ABSTRACT
Nonviolent transitions became fascinating topics for elite theorists in the past decades. In this chapter, I will focus on the explanation of Hungarian transition from an elite theory point of view. First, I contrast the dynamics of transition in Poland and Hungary by stating that the Polish transition was equally decade long, but it was initiated by workers and intellectuals in a broad and inclusive social movement, the Solidarity (Solidarnosc). Afterward, I discuss the role of agency in the elite-driven Hungarian transition by underlining the role of reformist and technocratic professionals outside the democratic opposition. Unlike the dissidents, these pragmatic groups followed the ideology of modernization. I argue that the roundtable transition can be understood as a form of elite settlement, which contributed to the political change significantly from co-optation via cooperation to competition.
