The Hybrid Isomorphism of Public Action: Culture, Crises and Communicative Modernity in Morocco (2020–2024)

Abstract

How does the Moroccan state navigate the imperative of communicative modernity without breaking with its anthropological foundations? This article explores this fundamental tension by moving beyond purely managerial frameworks. To analyse public policy in Morocco, we construct a novel integrative theoretical framework: the influence of cultural legacies (Hofstede’s dimensions) interacts with the agency and reflexivity of institutional actors (Giddens’ structuration theory), all set against the unpredictability of an open ecosystem (Morin’s complexity paradigm). The empirical investigation is based on a semiotic-discursive analysis of the state mechanisms deployed during a period of acute systemic stress (2020–2024), encompassing the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Al Haouz earthquake and the architecture of Special Fund 126. The findings demonstrate that the bureaucratic apparatus does not experience the digital revolution as an identity crisis. Rather, it orchestrates a genuine ‘hybrid isomorphism’: technological innovation and the demand for transparency are actively grafted onto the reactivation of traditional values (verticality of authority, the ‘Touiza’ narrative). By conceptualising this model of ‘hybrid modernity’, this research opens up new heuristic avenues for rethinking the resilience and evolution of state apparatuses in societies of the Global South.

Keywords: public communication; hybrid isomorphism; institutional culture; Hofstede; Giddens; Morin; Morocco; Global South.

Received Date: June 19, 2026

Accepted Date: July 10, 2026

Published Date: August 01, 2026

Available Online at: https://www.ijsrisjournal.com/index.php/ojsfiles/article/view/894