Azerbaijan in transition and the challenge of energy resources management

Thanks to its strategic geographic location linking europe and Asia, its oil and gas caspian sea fields, as well as to its involvement in strategically important energy supply projects, azerbajian in considered as one of the caspian sea region's most important hydrocarbon export routes from the caspian bacin and central Asia to the west. But, despite the apparent economic "miracle" which took place in the past decade, the country is still struggling with a difficult political and economic transition, worsened by a declining oil output and the complexity of the regional context. The thesis employs an holistic approach in order to provide a complex picture of the different problems which need to be tackled by azerbajianìs national authorities to ensure lasting, sustainable growth (E.G. widespread corruption, the weakness of the non-oil economy, the difficult task of managing large hydrocarbons pevenues, large economic inequalities) and to analyze the complicated intertwining of domestic and external factors which still influence its policy-markers political and economic chioices and strategies.