Abstract
An implicit assumption in the literature on Morocco and in many studies of state—society relations in developing countries is that “real” politics, lobbying, and policy making take place in the realm of the informal. Because the institutions governing the market and state— society relations are arguably less articulated outside of advanced, industrialized countries, analysts presume that dense personalized networks fill the void where formal organizations would otherwise operate. Although this image sets up a false separation between networks and organizations, which more often than not coexist both in developing and developed countries, I accept that until recently interest transmission and policy making indeed largely functioned through personal channels in Morocco. Yet the shifting structure of local economic interests and consequent changes in long-standing patterns of business—government relations demonstrate that traditional modes of interaction between public and private elites are unraveling. In the last decade, factions of the industrial bourgeoisie increasingly expressed their demands publicly, relying heavily on the emergent economic press. Using preexisting organizational structures as a locus for constructing effective producer lobbies, new exporters from relatively modest backgrounds sought more formalized relations with technocrats to advance their claims. These developments mark a significant transformation in Moroccan business—government relations and signal changes in the nature and role of traditional elite networks.
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Notes
Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965);
Michael Shafer, Winners and Losers: How Sectors Shape the Developmental Prospects of States (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), ch. 2.
I am not claiming that an inexorable market logic resulting from integration in the global economy has driven these institutional and social changes, as proponents of neoliberal economic prescriptions would contend. Rather, my argument is sociological, focusing on conflicts between contextually specific social groups. Furthermore, I do not idealize emerging export interests. The behavior of new Moroccan exporters does not entirely conform to favorable images of the new “entrepreneur” prevailing in policy prescriptions that envision increased transparency with economic reform and implicit in the literature linking economic and political liberalization. (For example, see Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement [New York: Harvest, 1990].) Some apparel exporters routinely ignore official labor regulations and violate the in-bond trade regime by selling on the local market. While most newer industrialists have developed distinct patterns of interaction with the administration, largely through AMITH, some have resorted to practices that subvert greater openness in business— government relations, in this way paralleling the behavior of traditional elite networks.
Emirbayer and Goodwin argue, “[Network analysis] either neglects or inadequately conceptualizes the crucial dimension of subjective meaning and motivation … and thereby fails to show exactly how it is that intentional, creative human action serves in part to constitute those very social networks that so powerfully constrain actors in turn.” Mustapha Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin, “Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency,” American Journal of Sociology 99 (May 1994): 1413.
Walter W. Powell and Laurel Smith-Doerr, “Networks and Economic Life,” in Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds., Handbook of Economic Sociology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 368–402.
For an application that maps out actual networks but neglects their origins and sources of change, see Naomi Rosenthal et al., “Social Movements and Network Analysis: A Case Study of Nineteenth-Century Women’s Reform in New York State,” American Journal of Sociology 90 (1985): 1022–1054.
Paul DiMaggio, “Nadel’s Paradox Revisisted: Relational and Cultural Aspects of Organizational Structure,” in Nitin Nohria and Robert G. Eccles, eds., Networks and Organization: Structure, Form and Action (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1992), 118–42. Emirbayer and Goodwin (“Network Analysis,” 1414–1415) question whether the approach as it stands can support causal arguments: “Network analysis is not a formal or unitary ‘theory’ that specifies distinctive laws, propositions, or correlations, but rather a broad strategy for investigating social structure.” But they maintain that it contains basic theoretical foundations in that it rejects categorizations according to attributes such as class membership and instead focuses on patterns of relations among individuals or other social actors.
Some analysts either explicitly or implicitly link individual-level motivations to network theory. For example, Scharpf’s “actor-centered institutionalism,” a modified rational choice framework, focuses on how institutions and social contexts, including networks, shape individual perception (Fritz Scharpf, Games Real Actors Play: Actor-Centered Institutionalism in Policy Research [Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997], 6–7, 137).
Burt explores the individual strategic maneuvering within networks through attempts to maximize “structural holes,” which are relationships between contacts that are additive rather than redundant (Ronald S. Burt, “The Network Entrepreneur,” in Richard Swedburg, ed., Entrepreneurs: The Social Science View [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000], 291);
See also Ronald S. Burt, Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992); Krackhardt shows how friendship or philos ties, a form of Granovetter’s “strong” ties, provide the comfort needed for individuals to accept change in organizations (David Krackhardt, “The Strength of Strong Ties: The Importance of Philos in Organizations,” in Nohria and Eccles, Network and Organization, 218;
Mark Grannoveter, “The Strength of Weak Ties,” American Journal of Sociology 78 [1973]: 1360–1380)
Kilduff and Krackhardt link the individual and network levels of analysis by arguing that individual perceptions of network ties, rather than actual ties, complement and strengthen network structures (M. Kilduff and David Krackhardt, “Bringing the Individual Back In: A Structural-Analysis of the Internal Market for Reputation in Organization,” Academy of Management Journal 37 [February 1994]: 87–108).
For a conceptualization of how individual agency, rooted in established habits but oriented to visions of the future, reforms structure, see Mustapha Emirbayer and Anne Mische, “What is agency?” American Journal Of Sociology 103 (January 1998): 962–1023.
White connects “identities,” which are distinct from people, to a higher level of analysis by arguing that they produce social structure through attempts to control contingencies in the environment (Harrison White, Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992]);
Ansell also uses a culturally grounded linkage of micro-and macro-foundations, arguing that cross-cutting networks promote solidarity, particularly when they tap into diverse cultural meanings (Christopher K. Ansell, Schism and Solidarity in Social Movements: The Politics of Labor in the French Third Republic [New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001]).
DiMaggio, “Nadel’s Paradox,” 121. Wasserman and Galaskiewicz’s description of the “network perspective” stresses that networks are “enduring patterns of relations among actors” (Stanley Wasserman and Joseph Galaskiewicz, “Introduction: Advances in the Social and Behavioral Sciences from Social Network Analysis,” in Wasserman and Galaskiewicz, eds., Advances in Social Network Analysis: Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences [London: Sage, 1994], 13).
See in particular, John Zysman, Governments, Markets and Growth (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983);
John Zysman, “Dynamic Diversity: Institutions and Economic Development in Advanced Countries,” in Robert Delorme and Kurt Dopfer, eds., The Political Economy of Diversity: Evolutionary Perspectives of Economic Order and Disorder (Hants, UK: Edward Elgar, 1994), 126–146.
For reviews of historical institutionalism and the various other brands of the “new institutionalism,” see Peter A. Hall and Rosemary C. R. Taylor, “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms,” Political Studies 44 (1992): 936–957;
and Kathleen Thelen and Sven Steinmo, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” in Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth, eds., Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1–32.
For conceptual discussions of path dependence in political science and sociology, see James Mahoney, “Path Dependence in Historical Sociology,” Theory and Society 29 (August 2000): 507–548;
Paul Pierson, “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics,” American Political Science Review 29 (June 2000): 251–268;
Paul Pierson, “Not Just What, but When: Timing and Sequence in Political Processes,” Studies in American Political Development 14 (Spring 2000): 72–92.
Path dependence has been used loosely to suggest that prior events condition outcomes but, as Mahoney and Pierson argue, this definition is vague and neglects causal mechanisms. Mahoney stresses the importance of contingency in the initial event setting off historical sequences with “deter-ministic properties.” Path-dependent models first appeared in the social sciences in the economic literature on evolutionary change and technological lock-in. See in particular Paul David, “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” American Economic Review 75 (May 1985): 332–337;
as well as W. Brian Arthur, “Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events,” Economic Journal 99 (March 1989): 116–131;
W. Brian Arthur, Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1994);
Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter, An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982);
and Richard Nelson, “Recent Evolutionary Theorizing about Economic Change,” Journal of Economic Literature 33 (March 1995): 48–90.
Liebowitz and Margolis critique these applications in economics (S. J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, “Path Dependence, Lock-In, and History,” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization 11 (1995): 205–226).
Some approaches provide insights into network genesis and change. Without explicitly problematizing the emergence of business networks, Granovetter elaborates different dimensions along which the structure of business groups may vary (Mark Granovetter, “Business Groups,” in Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedburg, eds., The Handbook of Economic Sociology [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994], 453–475).
See also, Walter W. Powell, “Neither Market Nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization,” in L. L. Cummings and B. Staw, eds., Research in Organizational Behavior (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1990), 295–336.
Saxenian shows how immigrants forge crossnational business networks (Annalee Saxenian, “The Role of Immigrant Entrepreneurs in New Venture Creation,” in Claudia Bird Schoonhoven and Elaine Romanelli, eds., The Entrepreneurship Dynamic: Origins of Entrepreneurship and the Evolution of Industries [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001], 68–108). Powell and Brantley show how research and knowledge exchange give rise to networks and create new patterns of inter-firm linkages (Walter W. Powell and Peter Brantley, “Competitive Cooperation in Biotechnology: Learning Through Networks?” in Nohria and Eccles, Network and Organization, 366–394).
From a different perspective, Boisot argues that information exchange and diffusion create institutions, which in turn shape the spread of information (Max H. Boisot, Information Space: A Framework for Learning in Organizations, Institutions and Culture [London: Routledge, 1995]).
Following North, I view institutions as “the rules of the game in a society or … the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction” (Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991], 3). But North’s definition is incomplete: a workable definition must also incorporate the sociological aspects of institutions, or the social and economic interests contained therein. Networks, like organizations, are structures within which institutions operate.
Kathleen Thelen, “Timing and Temporality in the Analysis of Institutional Evolution and Change,” Studies in American Political Development 14 (Spring 2000): 101–108. In addition, Thelen usefully argues that models of institutional change need not emphasize distinct trajectories—whether evolutionary or rapid—but rather should focus on shared underlying processes of change, regardless of the how they unfold.
See also Kathleen Thelen, “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999): 369–404.
Most academic research on Morocco focuses on the macro-political level, emphasizing the role of the monarchy in shaping the fortunes of local social groups. As a result, many observers highlight the remarkable degree of institutional stability in Moroccan politics in the face of massive economic restructuring. See, e.g., Azzedine Layachi, “Economic Reform and Elusive Political Change in Morocco,” in Yahia H. Zoubir, ed., North Africa in Transition: State, Society, and Economic Transformation in the 1990s (Miami, FL: University Press of Florida, 1999), 43–60;
and I. William Zartman, “King Hassan’s New Morocco,” in I. William Zartman, ed., The Political Economy of Morocco (New York: Praeger, 1987), 1–33. I argue, however, that this approach obscures important elements of change that can only be captured by situating the analysis on a micro or mid-range level. Focusing on specific sectors, e.g., this research demonstrates that shifts in the institutions governing business—government relations in certain parts of the economy unfolded in the reform period.
See in particular Mohamed Saïd Saâdi, Les Groupes Financiers au Maroc (Casablanca, Morocco: Okad, 1989).
The makhzen is the term developed in French colonial historiography for the precolonial Moroccan central authority. The bled al makhzen, or the “land of government,” is often juxtaposed to the bled al siba, or the “land of dissidence,” populated by tribes and other local power bases, which largely refused to pay taxes to the Moroccan sultan. Despite critiques of this dichotomous depiction of precolonial Moroccan society, some analysts continue to rely on the framework. See Pennell for a discussion of the origins and evolution of the makhzen and siba concepts (Richard Pennell, “Libya and Morocco: Consensus on the Past,” in George Joffé, ed., North Africa: Nation, State and Region [New York: Routledge, 1993], 203–220).
Rémy Leveau, Le Fellah Marocain: Défenseur du Trône (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985);
John Waterbury, The Commander of the Faithful: The Moroccan Political Elite, a Study of Segmented Politics (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970); and Zartman, “King Hassan’s New Morocco.”
Although he focuses on the “cultural foundations” of Moroccan monarchial rule rather than the postindependence development of key social groups and their relations with the state, Hammoudi provides a good overview of the literature on state—society relations in Morocco (Abdellah Hammoudi, Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997], 25–43).
Abdelkader Berrada, “Etat et Capital Privé au Maroc (1956–1980)” (Ph.D. diss., University of Mohamed V, Rabat, Morocco, November 1991).
For a sociological discussion of marriage and business linkages between elite private sector elements, see Ali Benhaddou, Maroc: Les Elites du Royaume, Essai sur l’Organisation du Pouvoir au Maroc (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997). Interestingly, an industrialist from a prominent Moroccan capitalist family recommended Benhaddou’s book, citing its accuracy in depicting inter-family relations in the private sector. Nonetheless, he objected to the book’s underlying pejorative tone (Textile firm director, interview by author, Ain Sebaa, Casablanca, January 27, 2000).
The discussion refers to large-scale private interests that control the bulk of economic activity. Small shopkeepers, who are primarily from the Swasa ethnic group in southern Morocco, constitute a numerically important group yet do not act as a cohesive political unit (John Waterbury, “Tribalism, Trade and Politics: The Transformation of the Swasa of Morocco,” in Ernest Uellner and Charles Micaud, eds., Arabs and Berbers [London: Duckworth, 1972], 231–257).
Jaidi argues, however, that innate inconsistencies in ISI policies ultimately sent mixed signals to industrialists, inhibiting the development of a solid local textile industry. Furthermore, subsequent national economic plans, notably the Three-Year Plan of 1965–1967 and the Five-Year Plan of 1968–1972, placed greater emphasis on tourism and agriculture, relegating the industrial sector to the backburner in development priorities (Larabi Jaidi, Industrie Textile et Processus d’Industrialisation au Maroc [Rabat, Morocco: Editions de la Faculté des Sciences Juridiques, Economiques et Sociales de Rabat, Université Mohamed V, 1979], 36–37).
J. P. Houssel, “L’Evolution Récente de l’Activité Industrielle à Fes,” Révue du Géographie du Maroc 9 (1966): 78; Jaidi, Industrie Textile, 39–40.
Although Moroccanization was ostensibly designed to enable Moroccans to take over businesses from foreigners, many locals benefiting from the reforms established partnerships with foreign interests, allowing foreign capital to retain a significant stake and even expand its holdings in the Moroccan economy (Abdelkader Berrada, “La Marocanisation de 1973: Eclairage Rétrospectif,” Economie et Socialisme 8 (1988): 29–68; Saâdi, Les Groupes Financiers av Maroc).
Mouna Cherkaoui, Inventaire des Mésures de Politiques Economiques Prises au Maroc de Janvier 1982 à Juillet 1992 (Rabat, Morocco: Groupement de Recherche en Economie Internationale, University of Mohamed V, October 1992), 34; AMITH official, interview by author, Casablanca, Morocco, October 11, 1999;
World Bank, Growing Faster, Finding Jobs: Choices for Morocco (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1996). Eliminating import licenses had a direct impact on the influence of both administration officials and industrialists who had benefited from this policy. Government officials lost a significant source of discretionary power—and income from bribes—while licensees found it increasingly difficult to maintain monopolies over economic activities (Ministry of Industry official, interview with author, Rabat, Morocco, March 7, 2000).
Brendan Horton, Morocco: Analysis and Reform of Economic Policy (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1990), 66.
The 1995 code introduced a unified investment code with homogeneous fiscal incentives for all nonagricultural activities. Incentives include exemptions for the value-added and import taxes as well as corporate profit and income tax breaks, and promotion of offshore export zones and government commitments to invest in infrastructure in order to encourage investment. International Monetary Fund, Morocco: Selected Issues (Washington, DC: IMF, February 1997), 10.
La Vie Economique, January 19, 1996, 3–4; Béatrice Hibou, “Les Enjeux de l’Ouverture au Maroc,” Working Paper 15, Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Paris, France, April 1996. For a detailed argument on the role of the Campagne d’Assainissement in inciting the CGEM to adopt a more explicitly political role in Moroccan society
see Myriam Catusse, “L’Entrée en Politique des Entrepreneurs au Maroc” (Ph.D. diss., University of Law, Economy and Science of Aix-Marseille, France, 1999).
Confédération Générale des Entreprises du Maroc, “Le ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’: Un Accord en Huit Points,” Vues economiques 9 (1997): 225–237; La Vie Economique, June 28, 1996, 27.
The “industrial districts” model, most closely associated with Piore and Sabel’s work on Italy, suggests that collaborative production relationships forge tight linkages among small-scale manufacturers, implying that producer networks may emerge and facilitate collective action (Michael Piore and Charles Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide [New York: Basic Books, 1984]). Yet the model is most applicable to high-quality “niche” industries rather than activities where price-based competition prevails. For overviews of the industrial districts literature
see John Humphrey, “Industrial Organization and Manufacturing Competitiveness in Developing Countries: An Introduction,” World Development 23 (1995): 1–7 and “Industrial Reorganization in Developing Countries: From Models to Trajectories,” in ibid., 149–162. Cawthorne critiques applications to developing countries (Pamela Cawthorne, “Of Networks and Markets: The Rise and Rise of a South Indian Town: The Example of Tiruppur’s Cotton Knitwear Industry,” in ibid., 43–56).
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Cammett, M. (2004). Challenges to Networks of Privilege in Morocco: Implications for Network Analysis. In: Heydemann, S. (eds) Networks of Privilege in the Middle East: The Politics of Economic Reform Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982148_9
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