Monitoring

Police patrol monitoring relies on some parts of the state checking on the behavior of other parts, whereas fire alarm monitoring looks to outside actors, such as the media or civil society, to keep tabs on state officials. Putin exhibited a strong preference for police patrols over fire alarms during his presidency, and the ability of outside actors to help monitor the state was generally eroded.

In the North Caucasus, arguably there has been less monitoring of either type than in the rest of Russia. Although many brave journalists and NGO activists have sought to provide information on the state of affairs in the region, and because of their efforts it is generally available to interested observers both inside and outside Russia, the state has limited the ability of these groups and individuals to publicize such facts and analysis on a broad scale in Russia. The situation seems closest to what Pablo Policzer calls “blind coercion,” in which neither internal nor external monitors know much about law enforcement and security behavior at the local level. Policzer states that Argentina during the military dictatorship (1976-1982) had this form of monitoring state coercion.619

In the first Chechen War, critical media coverage of government policy and military performance helped turn the public against the war. In the period after the 1996 truce, it became increasingly dangerous for journalists to travel to the region because of the threat of kidnapping. During the second Chechen War, the government limited the ability of the media to cover the war, and the takeover of the NTV television station by pro-Kremlin forces effectively removed the main source of critical televised reporting about the war.620 Tenacious reporters like Anna Politkovskaya continued to cover the war, publishing multiple articles in the independent Novaya Gazeta as well as several books. But Putin’s statement shortly after her murder in October 2006 that she was not that well known in Russia beyond journalistic and human rights circles and that she did not influence popular opinion, although arguably in poor taste, was probably accurate.621 NGOs like Memorial have also continued to produce valuable information on the situation in the region, but, again, it is likely their work is better known outside Russia than inside it.

More generally, the level of public accountability of state bodies is lower in the ethnic republics of the North Caucasus than elsewhere in Russia. One proxy for accountability is the regional index of democracy compiled by Nikolay Petrov and Aleksey Titkov of the Carnegie Moscow Center. They provide an annual assessment of the level of democracy in every region in Russia except Chechnya by combining ten different measures (on elections, the media, parties, civil society, etc.). The averages for the years 2003-2007 showed that Dagestan, Adygeya, Karachayevo-Cherkesiya, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Ingushetia were all below the national average, with Dagestan the best-performing republic in the region (tied for sixty-fourth out of eighty-eight), and KBR finishing in absolute last place (eighty-eighth out of eighty-eight).622

The ability of Russian security and military personnel, and affiliated groups like the Kadyrovtsy, to engage in the predatory activities described in this chapter is further indication of the lack of meaningful oversight of their activities. John Russell noted that all of the various warring parties in Chechnya “can carry out the most arbitrary and brutal of crimes against civilians with impunity.” The conviction of Colonel Yuriy Budanov of the 2000 kidnapping and murder of an eighteen-year-old Chechen woman he believed was collaborating with the rebels was widely perceived as an exception, desired by the Kremlin for public relations purposes, and not an indication of a greater desire to hold soldiers accountable for war crimes.623 The spread of predatory tactics, such as torture and kidnapping, to Ingushetia has also been documented. State officials responsible for these tactics are rarely held accountable.624

Finally, it should be noted that the internal sense of mission that can motivate the behavior of state officials when there is no effective monitoring also seems to be absent in the power ministries in the North Caucasus. The one notable exception to this may be among the Kadyrovtsy. Kadyrov himself seems to not be motivated solely by material inducements, although these have been abundant and probably were his primary motivation for years. Anna Matveeva contended in 2007 that Kadyrov was refashioning himself as a “traditional Caucasian hero: merciless to his enemies, generous to his subordinates, respectful of tradition.” He spoke of himself in the third person as someone with “authority, power, a leader that people respect,” and as someone who carried out “a historically important step - when Kadyrov united the [Chechen] people.”625

Although much of Kadyrov’s public persona is clearly bluster, he does seem to understand the need to build some kind of legitimacy and move away from pure repression. He even met with Memorial activists in 2008 to discuss the human rights situation in Chechnya. After the meeting, chair of the Memorial board of directors, Oleg Orlov, stated that Memorial and Kadyrov had agreed on the need to observe human rights and punish those guilty of such violations. Orlov also expressed satisfaction with the sharp decline in cases of torture. Given Kadyrov’s past crimes, the whole affair sounds morally repugnant, but it also brings to mind Tilly’s observation that “war making and state making - quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy - qualify as our largest examples of organized crime.”626 Overall, the enlistment of Chechens to play the lead role in violent state building seems to have elevated a sense of mission among key cadres compared to the attitude of Russian troops earlier in the war.627 It probably goes without saying that whatever sense of mission does exist among the Kadyrovtsy, it is not marked by either professional norms or a commitment to serving the public fairly, which I have argued are central to building state quality.

Conclusions and prospects

Did Putin achieve his “historic mission?” The North Caucasus remained highly unstable at the end of his presidency, and the relative quiet of the last three years of his presidency was only a success compared to earlier in his tenure and to predictions of impending catastrophe. But it would also be a mistake to assume that nothing had changed. The level of political violence and terrorism in the region was generally lower in 2006-2007 than it was in 2004-2005. From Putin’s point of view, a temporary improvement may have been sufficient. When he left office in May 2008, he could make a plausible claim to success at fulfilling his “historic mission.” Tatyana Lokshina, chair of the human rights organization Demos, asserted in 2006 that Putin’s key goal was keeping “the lid shut over the boiling pot” in Chechnya until 2008. Lokshina argued that this was an important factor explaining Putin’s support for Ramzan Kadyrov.628

At the same time, the situation in the region remained potentially volatile and could be upset by a major successful terrorist attack, whether against a critical facility or even specific individuals, such as Kadyrov. Moreover, since Kadyrov’s loyalty to Moscow, in patrimonial style, was more a personal connection with Putin than an impersonal commitment to the Russian state, his “Frankenstein” characteristics could indeed become evident in the next several years, particularly depending on Putin’s future role in government and Kadyrov’s relationship with Medvedev. Many observers and experts maintain that the violent instability in the region is due in part to the counterproductive behavior of coercive organs. Massive corruption and indiscriminate use of violence, these analysts contend, is simply making the problems of the region worse, actually creating the extremists and terrorists the government claims to be fighting. For example, Arkady Ostrovsky argued in 2008 that “Russia’s colonial methods” were “the main cause of instability,” brought about by “state-sponsored repression, corruption and lawlessness that alienates and radicalises the population and drives young men into the hands of Islamist militants.”629 Additionally, the archetypal example of a predatory state, Zaire under Mobutu Sese Seko, lasted only as long as Mobuto received massive subsidies from the United States and collapsed once external support was withdrawn.630 The 2008-2009 economic downturn hindered Russia’s ability to subsidize the region and arguably contributed to a subsequent upswing in violence.631

Studies of revolutions suggest that the type of state that post-communist Russia has had in the North Caucasus is the kind most likely to provoke revolution: simultaneously repressive, patrimonial, and organizationally weak.632 There is little doubt that Russia’s state apparatus in the region is both patrimonial and repressive and, despite its large physical presence and recent improvements in terms of public security, is still organizationally weak in the sense that its coercive structures perform poorly at some of their core tasks. For example, in September 2007, the last month of Kozak’s stint as presidential envoy, he severely criticized the police in Ingushetia for their ineffectiveness in halting a wave of attacks and political murders. He called for a “purge” of the ranks to get rid of the “fellow travelers of the rebels, the corrupt, and the traitors.”633 Although revolution seems unlikely, the current nature of Russian state coercive organs in the North Caucasus gives little reason for confidence about long-term political order.

On the other hand, Tilly is clearly right that violent repression sometimes works. Some recent literature on counterinsurgency operations and imperial occupation suggests that harsh methods similar to those used by Russia and Kadyrov in Chechnya can lead to victory. And civil wars typically end not with a settlement, but one side achieving a dominant victory.634 It is thus possible that the trend toward reduced violence and greater stability in the region that started in Putin’s second term will continue. Will a short-term imposition of order lead to long-term state building? This is the puzzle that faces not only the North Caucasus, but Russia as a whole.

In thinking about this issue, it is worth considering more explicitly the relationship between state capacity and state quality, which for most of the book have been treated independently. We saw in the North Caucasus, for example, how power ministry corruption not only demonstrated the low quality of the Russian state in terms of its ability to serve the population in a fair manner, but also had direct implications for the capacity of the state to prevent terrorist attacks. Furthermore, predatory officials who serve their own interests over those of either the powers that be or society as a whole are not likely to be effective in fighting crime, given that they are busy engaging in it themselves. In the final chapter, I ask whether a strong state can be built in Russia if state quality remains a low priority.