A Novel Instrument of Regional Development in Turkey:: Izmir Development Agency

In Turkey, regional development has been grasped as an extension of national development and top-down policies have been applied. However, these policies have not been successful and created deep socio-economic disparities between the regions. With Turkey's highly motivated accession bid to EU,at the end of the 1990s, effects of Copenhagen Criteria have been influential in the country. Europeanization process obliges amendments in many parts of Turkish polity as well as the administrative structure of Turkey. The process favors bottom-up, decentralized policies where regional actors become more active in the decision-making mechanism. With regards to this new instruments of regional policy are introduced. In this context,the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) was established and 26 NUTS 2 regions were formed. As a novel attempt,26 Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), which are derived from NUTS 2 regions, will be generated in Turkey. It is an innovative attempt since it devolves some responsibilities of the state to regional level and promotes region-specific policies. In this respect, two RDAs were established in Turkey and Izmir Development Agency is one of them.