the capacity of a state is often measured in terms of its fiscal and legal capacity. fiscal capacity meaning the state's ability to recover taxation to provide public goods, and legal capacity meaning the state's supremacy as sole arbiter of conflict resolution and contract enforcement. without some sort of coercion, the state would not otherwise be able to enforce its legitimacy in its desired sphere of influence. in early and developing states, this role was often played by the "stationary bandit" who defended villagers from roving bandits, in the hope that the protection would incentivize villagers to invest in economic production, and the stationary bandit could eventually use its coercive power to expropriate some of that wealth.