Le Maroc à l’heure de la clusterisation. Un projet d’innovation pour une ville en déclin industriel

Abstract

The new imperatives of globalization have imposed new challenges for international competitiveness, innovation, and territorial attractiveness. They tend to permeate the content of the industrial policies adopted by countries. This same trend seems to have affected Morocco starting from the 2000s with the adoption of its new industrial policy, Plan Emergence. Such a policy has made the promotion and the realization of clusters one if its main spearheads. As part of this contribution, the cluster approach is questioned in both its process of elaboration and its modes of governance. This is based on the case study of Atlantic Free Zone project in Kenitra, a city in industrial decline. The process certainly provides information on the role of central authorities in identifying the location and the conceptualization of the project; it also attests the importance of the instrumentation of cognitive frameworks and symbolic aspects of public action, in order to ensure the mobilization of local actors.