The motif of the article is analysis of factors determining the significance and the limits of political innovativeness of intelligentsia in the structuring of political space. On the basis of comparative research of the processes of modernization, as well as interaction of the population, bureaucracy and educated social strata in Western Europe, Russia, Islamic countries, India, China and Japan, the author retraces direct connection between the extent to which the intellectuals-intelligentsia are influential, on the one hand, and the level of conflicting character of the modernity institutions’ development – on the other. According to his conclusion, political innovativeness proves to be required first of all under the conditions of catching-up modernization that sharply raises the role of rational projectiveness and widens the gaps between socio-political groups. It is at the same time convincingly demonstrated in the article that political innovativeness of intellectuals-intelligentsia has structural limitations rooted in institutional and cultural-civilizational specificity of modernization in a given country.