Europeanization and multi‐level governance in Turkey

This study considers whether European Union (EU) pre‐accession instruments relating to cohesion policy are contributing to the development of a more compound polity in Turkey and, specifically, assesses the extent to which Europeanization promotes features of multi‐level governance. Empirical findings suggest that the implementation system for EU pre‐accession aid is centralized with signs of a limited shift towards multi‐level governance. Empirical findings also reveal that the implementation structures designed for national policy in response to EU requirements represent a greater degree of shift towards multi‐level governance. The argument developed is that the latter is potentially transformative in character as far as regional development policy‐making is concerned, though the Turkish polity is to date only slightly more compound as a consequence.