ABSTRACT
The problem of the influence of the clan or tribal stratification (whether political, bureaucratic, cultural, scientific or other) of the elites on the social development of the states of Central Asia has been little studied up until the present. At the same time, however, it is a widely accepted fact that tribalism and the hegemony of regional clans are to be found in all these republics. In Tajikistan we see the struggle between the clans of Leninabad, Kurgantepe and Garma; in Uzbekistan there is the rivalry between the clans from Fergana (in the east), Samarkand (in the west) and Tashkent;1 in Kyrgyzstan one finds a north versus south situation; in Kazakhstan the competition is between the three dzhusy (tribal confederations);2 and in Turkmenistan we can observe the stand-off between clans from around the capital and the clans from all the other parts of the country.
