Career Profiles of Agency Directors in Patronage Setting: What the Data (do not) Tell Us

This article investigates the career paths of top officials in the highly politicised context of Central and Eastern Europe, with a specific focus on Slovakia. It examines the professional trajectories of directors of agencies (n = 1322) across all regions of Slovakia from the establishment of each agency to 2024. The goal of the study is to uncover patterns, experiences, and career trajectories in a context that has not been systematically explored before. The findings indicate a relatively frequent prior political experience, frequent absence of managerial backgrounds, and generalist education among the directors. These findings support the existing literature and point to specific areas, such as the intersection of political and managerial roles, that merit deeper investigation in future research. The research further highlights a persistent issue of limited data availability.