Azerbaijan: Civil Society and the Petroleum Sector
Public debate and public participation in decision making are strictly limited in Azerbaijan. This chapter describes how key decisions about the petroleum sector are made exclusively by top officials and members of government. Individual citizens are largely excluded from processes of policy formulation, decision making and opinion formation. Civil society activists are active in the social media, but public policy debates are otherwise almost non existent. Shortcomings among civil society organizations combined with government imposed constraints have left the country's civil society stunted. The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) has provided the only platform for civil society to engage with industry and government to discuss petroleum sector management. In 2015, however, Azerbaijan lost its compliant status under this initiative by failing to meet the new EITI Standard, largely due to the government's failure to engage civil society.