Published in 2021. This article studies public administration in Azerbaijan, which is approaching the 30th anniversary of its re-independence, and characterizes its current state.
Since 29 years of the last three decades have belonged to the rule of one family, there is no doubt that the effects of the transformation of power from father to son have led to different results compared to post-Soviet countries. Therefore, the mainline of the article is the structure of governance in Azerbaijan, participation in decision-making, the role of oligarchs in the establishment of the political elite and capitalism.
The conclusion is that the supreme model of governance in Azerbaijan is composed of the components of monarchy, oligarchy, kleptocracy, and corporate state. The corporate state model has become more prominent in Azerbaijan, as the ruling family has superior rights and privileges in public administration. In this country, independent civil society, free press, and other democratic institutions have been “neutralized” by various means, mainly by ruling family and oligarch groups, regions have been distributed among oligarchs, arable lands among high-ranking officials and agro-parks belonging to their families, in other words, a form of state governance has been established in Azerbaijan on the basis of modern aspects of the corporate republic model that existed in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Although the controlling stake of the corporate state named Azerbaijan is concentrated in the hands of the ruling family and the remaining shares belong to oligarchs with the status of minor shareholders, their number continues to decline as the process of transformation from oligarchic governance to managerial governance expands.
The relationship between the government and the population in this corporate state recalls the relationship between the company’s managers, who do not protect the labor rights of their employees, and employees, who are dissatisfied with their managers.