ABSTRACT
The direct involvement of intellectuals in the politics of the developing countries is an intuitively obvious phenomenon, well brought out in the writings of theorists concerned with political development in the 1960's. 2 More recently, it is increasingly conspicuous that on the one hand the intellectuals seem to lose power to the military, and on the other the earlier hopes in regard to their modernizing activities have not materialized. The ruling elites of most Middle Eastern, African and Asian countries tend to be alliances of officers and bureaucrats, and the prevalence of the intellectuals at the highest echelons of governmental power in the stages preceding and succeeding independence 3 has drastically decreased. Apparently, the political capacity of the intellectuals has declined (at least vis-a-vis that of competing elites), or else it was seriously overestimated.
