Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan: Heavy Defense Spending, Weak Governance Scores

Azerbaijan's GDP stood at $74.32 billion in 2024, per the World Bank's World Development Indicators, with GDP per capita of $7,284 the same year and a population of 10.2 million. Government debt is low, at 20.0 percent of GDP for 2026 per the IMF's World Economic Outlook, and reserves — drawn from the World Bank's own WDI series rather than IMF data — stood at $12.70 billion in 2024.

Defense spending is heavy relative to the size of the economy. SIPRI's 2025 military expenditure data puts outlay at roughly $4.94 billion, or 6.466 percent of GDP on SIPRI's own GDP series — one of the higher ratios in this dataset. That figure should not be checked against the World Bank's $74.32 billion GDP estimate above, since SIPRI calculates its GDP denominator independently. The Correlates of War National Material Capabilities (NMC) dataset lists 64,000 active personnel as of 2022 and a composite index of national capability (CINC) of 0.0014 for that year.

Governance indicators are weak. V-Dem's 2025 data (v15) scores Azerbaijan at 0.171 on electoral democracy, 0.053 on liberal democracy, and 0.053 on state capacity — among the lowest state-capacity readings in this dataset.

Energy figures are current and substantial. Our World in Data's energy series lists primary energy consumption of 0.749 exajoules in 2024 and electricity generation of 28.09 terawatt-hours in 2025. Oil production stood at 339.2 terawatt-hours and gas production at 377.6 terawatt-hours, both for 2024 — current figures, not the decade-old snapshots seen elsewhere in this country set.

Data gaps

All figures in this bundle are drawn from 2022 or later, so no major staleness flag applies here — a contrast with several neighboring entries in this set where energy production data stops at 2016. No arms-trade, nuclear, or alliance-commitment data appears in this bundle. The SIPRI milex-to-GDP ratio of 6.466 percent is calculated on SIPRI's internal GDP series, not the World Bank's $74.32 billion WDI figure cited above, and the two should not be divided against one another to verify it.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy).