The Role of Political Elites in balanced Growth and Development of Contemporary Asian Societies

To identify the factors involved in the process of balanced growth and development of Asian countries، it is absolutely necessary to explore the roles played by political elites of such countries as well as their approach to the problem and their function. The present paper tries to present a certain definition of the elite، in general، and political elite، in particular، and aims at studying their role and impact as well as their goals in Iran، Japan and Turkey in order to show their superiority over other factors involved in the societies under development due to their capacity of acting as national and international role models. The roles played by leaders and elite in providing political، educational and economic growth based on relevant factors to the balanced growth and development is studied. Meanwhile the weaknesses and shortcomings of some countries including Iran، particularly in the Pahlavi era، in regard to the lack of a balanced movement towards inclusive development and pluralism have been investigated from historical، political and social aspects. The research is descriptive، analytical and comparative in nature and relies upon library works and documents with maximum use of capacities to gain a better understanding of the effective parameters in the subject and research objective. The results show the political elites have had positive and in some cases negative effects in the process of growth and balanced development of the societies studied; therefore the study of these countries’ development status before the period of elites’ absence and the period after their presence and leadership makes the state of intellectuality and operational state necessary to study for any researcher.