In Central Asian studies regionalism in Soviet and independent republics with a nomadic background is often identified with the existence of tribalism and the dominance of tribal affiliations in politics. This identification is problematic and based on improper “conceptual stretching” of the term from a non-state organised society to a society which is politically integrated by state structures. This article will elucidate this issue by analysing the changing patterns of statehood and regionalism in Soviet and independent Turkmenistan. It concludes that the Soviet state structures in Turkmenistan were relatively strong, although personal authority relations within the communist party had preserved patrimonial enclaves within the state organisation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union initially led – as in all Central Asian republics – to a re-patrimonialisation of authority relations. In Turkmenistan this process led to an extreme form of neo-patrimonial state organisation due to the personal and arbitrary rule of its ruling president Saparmurat Niyazov.