Think Tanks as Strategic Decision-Support Systems in North African Public Policy

Case of Morocco

Resumen

The Arab uprisings in North Africa have forced the states to survive in an environment characterized by Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (the VUCA paradigm). These changes massively affected the centralized governance models that relied on top-down intuition and failed to manage these intersecting crises without an institutionalized capacity for foresight. Through this article, the ontological shift of policy institutes in the North African region is being examined, considering that think tanks are evolving from the traditional “idea factories” into institutionalized "strategic decision-support systems". By taking Morocco as a primary case study, the analysis is focusing on the institutional architecture of elite think tanks (such as IRES and PCNS) and the role they play as the cognitive nervous system of the state, filtering informational noise to optimize public decision-making and guarantee stability. Conversely, a significant imbalance of influence is revealed in this research; although the state does take into consideration the macro-level foresights produced by elite institutions, the evidence-based policy recommendations generated by grassroots civil society and youth organizations are being disregarded. This article posits that for evidence-based policymaking that understands the realities on the ground and that fosters territorial resilience, the state must democratize its cognitive processes, thereby connecting sovereign strategy with local governance.