This paper examines the career trajectories of prime ministers in Central Eastern Europe (CEE). It first reviews the extant literature and presents a comparative data set on prime ministerial careers in CEE. Second, it provides systematic findings about the socio-demographic background as well as the political and technical experiences of prime ministers both across the eleven CEE democracies and in a longitudinal perspective. Thereby, the focus lies on the identification of specific career profiles that are related to the PMs’ previous positions at the sub-national level, in parliament, in cabinet, as party leader and in other ones outside politics. It shows that the PMs in CEE democracies were not generally inexperienced (as suggested in the literature) but exhibit quite different career profiles.
