ABSTRACT
This chapter will offer empirical evidence of the rolling transition thesis. It offers a comparative statistical analysis about the composition of intellectuals from different angles, who were politically active before, during, and after the transition. The political tides of the decade transformed the political roles that intellectuals played. It was the dissident intellectuals’ movement that had preceded and set the stage for the regime change, 1 and it was the intellectual movement of the former dissident intellectuals that followed and brought the regime change to a close. The period of our analysis between 1977 and 1994 is customarily broken down into three categories based on the nature of the political regime: late Kádár era, regime change, and new democracy. On the closer scrutiny, however, it became clear that a five-period division, based on the activities of intellectuals, corresponds much better to the dynamics of events.
