Contenu du sommaire

Administration and the labour market : the german, british and french case. The unease resulting from the growing number of jobless is prompting a number of reactions similar in nature ; the key concepts are applied with variable weighting in the three countries under study. The author discusses in the following the “global approaches” (allocation, job supply, training) and the “selective approaches” (trouble shooting, regional policies, ...). Whatever the policies adopted, they appear extremely costly and in many respects to reach the limits of efficiency. All doubts arising therefrom culminate in an ultimate query : what is the actual point of no return of the labour situation in our present society ? For it is no longer indicated to talk about possible thresholds, beyond which a given percentage of jobless would become intolerable.

Equilibrium and changes affecting the U.S. federalism : the educational system of the state of New York. The educational System of New York serves as an example to illustrate some fondamental features of equilibrium and changes affecting the federal System. The first aspect is linked up with the extraordinary variety in structure of the U.S. too often marked by a trend of economic, legal and political centralization ; the second aspect concerns the vertical division of power ; the trend towards strengthening the federal powers being substituted for an alleviation of federal commitments ; finally, it should be noted that the Supreme Court has a major role to play in as far as it is the only federal govemmental body to decide upon local terms of reference in a given matter.

Division of powers and comparative forms of local administration in the U.S. A comparison of local government requires to go beyond superficial phenomena of designation or verbal explanation in an endeavour to apprise the essential feature of socio-political mechanics. The author discusses the institutional framework of the U.S. local government and shows the real implication of the famous tradition of autonomy and ‘self-govemment' : in theory, the local administration is endowed with what is known as ‘home-rule', but in actual fact, local government is a puppet, the strings of which are pulled by the States. In addition, some local entities are threatened by absorption and have to fight against the imperialism of neighbouring townships which benefit from the priviledges granted by city expansion legislation. The analysis of the typical features of local government highlights the complexity and the variety of the American local System and shows how each type forms a structure which resembles more less that of the French commune, in particular as regards the main local representative, the Mayor, sometimes elected at large by direct ballot, sometimes coopted from among the municipal council. An enquiry carried out in a sample of Wisconsin burroughs shows a relative decrease of the political aspect of local government in favour of local bureaucracy and pressure groups.

The problem of municipal reform in Venezuela. It appears difficult to predict the evolution of municipal government in Venezuela. The 1978 Statute as discussed by the author has been questioned right from the beginning and remained inapplicable at many counts. The administrative machinery is not yet adjusted to the multiple tasks which it has to attend. Personnel training, streamlining the main public services, rational local planning, an improved fiscal System, a larger attention to town planning issues makes up a substantial programme which will require serious efforts and a good deal of patience. But as is well known, Venezuela has the means to implement successfully this difficult programme of decentralization.

Training civil servants in Latin America After mustering some major problems of Latin American Civil Service (the growth of public administration, the complexity of public management, the lack of qualified staff), the author discusses the question of training civil servants. He shows the need for the Latin American countries to institute a true training System for civil servants and goes on pointing out the conditions for the implémentation of such a System.

Greek administration and administrative law. The development of public Administration is marked by an increasing deconcentration, a growing local level decentralization, an adoption of private law raies and accountancy by public bodies for their industrial and trading ventures. Greek administrative law, under the influence of the rulings of the French State Council, is based on the principles of legality, the saveguard of the general interest and of that of Administration. The staff of Administration, of local govemments, and public administrative institutions is mostly made up of civil servants whose status is established by the law and regulations and guarantied by the very Constitution. Judicial control of public administration is assumed by the State Council, the ordinary and special administrative courts, civil law courts, and the Court of Accounts (Auditor General).