Abstract
What are the practical implications of legal rules governing the fixed-term mandates of heads of office? Can biographical profiles of office holders influence their political vulnerability? Are regulators with certain professional characteristics more vulnerable to a premature removal from their positions after a new government takes office? This essay reveals that experts with scientific and academic backgrounds, bureaucrats, and persons with political ties are differentially politically vulnerable over political cycles. As a result, biographical profiles of officeholders do affect the security of their tenure when governments change and thus, also have an effect on their independence.
This conclusion is supported by empirical evaluation of 10 authorities in the Czech Republic that are monitored from 1993 to 2020. The original data set is used in this essay.
It contains 196 individual ominations of office leaders.