PRESIDENT BORIS EL'TSIN'S FORCED DISSOLUTION of the Russian parliament in October 1993 and his securing of a narrow popular mandate for a new presidential constitution in December placed a temporary stop to the political reconfiguration of the Russian state which has been under way since the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991. The growth of regional power vis-a-vis the centralised state is, however, a global phenomenon that is being driven by the revolution in information technology, the structure of capitalism and business methods. Increasingly the centralised governments of nation-states are perceived as dysfunctional institutional frameworks for political, economic and social organisation as they overlook significant community bonds and synergistic networks which are cross-national and regional in orientation. Consequently, the late 20th century has seen the emergence of the 'region-state'.1 City-regional meso- (intermediate) level governments, of which Siberian Agreement has been a prototype for Russia, have become key agencies of political organisation in the capitalist democracies and form a constellation of economic linkages with transnational companies in the pursuit of 'competitive advantage'.2 If Russia becomes further integrated with democratic capitalism it will be drawn further down the road of economic globalisation and, inevitably, if it performs as a rational actor it will conform to the rising socioeconomic trend within the developed capitalist worldregionalisation. The rise of Russian regionalism in recent years is a political problem that can be attributed in part to the increasing insecurity of regional elites under the combined pressures of the disintegration of the country, the economy, the command-administrative system and its hub, the Communist Party. The party was the institutional lynchpin of the system: 'the sole centripetal force in a society of increasingly powerful centrifugal forces'.3 It maintained 'vertical' integration by accommodating regional elites, coopting them into the management of the system and coordinating their activities through its network of party committees. In this way the CPSU performed the instrumental political functions of expressing and channelling demands in Soviet society.4 With the demise of the party came the dissolution of party committees, including the key regional level and urban committees (obkomy and gorkomy), which together with the nomenklatura system of appointments constituted the framework on which the communist power monopoly rested. The evaporation of the power of the party in 1989-91 meant the disappearance of the official and informal linkages of coordination, the structure for incorporating regional representatives and the proce