Closing the Evidence Gap: An Administrative-Culture Reading of AI Act Operationalization in the Estonian e-State

An administrative-culture reading of the operational mapping between the EU AI Act and eIDAS trust services. Four administrative competencies are named (reading evidence, compelling its production, cross-checking against the system, maintaining the evidence chain across time); three compliance-theatre risks are anticipated (vendor capture, cargo-cult deployment, performance theatre); five halduskultuur substrate-readiness markers are offered as a diagnostic. The Estonian e-state is read as the worked case across three scenarios — the 2002–2017 substrate-building period, the 2017 ROCA event as substrate-under-stress, and the 2020s QTSP tender transition as substrate-adapted — and three concrete moves for Estonian public administration are proposed. Submitted to JeDEM — eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government on 25 May 2026 (submission #1282).