The paper is aimed to study the degree of political professionalization of county political elites surveyed in project Second Tier of Local Government in Europe. Measure of the degree of professionalization of county presidents and councillors will be presented based on the data on the tenure of these political elites in their posts, their full or part-time political responsibilities or their will to continue their political career or quit politics. Second aim is to study how different factors are related to the degree of political professionalization with special attention to differences between countries and their categories (Eastern-Western Europe, type of welfare state, more or less decentralised political system), size of council and individual factors (socio-demographic, attitudinal).
