Abstract
THE RELATION BETWEEN RENTIER STATE AND WEAK STATE: AN ASSESSMENT ON AZERBAIJAN
States that shape their economical and political functioning by the income coming from natural resources is called as rentier state. These states have gained meaning by relations of nepotism, clientalism, corruption; therefore, citizenship consciousness which is implicit to pluralistic democracy have not been settled. Naturally, political opposition is also under pressure in these countries. Rentier states could also be embraced as weak states due to full scale political upheavals resulting from the possible decrease in the rentier income. In other words, rentier state and weak state approaches are integrated. Azerbaijan, which forms her political and economical functioning by income that obtained from petroleum and natural gas, has a rentier character. In this country, it is not possible to say that the economy is sufficiently diversified. For this reason, Azerbaijan will come up against serious economical and political turbulances. Social unrest that appeared depending on the dramatical decline in energy prices is a clear reflection of that character. Although it gives an impression of a strong state with an authoritarian character, it can be understood within the framework of the weak state approach that Azerbaijan has a serious internal/structural vulnerability.
Keywords
Rent, Distributive State, Resource Curse, Hossein Mahdavy, SOCAR
