The book is one of the few full-length studies of the members of a Legislative Assembly. It deals with the members of the IV Legislative Assembly in Rajasthan, 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 orientation and their role images. What distinguishes this study from other studies of the legislative elite is an effort to investigate intothe 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 and re-election.

The author has also tried to probe into the patterns of socialisation that have gone into the making of the political mind of the legislators in the state. The study brings out that till the IV assembly at least national movement had been one of the most important socialising agents, though some departures from this trend have also been noticeable, which have a portent for the future.

Altogether the prsent study, which is a revised version of authbor's Ph.D. thesis, provides meaningful insights into the structure of the political elite and the political process in the state. It should serve as a useful basis for future studies particularly for comparative purposes.