Legislative elite in an Indian State

The book is one of the few full-length studies of the mem bers of a Legislative Assembly. It deals with the members of the IV Legislative Assembly in Rajas than, one of the 22 States of the Indian Union, which, though with a feudal background, has been struggling its way to a modern democratic order. The data for the study was collected during 1970-71 and covers 130 of the 184 members of the Legislative Assembly.

The study aims at finding out the role of the legislative elite in the democratizing process. The specific foci of enquiry are the socio-economic and political background of the legislators, their political values and orien tation and their role images. What distinguishes this study from other studies of the legis lative elite is an effort to investigate into the pattern of constituency linkage which the legislative elite develop in their own enlightened self-interest. The key finding of the study is that the constituents look upon their representatives primarily as agents of local development which in turn becomes the basis of their legitimacy election.