Regional councils in a European perspective

An important part of multi-level governance, regional self-administration has undergone many changes in recent decades both in the old and new democracies, with European integration playing a major role. In the Czech Republic regional self-administration was built from scratch at the turn of the millennium, and a signicant portion of regional political elites came from local politics. Unlike local politics, however, non-party members are almost completely excluded from regional self-administration. The project builds on international research projects POLLEADER and MAELG and will be a part of international survey of regional representatives. It will concentrate on regional councillors recruitment and political trajectories (including the career end of the rst generation of regional politicians), their professionalisation, internal dierentiation and regional dierences. In addition to political parties, cumulation of oces and political ambitions will be explored. Opinions of reform measures and how councillors perceive their roles will also be examined.