[3] Huntington argues that changes are caused by tensions within the political and social system, and criticizes modernization theory, contending that its argument for economic change and development being the prime factors responsible for the creation of stable, democratic political systems is flawed.

Focusing on other factors like urbanization, increased literacy, social mobilization, and economic growth, he stresses that those factors are not significantly related to political development; in fact a major part of his argument is that those processes are related but distinct.

Peter Moody, a professor emeritus of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, claims that the events of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre seemed to confirm to them their belief in a strong state, considering it important in economic growth along the lines of Asian "tiger" economies, and considering China's autocratic model to actually be weak and ineffectual.

[4] Writing in 1997, Francis Fukuyama believed that the book "shaped the understanding of a generation of students on the nature of party systems", though he considers the "characterization of the Soviet Union and other communist states as highly developed polities" odd in retrospect, since "their surface institutional calm masked a high degree of internal rot and illegitimacy".

[7] Writing in 2011, Fukuyama considered that Political Order in Changing Societies "appeared against the backdrop (of) and frontally challenged" the assumptions of "the Americanized version of modernization theory", which included "the sunny view that all good things went together: Economic growth, social mobilization, political institutions, and cultural values", all "changing for the better in tandem".