ABSTRACT
The concluding chapter of the book draws on all the previous chapter discussions in order to answer the chief questions posed in the Introduction: How and why are laws being used selectively against critics of the Putinist regime, and how does selective law enforcement makes sense within the broader political-legal system? Perhaps the most important answer lies within the definition of selective law enforcement as a mechanism of repression aimed at enforcing informal rules of political conduct through selective legal acts. This definition is the epicentre of my analysis. In a way, it is also its conclusion – a condensed answer to my question of what selective law enforcement is and a hint towards how it works. The second part of the concluding remarks discusses the longevity of quasi-legal practices. Because selective law enforcement is an intrinsic part of a long standing legal culture, there are no reasons to believe that the practice will disappear overnight. What we need to remember, however, is that while institutions are associated with regularity, stability, and predictability, they do not imply stagnation or stalemate. In other words, if the willingness or capability to employ force diminishes, so will selective law enforcement as a coercive tool. For the foreseeable future, we may expect that selective law enforcement will continue to evolve, yet our possibility to predicate how remains limited.
