Turkey was officially admitted in the Helsinki summit of European Union (EU) leaders in 1999 as a candidate country to join the EU, which indicates a growing influence of the EU in Turkey in terms of domestic political and economic life. In the EU, the regions have been strengthened along with the introduction of the “European of the Regions” policy. Therefore, regional development policies have been changing and implementing new policies in order to reduce the disparities between the regions in Turkey. The aim of the thesis is that to investigate the change and the implementation period of the regional development policies. Therefore, the thesis analyses the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) as local institutions where regional policy, involving a bottom-up approach, has been decentralized. In order to be able to interpret how the governance practices of the EU, as the regional policy, pursued in Turkey, the thesis will analyse zmir Development Agency and Çukurova Development Agency as the main case studies. The aim of the study is to follow the change in the organisation of the regional policy, and the process of formation of the RDAs in a centralised country, Turkey.