This paper focuses on the characteristics and genesis of the Tatarstan political regime during the leadership of the republic's President Mintimer Shaimiev and will question the popular view that his regime is a typical authoritarian dictatorship, although this conception appears to be justified by extraordinary electoral results in the republic. For example, Shaimiev was the only candidate for presidency in 1996 and gained 97.1% of the valid votes.

 My first point is that the Tatarstan regime should be analyzed in comparison with other post-communist political regimes. The Tatarstan republic, along with other national republics in Russia, is a marginal type placed, spatially and typologically, between the highly deconcentrated, ethnically Russian regions of Russia and the unitary Central Asian countries. In Tatarstan local chief administrators are appointed by Shaimiev, but nevertheless they are obliged to run for local and republican deputy elections and thus justify themselves through their electoral ability. If a chief administrator loses one or both of these elections, Shaimiev fires him. A similar practice can be found in Ukraine, another marginal type placed between the highly deconcentrated, ethnically Russian regions of Russia and the unitary Eastern Central European countries (in particular Poland and the Czech Republic). In Ukraine, governors and chief district administrators are appointed by the president and governors respectively, but nevertheless they are not bureaucrats in the Weberian sense, who are responsible only for their managerial performances. Rather, they take charge of electoral results in their regions or districts. If a governor or administrator cannot mobilize sufficient votes for Kuchma or his parties, he too will be fired. I term the marginal political regime represented by Tatarstan and Ukraine as "centralized caciquismo," considering that it camouflages local boss politics by outward, constitutional unitarism and that it combines the "merits" of appointment and electoral politics: the upper echelon can check the lower's electoral ability without giving the latter independence. 

The second section of this paper examines the criteria for comparing the political regimes of Russia's national republics: ethnic factors; the roles of leaders; socioeconomic structures; the penchant for coercion; the survival of the pre-1990 elite and their monopoly of electoral machines; the status of the national republic under the old regime; and relations between nationalist and pro-Moscow oppositions. 

The third section proves that the present Shaimiev regime satisfies the requisites for caciquismo: the local leaders' hidden desire for independence from the republican authorities; the uninterrupted development of an electoral machine in post-communist Tatarstan and the exploitation by Shaimievites of this electoral ability in their negotiation with Moscow; and federal (not command-subordinate) relations between the republican and local elites. 

The fourth section illuminates the genesis of this caciquismo. A secret of Shaimiev's success in making this regime emerge was his behavior exclusively as a peacemaker. Benefited by this image, the pre-1990 elite in Tatarstan could effect an ethno-Bonapartist policy, exploiting the antagonism between the two wings of the opposition, Tatar nationalists and pro-Moscow democrats. 

An English version of this paper was distributed at a panel at the AAASS annual convention held in St.Louis on November 18-21, 1999.