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Abstract: This article analyses the transformation of the Turkmenistani elite, focusing on the period after the 2006 death of the first president, Saparmyrat Niyazow ("Turkmenbashy"). I argue that the process of elite formation in highly centralized systems, such as that in Turkmenistan, is determined by the character of the first leader, who has a long-lasting impact on the local political culture. The uniqueness of Turkmenbashy and the political culture he founded were based on his solitude and isolation both from the domestic and outside worlds. Even if such a situation is hardly likely to occur again in the future, his legacy is transferrable to subsequent generations of leadership in the country. Turkmenbashy's successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, has followed political tradition as a successful way of holding onto the reins of power, notwithstanding some minor changes due to the new leader's different roots in the traditional structures of Turkmen society.
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan has been considered one of the most bizarre regimes in the post-Soviet area and one of the closest to the totalitarian ideal.1 In attempting to understand the character of the Turkmen regime after 1991, scholars usually pay attention to the legacy of the pre-Soviet period and the Soviet regime.2 The transformation of tribal Turkmen society into a regional-based kinship backed by the Russian and then Soviet authorities has contributed considerably to the current regime's character. This article argues, however, that, aside from this Soviet continuity, the local political culture and the personality of the leader should be considered an important element of regime formation. The interaction between these two factors, namely political culture and the president's personality, suggests the neopatrimonial logic at work in contemporary Turkmenistan. I contend that a leader's character works to shape the political culture, especially when that leader is a "founding father" of a newly independent country.3 Successors to the first leader are generally expected to behave in similar fashion to their predecessors, often with only slight changes in style due to differences in social background.
This article thus focuses on recent developments in the Turkmen elite structure, particularly post December 2006, i.e., under the second president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.4 The first section discusses the formation of Turkmen elites in the pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet...