Do Russian law enforcement and security services work for the people and defend their rights? On the eve of his second term, Putin put his finger on what is central to thinking about not just the capacity, but the quality, of state coercive organs. In a civil state with high state quality, the state's monopoly of force is wielded not primarily for the interests of the ruler(s), but for society as a whole.

In the previous two chapters, we focused on the capacity of the Russian power ministries. At the national level, there is some evidence that the capacity of the power ministries increased during Putin's presidency. Violent clashes for sovereign power in the capital were off the table, the fiscal capacity of the state increased, and toward the end of Putin's tenure, there seemed to be some improvement in fighting violent crime and terrorism, although Russia continued to lag comparatively in these areas. The greatest increase in coercive capacity, however, came in the rebuilding of a “regime of repression” that the Kremlin used to help fix elections and repress economic and political rivals. Moreover, private property rights remained insecure, both for oligarchs and for ordinary businesspeople and citizens, as we will see in this chapter.