Designers of Development: Intellectuals and Technocrats in the Third World (CNWS Publications, 27)

278 pp., bibliography. corners bumped, cover creasing. Development policies implemented in Third World countries are, like all policies, based on ideas about causes and effects. Development studies, however, have paid little attention to the people in these countries who launch or propagate such ideas. This volume is an attempt to begin to fill this gap. What role do intellectuals play as designers of development? To what extent does expertise in some fields of knowledge help to acquire political power? Is technocracy an obstacle to the political participation of ordinary citizens? In how far is the claim of Non-Governmental Organisations that they have found a better way to development justified? These are some of the questions which are being discussed in this book. They show that, in many cases, the holders of what Gouldner called cultural capital have become a strategic group in developing societies. 0.0.