regarding the acceptance of the terms 'administration' and 'artistic', Jean-Marie Pontier describes the problems underlying the question of the relationship between the administration and artistic creation: the legitimacy of intervention of the public power in the matter of artistic creation, the methods of such intervention and, last of all, its efficiency. The Annuaire, thus, brings together case studies dealing with the relationship between the public administration and artistic creation in European countries, based on the proposed set of questions. The picture is completed by an overview of the institutional reality of the European Union.

The publication is comprised of texts from conferences given by specialists in different fields during a course on 'The System of Government and the Capacity to Govern in a Continually Changing World'. The approaches vary as in the different chapters, 'governance' is analysed in relation to local authorities and local democracy, the public order, interest groups, ethics and the economy. The complexity and difficulties of exercising executive power at all levels in the contemporary world, is the common theme analysed. Following criticism of the last decade when the state was 'voluntaristic or deterministic', now according to the authors, analyses need to be oriented towards the state's and public authorities' 'results' in general, while reducing an excess of attention on the means and organization. Also, attention should be given more fully to the human factor as the key element of public action. Although all the contributions contain general analyses, the experience of Spain is certainly central to the study.