Institutional analysis of regional development policies in Turkey: A case of development agency

Development is a concept embracing social, economic and cultural development. If this concept is confined to a certain area, it can be distinguished into species such as country development and regional development. This distinction has been influential in development policies and since the 1950s regional development policies have often begun to engage the world's agenda. In the 1970s and 1980s, problems emerged about economic growth. In order to overcome these problems, the management understanding that central government dominates has changed with the management understanding that all local actors are active. This understanding has also been influential in regional development policies. Developments in management understanding accelerated the formation of new actors in public policy. Also in this period development agencies have become important actors in the regional development policies. Development agencies established with the main objective of reducing regional development, disparities and contributing to the pace of regional development have undertaken various functions in many countries around the world. Development agencies in every country have emerged with different institutional reasons. The development agency which started to be established in the year 2006 in our country has tried to achieve its establishment goals by carrying out various activities. In this study, the activities realized by the development agencies are examined, the findings obtained by referring to the opinions and suggestions of development agencies of internal and external stakeholders of the development agencies are analyzed and the data related to the implementation examples of the development agency in the world are analyzed and the institutional analysis of the development agencies which is one of the important institutions of regional development policies is performed. In the study, the questionnaire, which is one of the techniques of quantitative method, and the interview and document analysis technique, which is one of the techniques the qualitative method are used and the findings are evaluated by the analytical analysis method. As a result of this study, it has been concluded that the success of the agencies in reaching the institutional goals depends on the institutional, functional and financial structures, the audit and human resources system being able to reach this goal and the management of these organizations in accordance with the institutional reputation management. Keywords: Development Policy, Regional Development Policies, Regional Development Agencies, İnstitutional Analysis