Dead-Ends of a Development Process Imposed from Above: Deconstruction of the Concept of “Partnership”

Abstract

This article suggests a critical analysis of development projects in the Mediterranean region, mainly for the Southern countries. It concerns primarily the ones conceived based on the Euro-Mediterranean Conference (November 1995) and on the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) suggested by France in 2008 under the framework of the Project for the Mediterranean. They both advocates for a new approach to the concept of development in the Maghreb and in Morocco. In this part of the world, many projects have faced recurring problems such as cultural underpinnings that reside in the initiators’ mentalities, contradictory agendas and interests, or various political maneuvers and circumvention schemes. This reflection aims at outlining the causes behind the failure of these two projects submitted by the Europeans to the Mediterranean population. In addition to the authoritarian, self-destructing polices and knots of adversities that are causing difficulties between to the two shores, the Northern partners are hardly making efforts in terms of investments and commitments for the realization of the proposed programs. In addressing these multi-dimensional challenges, and restrictions imposed by economic globalization, the article argues that economic development is being shaped, essentially, within the framework of the national state and calls for a genuine and endogenous strategy in the conception of a possible model of development.