Far from a decisive break with the past, the design of electoral systems in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan clearly demonstrates that these Central Asian states continued to embrace certain features of their shared Soviet legacy following independence. In particular, the predominance of regional political identities directly influenced the process by which each state established this new institution. All three engaged in bargaining games characterized by regionally based actors, preferences, and conceptualizations of power and power relations. While the continued salience of regionalism among Central Asian leaders did not preclude some institutional change in these states, and indeed, produced significant variation in their respective electoral systems and corresponding rates of political liberalization, it acted as a strong impediment to more fundamental institutional, and hence, regime change. Perceived shifts in relative power among established actors during their respective transitions made institutional innovation and change possible in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. In none of these three states, however, was the transition's impact on power relations believed to be dramatic enough to compel them to support a unilateral change in institutions. Rather, established elites constructed institutions that deliberately reconfigured the previous division of political influence without disrupting the widely recognized basis for allocating power and privilege. This amounted to what I call “pacted stability” – a form of elite pact making in which the primary aim is maintaining the exclusive nature of decision making rather than expanding the political process to accommodate new and/or previously excluded interests.