Retour vers le Futur(oscope) : un développement territorial « bricolé » par un entrepreneur politique ?

For many years, public policies for territorial economic development have been inspired by symbols such as the Silicon Valley, fueling the dreams of local elected officials. While evaluation processes allow us to assess the efficiency and ex-post performance of the territorial development paths taken, they do not provide a complete understanding of the mechanisms at work in their manufacture. This qualitative research focuses inductively on the genesis and evolution of the Futuroscope, an emblematic and atypical figure in the development of a rural area, through a long-term case study. We therefore propose a secondary analysis in the form of a supra-analysis to clarify the mechanisms at work and to shed light on the case with the help of a specific theoretical approach. We show that territorial development does not necessarily produce a territorial ecosystem, or more precisely, that the implementation of a project can generate activity on a territory without sustainably creating productive interactions between stakeholders - interactions that are essential for the qualification of the ecosystem. While territorial development theory neglects the dimension of "public action" and the role of elected representatives as political entrepreneurs, we contribute to this literature by proposing the concept of "territorial bricolage" as a mechanism for producing a territorial development path. The identification of this mechanism of territorial innovation should be a source of inspiration for territorial managers in the implementation of public policies. In particular, in crisis situations, this innovation modality could produce a capacity for territorial resilience, in a combination of bricolage, effectuation and causation.