The "order" approach is exemplified by the work of Samuel Huntington. Huntington concluded that the dominant political characteristics of developing countries in the late twentieth century were situations of violence, instability, and political chaos. He argued that the key to understanding the political systems of these countries was an analysis of the causes of such violence and instability. (For Huntington, violence and instability were normatively [or at least instrumentally] "bad," in that development [which was "good"] was impossible as long as violence and instability were endemic.) In other words, Huntington argues that stability is necessary for development.

Huntington's ideas are stated in the introductory essay of his book Political Order in Changing Societies. He presents an eclectic approach to the study of politics in Third World countries. He combines historical analysis with some elements of structural functionalism, and with aspects of the hard data orientation of behavioralists. Huntington addresses real world issues in real world language. His work avoids the jargonistic excesses and abstract categorizing of some structural functionalists. Nor does he churn out numbers merely for the sake of numbers.

Huntington's major arguments about political development can be summarized rather briefly. The basic assumption is that political institutionalization is the key to stability, and that stability (order) is both normatively good in itself, and also a necessity for political development. (Institutionalization is the means by which structures and processes produce legitimacy for the political system.) The major obstacle to development is the process of getting there (the modernization process). The state of modernity, once attained, produces and is characterized by, stability. However, the process of achieving modernity (the modernization process) is characterized by violence and instability. Unfortunately, according to Huntington, a nation can achieve modernity only after passing through the modernization process. Most Third World countries, in Huntington's view, are in the midst of the modernization process.

When aspirations are frustrated by political systems which can not or will not meet the new demands and desires of the people, then the new political participants rebel. This causes problems for the political system, since rebellion leads to violence. The world's developing nations are characterized by instability and violence precisely because they are currently involved in the modernization process. New participants enter the political system, find their demands unmet, and react by using violence against the system and its rulers. Their violent actions are means of political participation and expression.

According to Huntington, the political party represents the best hope for stability in a modernizing country. The party is the structure which can best mobilize, channel, and control the demands of new political participants while at the same time allowing them to participate in the system. In theory, the political party is seen as the most effective agent of institutionalization in a developing society. The Mexican PRI, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, exemplified this ideal type of party.

Huntington argued that the idea of "development" must be disaggregated. Political development is different from economic and social development, and the concepts must be kept distinct. In fact, improvements in the very factors which indicate increased economic and social development (GNP, literacy, etc.) often affect political development inversely. This occurs because the changes ("improvements") produce expectations and frustrations which cannot be handled by the nation's existing political institutions, leading people to rebel. Thus, we have Huntington's paradox: modernization produces political decay; modernity produces political development, but modernization must precede modernity.

Political development (modernity) is related to the ability of a polity to control and direct political actions in such a way that the political system remains stable even at very high levels of political participation. The alternative to such control is to be swamped by increases in political participation. (A developed society is one with mass participation, stability, and an ability to meet the demands of the people.)

A closer look at the key variable of participation provides an understanding of why order theorists feel instability and violence are so prevalent in Third World countries.

Political participation is increasing rapidly in today's world, and the underlying causes appear irreversible. Some of those causes are: accelerating urbanization; increasing education and literacy; improvements in communications; improvements in transportation; the proliferation of new structures such as political parties, trade unions, guerrilla organizations, student organizations, women's organizations, etc; the availability of new political ideologies, the prevalence of the idea of equality; reemergence of ethnic associations; and the vulnerability of Third World political systems to outside penetration. Although western democratic theorists consider many of these changes, such as increased education, desirable, their impact on fragile political systems may be devastating. The changes result in demands which those systems find impossible to meet.

A possible consequence of increased education, for example, is that the newly educated may decide that the existing system is at fault for not meeting their needs. They may rebel against a system which has trained them to be engineers or scientists, but provides no jobs or facilities for them to practice their occupations. These unemployed or disenchanted educated people may turn to guerrilla activity or to other types of protest against the system, leading to instability and violence. (Here we see a second paradox: the situation of mass political participation is needed for political development, but the process of increasing that participation may make development impossible.)

The problem, from the order perspective, is not increased participation per se, but rather that participation is increasing more rapidly than systemic means for controlling it. Existing political systems are unable to integrate the new participants, and unable to get them to accept the legitimacy of the existing system. In other words, institutionalization, although also increasing, is increasing more slowly than the rate of participation increase. It is the ratio of institutionalization to participation that determines stability.

Stability occurs when institutionalization is greater than participation. S=I>P

Huntington's prescription for solving the stability equation is to increase institutionalization, especially by the formation of appropriate political parties. In most Third World countries this has proven difficult, if not impossible. And in those few countries where strong and stable political parties appeared to exist, such as Mexico, there are now troubling questions about the democratic nature of such parties and systems.

Many Third World governments have been unable to effectively increase institutionalization, but have still accepted the premises of the order argument. They have come to the logical conclusion that if they can't alter the institutionalization side of the equation, perhaps they can still achieve stability by reducing participation. They have attempted to bar some of the clamoring participants from participating in politics, have outlawed their organizations, and ultimately have tried to eliminate them by depriving them of their rights and/ or life itself. South Africa under apartheid is an example, as was Chile under Pinochet, and Kosovo in 1999.

Actions by the government may provoke violent defiance. Consequently, governmental efforts to reduce participation may actually increase the instability and violence of the political system. Furthermore, since an increase in the underlying factors which cause increased participation seems inevitable, then governmental efforts to reduce or eliminate new participants are doomed to failure in the long run.

From a theoretical perspective, we should note the fundamental conservatism of the order approach. It is related to systems theory preference for system equilibrium as the most desirable state. It follows that disequilibriating effects should be eliminated in order to preserve the system. In assuming that stability is good, order theory adherents therefore conclude that threats (such as guerrillas, ethnic uprisings) to stability are bad, and should be eliminated. If change is to occur, order theorists would like it to occur gradually, by evolutionary, not revolutionary, means. Evolutionary change is more compatible with their stability-based model, which portrays desirable change as being linear. The effects of such gradual change can be predicted. Revolutionary change would be non-linear, and its effects and directions are much more difficult to predict. An entirely new model would have to be designed to depict post-revolutionary political behavior. (Perhaps using catastrophe theory.)

The order approach reflects the Western belief (derived from the West's historical experience) that the most desirable and effective change is a long slow process. (Is this ethnocentric?) Whether or not this belief is correct, it certainly is difficult to accept for those people in the Third World who want change, want it to be large-scale change, and want it now. It is also difficult to accept the idea that increased political participation, an often-proclaimed political value and goal in the West, is portrayed as harmful for the political development of the Third World. Why is increased political participation pictured as a positive variable for First World citizens, but condemned and repressed when engaged in by citizens of the Third World?

The order approach is a comforting way of conceptualizing the world for those already in power, those who are on top. An analytical framework favoring stability works well for those who benefit from the status quo, whether they be the world's wealthy nations or any nation's governmental officials. Adopting the order approach conceptual framework serves to justify, in the name of promoting or preserving stability, any actions taken against opponents. Thus, U.S. actions against "Communist" guerrillas, Algerian actions against Islamic guerrillas, or a government's denial of freedom of the press, or persecution of opposition militants, can all be justified by officials who view the world from an order perspective.