Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Transition economies increasingly pursue digital transformation as a route to economic diversification, yet the governance of this process is frequently fragmented across ministries, legal regimes and infrastructure programmes. This article examines how a centrally coordinated governance model attempts to integrate the institutional, legal, human-capital and infrastructural dimensions of digital transformation, using the Republic of Azerbaijan as a revelatory case. In February 2026 a presidential order established the Digital Development Council and approved an Action Plan for the acceleration of digital development covering 2026 to 2028; the Council convened for the first time in June 2026. Drawing on a structured documentary analysis of the founding legal instruments, the annexed Action Plan and its measures schedule, the study reconstructs the architecture through which human capital, law and infrastructure are bound together under a single coordinating body, and sets the case against Kazakhstan and Estonia. The analysis shows that the plan organises 58 initiatives across four pillars, digitalisation, artificial intelligence, the innovation ecosystem and cybersecurity, and couples each to dated targets and quantified result indicators. These include raising proactive electronic services to 50 percent, moving 80 percent of state document flows to digital format, automating inter-agency data exchange under a once-only principle, and reaching 85 percent user satisfaction. Baseline indicators report a sevenfold rise in internet speed to over 90 megabits per second, a tripling of data centres to 148, over 4 million digital identity users, and a modest technology-services export of 110 million United States dollars. The country ranks 74th of 193 on the United Nations E-Government Development Index for 2024 yet only 94th of 139 on the Global Innovation Index. Comparison with Kazakhstan and Estonia suggests that the binding constraint lies in institutions, human capital and finance rather than in infrastructure, and points to the accountability tensions of centralised coordination. JEL Classification: O38 , H11 , D73 , O25</p>