Nobody knows whether the election win for Hamas will help or hurt the cause of democracy in the Middle East. On the one hand, the victory of a terrorist party seems to vindicate the argument that democracy can only work where modern mores and social institutions are already in place. On the other hand, there is at least a scenario in which either Hamas is forced to transform itself, or the ultimate failure of Hamas teaches the Palestinians a culture-changing lesson in what real democracy requires.

Ideally, I would prefer to go the route of slow cultural transition before giving democracy a try. The danger of premature democracy is exactly what we’re seeing now. Yet I recognize that we cannot afford the luxury of slow-motion cultural transformation. The pressure of nuclear proliferation has forced us to try something drastic and risky. The stakes, arguably, justify the risk.

Having said that, it strikes me that the unfortunate alternatives of Fatah and Hamas show us just how hard it’s going to be to bring democracy to the Middle East. The corruption of Fatah is tied to (or modeled on) a style of kin-group favoritism with a long history in the Middle East. Although Saddam did have a political party, for example, kin ties played a key role in creating and sustaining his power.

In contrast to kin-based political alliances that feed corruption, we have the purer motivation of a religiously-based movement like Hamas. The problem is that, while religiously-based movements or parties may successfully resist corruption, this is not because they are “democratic” in the Western sense. The alternation between a corrupt secular authority and a pure Islamic revival movement is nearly as old as Islam itself.

In modern democracies, resistance to corruption is based on the idea of a merit-based bureaucracy where the office is separated from the man. To develop that in the Middle East we would need a strong middle class growing out of an education-based meritocracy. It’s possible to develop syntheses of traditional social forms and modern bureaucracy. Yet it takes time, and at least a small and relatively westernized indigenous elite to make it work. Islamism, on the contrary, despite its resistance to corruption, is actually a reaction against the threat that modernity poses to traditional social forms.

Again, I don’t think it’s impossible that the current experiment in democracy could bear fruit over time, despite the dangers and complications of pushing so fast. Yet we have to remember that this is the second-best way to proceed (and also that we have little choice but to try). Whether we move slowly from deeper social changes to a gradually growing democracy, or push quickly from a functioning but culturally flawed democracy toward something more solid, I fear that serious gains will take quite a bit of time. But again, what choice do we have but to take the risk of deeper change, while keeping the military option to deal with the inevitable crises? (For a tough-minded alternative, try this. And for far and away the best analysis I’ve seen so far, read this piece, which confirms the need for time and a better social-institutional context.)

If we really want to spread democracy, we’re going to have to give more thought to creating underlying changes in social forms than we have up to now. There’s a danger in relying too much on elections, and not enough on the context that it takes to make elections work. I recognize that we have only limited time, resources, and leverage with which to provoke a deeper social transformation in the Middle East. Yet more could be done to encourage change than merely holding elections.

For more on the countervailing Islamic poles of corrupt government and religious revival, see “Root Causes.” For more on the problem of corruption and role of bureaucracy in democracy, see “After the War.” And for the challenges of a long-term democratizing game-plan and the dangers of premature democracy, see “Democratic Imperialism: A Blueprint.”