Thesis supervisor
: Gilles Crague Public
policy aimed at stimulating regional economic development increasingly seeks to promote innovation and the knowledge economy, both of which are seen as necessary conditions for developing the competitiveness of both businesses and regions. This thesis focuses on a French policy launched in 2004 within this framework of competitiveness: the competitiveness cluster policy. This policy, which combines industrial and regional development policies, aims to stimulate innovative and collaborative behavior between the economic, higher education, and research communities in the same region through the creation of "competitiveness clusters." We are interested in an aspect of these competitiveness clusters that has not yet been studied in depth: their impact on regional governance. Based on a comparative analysis of six case studies in southwestern France, we show that clusters appear to be intermediary structures that promote collaborative action not only between economic and scientific actors in the same region, but also, and above all, between political and administrative actors who were previously unaccustomed to working together. In this respect, cluster policy is renewing modes of regional public management. Two aspects are developed in the thesis: on the one hand, the way in which the state conceives of competitiveness clusters as new spaces that renew interactions between economic and political-administrative actors (from different sectors and different levels); and on the other hand, the way in which these clusters emerge and consolidate as entities in their own right, with their own functioning and a role to play in territorial governance. The case of competitiveness clusters thus allows us to revisit the notion of territory, which no longer coincides with the definition of a constituency. Drawing on the work of Claude Raffestin, we consider clusters as discontinuous territories, organized in networks, each developing its own mode of operation "in the quest for the greatest possible autonomy given the resources of the system."
Keywords
: public action, territorial governance, competitiveness clusters, territories,
organization, intermediation, autonomy.
Defense on Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Doctorate
: Spatial Planning, Urban Planning
Year of thesis registration
: 2011
Doctoral school
: VTT – City, Transportation, and Territories
Composition of the jury
Alain Bourdin Professor Emeritus, University of Paris-Est Marne la Vallée, Examiner
Gilles Crague Director of Research, CIRED/École des ponts Paris-Tech Director
Christophe Demazière Professor, François Rabelais University of Tours Rapporteur
Marie-Pierre Lefeuvre Professor, François Rabelais University of Tours Examiner
André Torre Director of Research, INRA Rapporteur