Democratization For Who? Says Who?

In reading Wittes discussion of the democratization process in the Middle East, focusing on the variant forms of Islamist political participant, what I was drawn to focus on the connection between this discussion of what political parties would be conducive to democratization and the question of a weak versus a strong state, not to mention the strength of the internal society. 

When considering these two themes and how they relate to one another, two questions come to mind, though they somewhat intermingle.

Firstly, I wonder about Wittes' refusal to accept the ability of militant and nationalist Islamist groups to create democracy. It seems that there are plenty of examples, including the popular election of Hamas in Gaza, where these groups are democratically elected. But even if they are not popularly elected, my second question is on the issue of who exactly an authority has legitimacy over. If there is a particular group, be it a militant Islamist group or even a group of tafkiris, that are able to provide for themselves the basic capabilities of a state, such as "appropriating or using resources in determined ways" as Migdal states in the beginning of his book, then was authority or legitimacy is given to any other body to try and enforce some larger view of theirs that aims at "democratization."

This, I think gets at a fundamental question of what is a state. If, as Migdal says, it is a body that is able to provide for its "citizens" and regulate society and resources in a determined way, then who has authority to impose government on a group that might already be achieving capabilities?

This is a question that I think is resurfacing repeatedly around the world with questions of secessionist states, or even in Iraq to relate it closer to Wittes' subject matter, is what is an acceptable size of government to operate on an international level? And also, what legitimacy is given to what has effectively amounted to civil societal institutions, such as a militant political party, when a state is too weak to provide those capabilities on its own.