The green transition in Morocco: Extractivity, inclusivity, and the stability of the social contract

• The green transition is regarded as a big developmental project in Morocco. For the state, the transition is offering more strategic energy independence, a chance for transforming into a regional energy exporter, and an opportunity for industrial diversification and technological upgrading. • Morocco tends to have an extractive but stable social contract characterizing its green transition. The benefits accrue to the pro-transition coalition made up of state and big business tycoons. • The European Union's growing demand on renewables and decarbonization represents a largely exogenous cause that set certain mechanisms through the activities of various state and social actors. • State-society relations represented the most important contextual conditions that shaped the green transition social contract, and especially the presence of a powerful state that shares strong connections with powerful but subservient tycoons. The absence of a clear interest identification against the transition among other social actors made the emergence of a contra policy coalition less likely and stabilized the social contract. • Morocco is likely to proceed successfully in its remarkable path towards the green transition. • Nevertheless, a more inclusive social contract that would account for the interests of more actors would not necessitate many disruptions. Morocco has already strong state-society dialogue mechanisms and other actors could be assimilated into the coalition given the export-oriented nature of the country's green transition schemes. This paper investigates the social contract governing the green transition in Morocco. The theoretical framework builds on the literature on social contracts and policy coalitions, while the methodology depends on process tracing and qualitative data collected during fieldtrip visits. Identifying different possible social contracts that characterize the transition and differentiating between them in terms of their extractivity/inclusivity and stability, the paper suggests that Morocco tends to have an extractive but stable social contract. The European Union's growing demand on renewables and decarbonization represents a largely exogenous cause that set certain mechanisms through the activities of various state and social actors. Contextual conditions then shaped the impact of these activities on the resulting social contract. The presence of a powerful state that shared strong connections with powerful but subservient tycoons magnified the impact of their activities at the expense of those of other social actors, while other contextual conditions helped cement a pro-green transition policy coalition. The benefits accrued to those partners of the pro-coalition making it an extractive social contract, while the absence of a clear interest identification against the transition among other social actors made the emergence of a contra policy coalition less likely and stabilized the social contract.