Modernization Theory is Hokum.

[TheCurmudgeon]

If you have not read it yet, had you considered Reading Samuel Huntington's Political Order in Changing Societies? It was written in 1968, updated in 1995 and essentially destroys Modernization Theory. The updated version has a good forward by Francis Fukuyama.

Modernization theory is like a Hydra – you cut off one head and it grows two more. It is based on a fundamental assumption that the West got something right because we “modernized” first. If we could just figure out what we got right we could shove it down the throats of the rest of the world and fix everything. That last sentence was only half in jest – it is a combination of pride in thinking we did it “right” first, hubris that we think everyone else wants what we have, and double-dog-dare hubris in believing we can recreate it at will. It is that base idea that keeps reviving the theory in a new form. The latest was functional-structural; if you create the institutions and allow them to function the rest will follow.

I am trying to show that the entire idea of is off base, but I need to do a lot more research.