Modelling the governance of European medium-sized port-cities[Modélisation de la gouvernance des villes portuaires européennes de taille moyenne]

The paper presents a model designed to analyse port governance. It considers that the stakeholders ability to adopt cooperative behaviors constitutes the key element to port development. Its focus is on medium-sized European ports and fifteen cases were studied. Each territory was first subject to a qualitative survey and analysis of the contents of local stakeholders discourse (over 80 interviews conducted). The material is rich, allowing for the comparison between two or even three ports, yet the delicate nature of the relations brought to light adds considerable complexity to the comparison within a larger ensemble. The paper, therefore, proposes a semi-automatic treatment which helps to mitigate this difficulty by means of a computer model based on graph theory. It involves a modelling system based on the relations between the entities of the system. In this context, the relations between stakeholders were analysed in order to create typologies and eventually envisage some standard models of governance. In order to territorialize the subject, six typical cases out of fifteen were used: Le Havre, Nantes-Saint Nazaire, Dunkirk (France), Gdynia (Poland), Klaipėda (Lituania), Hamina- Kotka (Finland). All these port environments modelled according to a single format (i.e. a graph) led to the application of a certain number of metrics which enables them to be compared. Two main metrics were presented in the framework of this paper for illustrative purposes: "Density" and "S_metric". These metrics originating in graph theory, coupled with other indicators (distribution of degrees and number of hubs per port), allowed to measure the relationships' intensity and the distribution of these intensities among the stakeholders, and to identify the main stakeholders or conversely the least influential.