Addressing the major issues of state and local government administration, this introductory, core textbook is ideal for courses in State and Local Government Administration, State Government, Municipal Government, Labor Relations, Public Budgeting and Decision-Making, Policy-Making and Personnel Administration. Offering reliable, up-to-date information, this text provides a thorough understanding of state and local government administration and its current, general trends. Written by leading experts in their respective fields, this work contains in-depth, authoritative examinations of four crucial areas: organization and management -- including management structures at various levels of government such as counties and special districts, and leadership functions; budgeting, decision-making, and financial management -- discussing state budgeting functions and limitations, and internal and external control mechanisms; policy-making and policy implementation -- demonstrating patterns within the executive and legislative branches as well as alternatives to municipal service delivery and the integration of human services management within delivery systems; and personnel administration and labor relations -- covering organizational training, employee benefits, unionism, and collective bargaining. Now, advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level public administration and political science students; public administrators and managers; and professionals in government agencies and institutes can meet the demands of this rapidly changing field with this outstanding text. Book jacket.

A helicopter ride to visit troops in the Afghanistan war zone, a tense meeting with the newly elected Prime Minister, and…a wild boar hunt! Eleni Kounalakis was forty-three and a land developer in Sacramento, California, when she was tapped by President Barack Obama to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Hungary under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. During her tenure, from 2010 to 2013, Hungary was a key ally in the U.S. military surge, held elections in which a center-right candidate gained a two-thirds supermajority and rewrote the country's constitution, and grappled with the rise of Hungarian nationalism and anti-semitism. The first Greek-American woman ever to serve as a U.S. ambassador, Kounalakis recounts her training at the State Department's “charm school” and her three years of diplomatic life in Budapest—from protocols about seating, salutations, and embassy security to what to do when the deposed King of Greece hands you a small chocolate crown (eat it, of course!). A cross between a foreign policy memoir and an inspiring personal family story—her immigrant Greek father went from agricultural day laborer to land developer and major Democratic party activist—Madam Ambassador draws back the curtain on what it is like to represent the U.S. government abroad as well as how American embassies around the world function.