It is not often that a leader from the Arab world is deemed to be both original and influential enough to lend his name to a new political idea.

Yet that is precisely what seems to be happening to Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. From the opinion pages of The New York Times to the Carnegie Endowment think-tank and the Dubai School of Government, a new term is making its way into the political dictionary. The word is “Fayyadism” – and it might just be the Palestinians’ best tool in their battle to achieve statehood and independence.

That Mr Fayyad of all people should be honoured in such a way seems strange. He entered the Palestinian political scene only a few years ago, after a long stint as an economist with the International Monetary Fund. He lacks his own power base, enjoys only modest support among Palestinians and is subordinate to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

Furthermore, he does not have a proper state to govern – only a sliver of occupied land in which Israeli generals have more say than Palestinian ministers.

So what is Mr Fayyad’s big idea? The prime minister’s starting point is the realisation that neither violence nor negotiations have brought the Palestinians any closer to an independent state.

Under Mr Fayyad’s vision, a state should therefore be built from the bottom up – one piece of road, one sensible law, one housing project and one reliable police officer at a time. According to a plan revealed last summer, the prime minister intends to build the elements of a state by mid-2011, regardless of whether the Israeli occupation is removed or not.

This means, above all, providing Palestinians with the three crucial things that his predecessors have failed to deliver: security, good governance and economic opportunity.

He is less than a year into the programme, but most analysts and diplomats agree Mr Fayyad is making good progress.

The West Bank economy, in particular, continues to perform well. But most striking has been the improvement in the security situation: the West Bank today is an infinitely more stable and safe place than it has been for years. (Unless, that is, you are a member of Hamas, the Islamist movement that has been the target of a crackdown by the Palestinian Authority).

The uniformed Palestinians that patrol the streets of Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin are these days feared not because of their itchy trigger fingers, but because they can – and do – enforce traffic rules.

There is a powerful logic to Mr Fayyad’s reasoning and one that is finding increasing backing among western governments and institutions such as the World Bank.

If nothing else, Mr Fayyad’s approach is helping to place Israel on the back foot and improve the Palestinians’ standing.

Yet even the most ardent devotee of Fayyadism will have to concede that the prime minister’s plan has flaws.

Perhaps the most evident is that the Gaza Strip, the other half of any future Palestinian state, has been excluded from the state-building enterprise. For close to three years, the coastal territory has been governed by Hamas with no signs of an end to the damaging schism between it and Mr Abbas’s Fatah.

The second obstacle facing the prime minister is Israel. Although Mr Fayyad is highly regarded by many Israeli leaders, there is also a profound sense of concern about the consequences of his actions.

Israelis ask what will happen if there is no peace agreement by the middle of next year? Will the Palestinians simply declare an independent state? Will the world acknowledge that claim? And what will happen to the Jewish settlements that have eaten vast tracts of West Bank land?

Fayyadism, indeed, offers no long-term alternative to a political solution – as Mr Fayyad himself is the first to admit. But it can prepare the ground for such a deal and is likely to improve the negotiating position of the Palestinians along the way.

Whether that approach deserves its own moniker seems doubtful. Nevertheless, it looks like the Palestinians’ best hope of progress.