In this thesis, we aim to design and implement algorithms in a distributed environment in order to solve clustering, backbone formation and efficient routing problems for mobile ad hoc networks(MANET)s. Our first goal is to find a connected dominating set (CDS), then construct clusters using the clusterhead information and extend this approach to multi-level clusters. We propose a new Connected Dominating Set based clustering algorithm for clustering in MANETs. Our algorithm is based on Wu and Li's algorithm, however we provide significant modifications and heuristics such as considering the degrees of the nodes during marking process. We also extend our algorithm in order to generate a hierarchy of clusters. Our second goal is to implement a flooding based routing mechanism on top of CDS based clusters. We propose a two level flooding mechanism by using the CDS members as the gateways of the clusters. We describe the algorithms, analyze their time and message complexities and measure their performance in the simulation environments.