The Tatarstan political regime under President Shaimiev can be conceptualized as centralized caciquismo, in which rampant local boss politics is camouflaged by constitutional unitarism and by appointment systems of local chief executives. In this regime the position of local chiefs is staked on electoral performance in their districts. In the preparation of the power-sharing treaty with Moscow during 1993-94, the Tatarstan leadership succeeded in exporting this electoral meritocracy to Moscow, and eventually the combination of the chief executives' appointment system and electoral meritocracy was popularized nation-wide and guaranteed Yeltsin's victory in 1996. This process implies that nationalism (or ethno-regionalism) of large nations, such as the Kazan Tatars, cannot be comprehended by national-liberation models. Rather, large nations' nationalism can often be consolidated when it provides its host political entities with ideas and principles of state building. This, in turn, is among the main reasons for the defeat of Tatar radical nationalists who relied upon national-liberation ideas.
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Кимитака Мацузато (2001) studied this question.