From communist boss politics to post-communist caciquismo — the meso-elite and meso-governments in post-communist countries☆

☆ This paper is a result of the Priority Research Project “Changes in the Slavic-Eurasian World” (April 1995 - March 1998) and also the Research Project “Regional/Subregional Politics in Post-Communist Countries” (April 1999–March 2002), both of which were and are supported by the Japan Ministry of Education, Sciences, Sports and Culture. I am grateful to the participants in these projects, in particular, Osamu Ieda, Manabu Sengoku, and Tomohiko Uyama for supplementing my knowledge of local institutions in Eastern Central Europe and Central Asia. Moreover, this paper owes much to the recent publication: Osamu Ieda (ed.). The Emerging Local Governments in Eastern Europe and Russia: Historical and Post-Communist Development (Keisuisha: Hiroshima, 2000).

* Corresponding author. Tel: +81-11-706-3311; fax: +81-11-706-4952. E-mail address:[email protected] (K. Matsuzato).