Normative Regions and the Provincial
Development Planning in Turkey
Oğuz Özbek
*
Abstract: In ensuring the efficiency of the state’s intervention (planning) for the
formation of natural and built environment for developmental goals, different ways
of labeling regional area create differences in terms of success of planning. This
paper examines the efficiency of spatial development strategies in the administrative regions within a framework of the debate on functional versus normative regions. In Turkey, the efforts for the introduction of new implementation tools of
spatial planning and redefinition of spatial planning hierarchy in the early 2000s
highlighted the importance of sub-national scale. The efforts towards socioeconomic development gained a normative character through recent the definition problem of regional space and the efficiency of regional implementation tools
under the topics of the classification and labeling of regional space and the normative tradition of planning in Turkey.
Key Words: Regional development, normative region, functional region, provincial
development planning.
INTRODUCTION
Two important assumptions shape the content of this article. The symbolic, administrative, or normative approach to regional space brings about
a very obvious problem of defining in the analytical framework. Secondly,
rigid regional classifications and definitions pose problems in terms of
strategy and practice. The rigid classification and labeling of the regional
space particularly on administrative basis restrict the implementation space
and efficiency of the regional development strategies. The said forms of
classification and approach sever the factual bonds between the statistical
or administrative “unit” and the “space” that displays relational and uniqueness features of relational in socio-cultural terms. These two points are very
evident in the case of Turkey, where a traditionally centralist and bureaucratic form of public administration forms the foundation for the spatial and
statistical basis of the spatial planning system.
In Turkey, achievement of the socio-economic development policies and
implementation instruments of these policies gain meaning when they are
*
Assist. Prof., Selçuk University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, 42075, Kampüs/Konya/Türkiye.
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considered along with their way of approaching to and defining regional
space. Undoubtedly, the functional and normative meaning of regional
space is closely related with the historical and structural characteristics of
the organization and public administration system. This form of organization, whose some centralist characteristics bear the traces of the central
and provincial organization of the Ottoman Empire of the 19 th century, becomes decisive in the implementation tools of spatial planning. In this
framework, the provincial development planning, which is one of the new
instruments of regional planning in Turkey, has formed the main framework of spatial planning and economic development strategies in many
provinces.
The analysis of the provincial development planning that has emerged
as a new level of spatial planning in early 2000s in Turkey requires the association of the subjects of planning stages, spatial scale, and strategic performance, with the efforts for defining and labeling regional space. The recent practices of the provincial development plans in areas prone to natural
disasters such as the Southeastern Anatolia Region add a new dimension
to the debates over the normative-functional regions distinction aiming to
analyze the boundaries and content of socio-economic and socio-spatial
development projects in Turkey. These efforts for reorganizing the regional
space for national and sub-national development purposes are very evident
in the individual development strategies that began to be followed by a
number of provinces in Southeastern Anatolia Region following the 1999
Eastern Marmara and Düzce earthquakes.
In conclusion, this article focuses on the provincial development planning, which is one of the new and normative implementation tools of the
regional development policy, rather than the detailed analysis of the historical and structural characteristics of the public administration system in
Turkey. By this way, it is aimed for the analysis of the organic relationship
between the issue of defining regional space and the efficiency of the regional implementation tools. Here, two basic questions are important: does
the preference of the normative or functional approach in labeling and
identifying the space create significant differences in the success of socioeconomic development strategies at different settlement levels? The second question: can province be a level of spatial planning?
As for the scientific method, in the article, first, a brief historical analysis
of Turkey’s normative planning tradition is made, and then, the legal and
strategic framework for the provincial development planning is discussed.
The relevant analyses have been attempted to be associated with recent re-
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gional development plans, the development indicators of provinces, and
the Ninth Development Plan (2007-2013).
REGIONAL SPACE AND CLASSIFICATIONS
In the classification of regional space, how and for what purpose the
space is considered assumes importance. Regions can be defined as in
normative, symbolic, functional, or synthetic manner. Different forms of
definitions may serve administrative, analytical, statistical, and operational
purposes. Widespread efforts towards labeling and defining regional space
mostly aim for creating geographically identified and goal-oriented spatial
units. The boundaries set for a region, spatial units, or settlements, economic, social, and cultural differences or homogeneities and physical characteristics are specific to the space, unique and relational. Each region is
special and unique product of the historical processes despite the existence
of settlement, spatial and administrative system, common administrative
forms, and spatial units.
In functional terms, the existence of different historical, cultural, and socio-economic regions brings about the problem of identifying and defining
in the implementation of regional development strategies. In many cases,
the administrative boundaries of regional space do not overlap with the
boundaries of special regions (geographical, socio-economic, cultural, and
planning regions). In this respect, the normative delineation and identification of regions seem problematic. Here, the concept of “normative” is
mostly used in the meaning of setting rules (norms) and determining principles for the delineation, classification, and identification of regional units
by the central authority.
The normative classification of regional space is not an effort merely for
the symbolic representation of the state’s territory of sovereignty; it also
serves a number of functional goals. These goals are as follows:
 To gather the analytical and statistical data in a systematic and efficient manner,
 To establish rational units (provincial organization of public services)
for a more efficient institutional organization,
 To ensure the supervision of the state’s territory of sovereignty,
 To establish new planning regions for better performance of the socio-economic development policies and strategies.
The normative units vary according to special conditions of each state
and region: mini states, autonomous regions, administrative regions, urban
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areas, districts, and rural units. At this point, an important question arises: if
the existing administrative division and the form of statistical in a state do
not adequately reflect the identification and delineation of boundaries,
which are well-known and mostly demonstrate historical characteristics and
functional areas (based on the problem, performance, relationality and
qualitative homogeneity), how can a realistic evaluation of the performance
of spatial development strategies be made? A more clear delineation of regions and regional units as different cultural spaces is also considered a
historical and intellectual effort, beside the attainment of the socioeconomic development.
Recent theoretical studies on the classification of regions can be gathered in two groups: the criticism of normative and symbolic definitions of
regional space and re-defining of regions as functional and multidimensional.
The first group of studies (Agnew, 2000; Karlsson - Olsson, 2006; Prodromídis, 2006) question the existence of administrative and symbolic regions in terms of the analysis of regional economic facts and more realistic
measurement of regional economic performance. Some areas of analysis
that come to forefront in these studies are “relational” and “multi-scale”
context in the institutionalization of regional unequal development, the regional aspects of socio-economic and cultural phenomena and the criticism of rigid regional classifications, considering the economic activities
based on functional region and the criticism of administrative boundaries,
and the importance of functional regioning in the measurement of regional
economic performance.
The second group of studies (Brenner, 1997; Casellas - Galley, 1999;
MacLeod, 1998; Paasi, 2001; Perkmann, 2003; Schmitt - Egner, 2002;
Smith, 2007) emphasize the redefinition of region as an intellectual and
operational effort. The basic concepts here are redefinition, reinstitutionalization, and re-identification. The regional space, whose definition incorporates some uncertainties in the cultural and political context, is
identified and classified mostly on spatial basis. The common point of the
theoretical contributions from different channels of regional science and
economic geography is that region as a spatial essence is defined by social
processes and power relations. In this context, the focus subjects of the second group of studies are mostly power structures, the state, regional
boundaries, and the use of boundaries as ideological and symbolic tools.
These are the role of regions in shaping the power structures, the functional, political, ideological and cultural aspects of regional boundaries, the le-
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gitimacy of regional space and regional boundaries, the analytical tools of
the political power for regional space, the regional mosaic and meaningful
and action-oriented spatial definition forms, multi-dimensional overview of
regional space, spatial restructuring of the state and the production of spatial scale, the historical analysis of intra-government political-spatial formations and conceptual reconstruction of regional space with the determining of systematic and structural elements.
In both groups of studies, the issues of the concept of border and the
functional significance of regional boundaries are intensely emphasized.
The boundaries are descriptive and distinguishing when being studied in
technical, cultural (De Vidas, 2008) and political (Perkman, 2003; Smith,
2007) terms. The border is not a tool of classification employed only in
“border areas”; it labels the administrative areas (mostly territories of sovereignty) as well. Even though the role of boundaries is determinant in setting
the territories of sovereignty of countries, in functional terms, their role is
rather “symbolic” and “cultural.” In a case when regions are considered as
the “sources of meaning and identification”, boundaries might become insignificant (Paasi, 2001: 16-17, 22). In this respect, regions are an expression of political claims and socio-cultural differences, rather than “a fixed
set of physical essences in a trans-historical existence” (Agnew, 2000: 106).
The differentiation, signification and labeling of regional space through
boundaries are actions that are part of a cluster of functional or symbolic
goals of power structures (particularly the state) apparent usually in a normative framework. Here, the concept of normative refers to an administrative authority’s (mostly the centralist power) to shape and label national and
local boundaries in line with political, administrative, or public administration requirements. On the very opposite of the tradition of normative regional classification are functional regions aiming to reproduce spatial units
for special “functional” goals (mostly planning). A third way witnessed in the
case of China is redefining, administrative regions for functional purposes
(Pank - Kwong, 2002: 216). These forms of delineation towards the labeling of regional space have become a subject to a different triple definition
within the literature of economic geography and regional science. Accordingly, Table 1 provides three main forms of regions: uniform, functional,
and administrative regions. This form of classification is based on three
basic criteria: geographical, economic, and socio-cultural homogeneity in
terms of regional characteristics (uniform regions), the existence of intraregional and inter-regional functional and interactional relationships (functional regions) and administrative division (normative regions). As can be
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been in the same table, in functional terms, region is an expression of geographical or socio-cultural generalizations. A normative approach takes as
basis a regional space, which is distant from this generalization in certain
cases, whose boundaries are mostly set by administrative criteria.
The current dominant normative approach towards defining regional
space for practical goals is evident in the European regional space too. The
EU Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) constitutes the
main normative framework in the implementation of spatial development
strategies in the European regional space. The basic principles of this statistical-geographical classification system are the institutional division, generalization of regional units and a three-level hierarchical classification, as
determined by Eurostat (The European Union Statistical Office)
(ec.europa.eu, 2007). In the European socio-economic and political field,
the establishment of basic administrative units that meet the criterion of
certain population is important for defining the analytical goals in the regional development strategies. Determining these goals at a common regional level can be considered a prerequisite of systemizing the spatial development priorities and determining a common development agenda at
European level. The establishment of basic regional units means that the
generalization principle of NUTS (overlooking special regional characteristics in geographical terms), has been adopted by the EU member countries
(ec.europa.eu, 2007). The basic mentality behind the EU Nomenclature of
Territorial Units for Statistics is to set a statistical basis for analytical regions
for the theoretical and practical purposes (research, strategy development,
the systemization of socio-economic and spatial data collection, the implementation of spatial planning and development strategies in different areas) via the adoption of common normative criterion). On the other hand,
in most recent studies done on the European regional and economic geography (Casellas - Galley, 1999; Heidenreich, 1998; Paasi, 2001; Prodromídis, 2006; Schmitt - Egner, 2002), the geographical representation
ability of this common statistical framework in terms of regional problems
and special functional areas is criticized and questioned. The said studies
focus on how particularly the regions, where special socio-economic problems are intensified or clustered, development corridors, transport routes,
some special economic regions determined by economic activities and
special administrative criteria have been overlooked within the same system, or have been rendered invisible within the generalized regional characteristics (Prodromídis, 2006: 161-162).
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In conclusion, the normative, symbolic, or administrative consideration
of regional space and strict spatial categories developed from these considerations are intensely questioned and criticized in recent theoretical studies. The re-definition of analytical basis of regions has become a popular
field of study in today’s literature on economic geography and regional science. At this point, the study aims to put forth different aspects of the state
ideology for economic development, public administration, the spatial
planning system and the regional development strategy in the case of Turkey, and thus to make contribution in a different dimension.
THE DEVELOPMENT SPACE AND NORMATIVE PLANNING IN TURKEY
In Turkey, the roots of traditional delineation of regional area are closely
related with sub-national planning practices. In Turkey, the history of regional planning is, in a sense, the history of periodical trends of the state’s
development ideology and the structural problems of public administration.
In this process, the coordination of the planning of socio-economic development and development efforts were endeavored to be achieved via the
power tools of the nation-state ideology. The economic policy orientation
of this state ideology was determined based on the principle of statism, and
shaped the “development space”. In 1930s Turkey, the statist development
model was adopted and put into practice as a third way (or the middle way)
between the market economy model and the central planning or the interventionist economic model that found life in the Soviet Russia’s development efforts. This model provided an ideological framework in the preparation of initial development strategies and plans. In the 1930s world, when
regional geographical studies had almost a century-old history, the geographical scope in the initial development strategies was national and administrative in nature, as the concept of region and regional area brought
about dubious connotations for the unitary state of young Turkish Republic. Although those doubts continued during the “planned period in the
1960s, it is seen that the first regional and metropolitan plans were prepared in that period, and the “regional space” is rather defined as the “development space”. Because this labeling and definition were considered as
one of the major goals of the nation-state (which also clarified the domain
of sovereignty) the planning and achievement of economic planning (together with the tools of economic and spatial development), they were very
meaningful within the development ideology of the state.
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Table 1. The Classification and Identification of Regional Space
Source: Classifications and concepts have been compiled from the studies of Casellas ande Galley
(1999).
De Vidas (2008). MacLeod (1998). Paasi (2001). Pank-Kwong (2002). Prodromídis (2006). SchmittEgner (2002) and Smith (2007).
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In Turkey, a “centralist” and “authoritarian” bureaucracy inherited from
the Ottoman Oligarchy constitutes the foundation of the public administration system. The underlying institutional weakness of this system is the
“strict hierarchical structure” that adversely affects the efficiency and functionality of the provision of public services at every organizational level (Saran, 2004: 128-137). The political nature of the public administration system was shaped in accordance with the principles contained in the 1961
and 1982 Constitutions, and was evolved to a structure that incorporated
both the centralist and decentralist characteristics. Turkey’s administrative
organization is typical examples of the French Administration Model called
“comprehensive governorship system”. Under this model, provinces are the
most important sub-national administrative units, and governors of provinces have an administrative power over local administrative units and provincial units of central administration (Nalbant, 1997: 186-187). On the
other hand, in Turkey, the governorship system is not applied in the form of
an entirely centralized administration system. Under this administration
model, which is based on the provincial organization, provinces constitute
regions and sub-regions as the basic statistical units. In 2002, provinces
were “re-labeled” as “Level 3” units in the framework of alignment with the
European Union’s ‘Classification of Regional Units’ (Dulupçu, 2005: 105).
In Turkey, the analysis of development policies at sub-national level requires the consideration of the historical characteristics of public administration and the provincial organization. This administrative organization,
which also constitutes the foundation of today’s structure of provincial administration, was inherited from the provincial organization of the Ottoman
Empire. The changes in the trade routes and thus, in the spatial organization of agricultural production in the 19th century brought about a number
of arrangements towards the renewal of the provincial organization of the
Ottoman Empire. Nevertheless, legal arrangements like “Provincial Regulations” and “1877 Municipal Law” that remained in force until 1930 led to
an authoritarian and centralist organization and increased “paperwork”, rather than “supporting local initiatives in the provincial areas” and “establishing local democracy” (Ortaylı, 2008: 427-440). While the public administration system and organization taken over by the Republican Turkey largely
transformed and modernized this structure, the institutional deficiencies before local entrepreneurship, participation, and decision-making flexibility
continued to a certain extent. On the other hand, realizing socio-economic
development in provinces, which are one of the major components of the
sub-national scale, has become, from the very beginning, one of the princi-
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ples of Modern Turkish Republic. Local administrators and industrial organizations voiced their demand for development at provincial scale and local
comparative superiorities as early as in the period before the First Industrial
Plan (Tekeli - İlkin, 2004: 219-221).
In the Republican Turkey, the tradition of normative planning towards
economic development has been shaped around the goals of eliminating
the developmental differences between regions and expanding the state’s
economic and political domain of sovereignty. These goals were highly significant within the “the project of restructuring nation-state” that rose above
the building blocks of enlightenment, positivism and rationalism (Kazgan,
2002: 41; Tekeli - İlkin, 2000: 554). In each period, the efforts towards development within the nation-state project differed in terms of content and
the tools used depending on the nature of political power, choice of macroeconomic policy and the characteristics of the administrative system in
general. It is difficult to say that in this process, national (five-year development plans) and sub-national (regional and provincial development plans)
planning efforts for solving the problems of rapid urbanization caused by
rural-to-urban migration starting from the 1950s, and eliminating the regional developmental differences succeeded. The uncontrollable pace and
intensity of urbanization and urban sprawl, non-efficient implementation
tools of spatial planning, structural deficiencies related to the public administration system (centralist and authoritarian bureaucracy, strict hierarchical
structuring, the ambiguity of the organization of provincial administration in
terms of physical planning and uncertainty on the spatial setting of provincial area), partisanship and misconduct of political power, political events
that caused stagnations and interim periods within Turkey’s socioeconomic development trajectory and the vicious cycle of underdevelopment in relation with all these factors are major reasons behind this failure
(Özbek, 2008: 76-77).
In Turkey, the efforts of the macroeconomic policy for socio-economic
planning at metropolitan and sub-regional levels during the Planned Period
in the 1960s became influential in the planning of development at subnational level and the legitimacy of the regional level in terms of development goals. Before the Planned Period, the homogenization of development at national level through the establishment of strategic industrial and
commercial organizations became the main development policy of young
Turkish state. The spatial-economic planning efforts remained at subregional level throughout the period from the entry of the Southeastern An-
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147
atolian Project (GAP) on the agenda at the end of the 1970s to its enforcement in the 1980s.
In the 2000s, in Turkey, two major task fields were identified for developing a regional development policy in line with EU integration process: “an
active and participatory regional development policy supported by adequate
financing and institutional structure to be implemented from bottom to
top” and the establishment of “the necessary infrastructure to be created at
the central and local levels in order to prepare for the structural funds that
could be used after membership” (The Ninth Development Plan, 2006: 46).
The implementation activity of the said development policy requires the
formation of a different planning stage for the sake of the consistency of
spatial and socio-economic development targets. In this framework, central
authorities responsible for spatial planning in Turkey intensify their institutional efforts on the creation of new implementation tools. Provincial development planning that entered Turkey’s agenda in the beginning of the
2000s is considered a major implementation tool of the new regional development policy, and is projected to constitute an intermediate level between upper-scale socio-economic development plans and sub-scale spatial plans. The efforts towards establishing coordination between development policies at different spatial scales point to the need for a new spatial
planning stage and a new and descriptive framework for spatial units subject to regional planning. The reasons for this need can be found in the
analysis of the relationships between different scales of the spatial planning
system and implementation scales in Turkey. In Turkey, the different types
of plan serve as independent tools of implementation rather than complementing one another in terms of their area of implementation, scale, and
administrative boundaries. Within this structure, the complexity of the legislation on spatial planning, the lack of powerful implementation tools to be
used in the types of plans at every scale, and the absence of a clear powersharing between local and central administration units in terms of the preparation and implementation of plans can be listed as major problem areas.
In the same period, in Turkey, the content and priorities of the regional
development policy was associated with the need for a new spatial planning
system, and new regulations on the form of geographical and statistical
representation of regional space were introduced at the same time. The institutional studies or establishing a systematic and comparable database for
more efficient analyses of regional data produced the result of adopting
and adapting the European Union’s system of Classification of Statistical
Regional Units. The goals aimed to be achieved by this three-level classifi-
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cation system are setting a common framework for regional development
policies, collecting regional statistics and establishing a comparable statistical database harmonized with the EU regional statistics (The Ninth Development Plan, 2006). Thus, the adoption of the NUTS system will provide
facilities for setting official boundaries of regional and sub-regional plans,
which are somewhat considered a problematic area, and will constitute a
natural foundation for a more efficient planning stage.
These “re-labeled” provincial regions constitute the spatial scope of regional development projects in implementation at present in Turkey. Here, relabeling is very obvious in determining the boundaries of regions and subregions consisting of the boundaries of different provinces as the boundaries of regional plans. As illustrated in Map 1, regions and sub-regions,
which are subject to the Classification of Regional Units constitute the geographical scope of four regional development project that have been
launched in 1980, 1990 and the 2000s: The Southeastern Anatolian Project (2 regions, 2 sub-regions and 16 provinces), Eastern Black Sea Regional Development Plan (1 region, 1 sub-region and 7 provinces), Southeastern Anatolian Project (1 region, 3 sub-region and 9 provinces),
Yeşilırmak (Turkey’s fifth longest river) Havza Development Project (1 subregion and 4 provinces) and Zonguldak-Bartın-Karabük Regional Development Project (1 sub-region and 3 provinces). Although all of these projects
have well-defined administrative boundaries, the strategic framework of socio-economic and spatial development headings of each project (migration, human capital, sectoral development, agricultural structure, regional
transport, built and natural environment) is of inter-regional, transprovincial, and transnational normative boundaries. In other words, in Turkey, central administration’s efforts for eliminating regional inequalities revolve around re-structuring synthetic regions rather than creating analytical
regions. One of the major reasons is the need for comprehensive and timeconsuming economic, geographical, sociological, and statistical studies for
setting new analytical regions. This is one of the reasons for why regional
space must be re-defined in Turkey.
Normative Regions and the Provincial Development Planning in Turkey
Map 1. Regional Development Plans Implemented in Turkey
Source: Produced from the die.gov.tr. 2004 and dpt.gov.tr. 2010 data
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Development Planning
In Turkey, one of the major rationales for provincial development planning is the reflections of inter-regional developmental differences in provinces. As can be seen Map 2 and Table 2, there is not an apparent relationship among the provincial indicators of socio-economic development. On
the other hand, the inter-provincial differences in the provincial distribution
of Gross National Product (GNP) per capita shown in Map 2 and two major
development indicators (manufacturing value added per capita and the
share in GNP) are other indicators of the known developmental differences
between the east and west of Turkey. Same indicators point to the existence of the East Marmara development at provincial level too. In Turkey, it
has been aimed to create a statistically verifiable and an administratively
manageable development space, which is suitable for data collection
through reducing the spatial composition of development that manifests itself in the form of corridors, development poles, regional centers, and
physical and economic boundaries to the provincial boundaries. Before
critically touching on this subject in the following section, it will be helpful
to scrutinize recent efforts towards provincial development within the current design of development and the institutional base of this planning level.
In Turkey, while the regional level, beyond the spatial scale, often brings
about some administrative doubts, the provincial organization is based on
an entirely legal and legitimate foundation (provincial organization of central administration). Province is an administrative area, and historical or
non-historical administrative criteria play major role in the determination of
its boundaries. The achievement of development goals in the administrative
areas might be part of short or long-term vision of that administrative actor.
While the Offices of Governor give weight to long-term strategies, municipalities can be considered as the actors of a development strategy mostly
restricted to the times of election. In Turkey, the planning studies on shortterm strategies include activities such as the creation of new fields of urban
public services, construction of business centers, asphalting of roads and
renewal of pavements. The activities such as the re-formulation of development goals borrowed from national development plans for provinces and
thus, the attainment of socio-economic development at local level, and the
supervision of public and private institutions, enterprises and organizations
that affect education, health, security and general welfare of the society and
the quality of life are regarded as the tasks fields of making plans for longterm strategies. In this framework, the case of Turkey differs from the United States, India, China and Latin America countries, where sub-national
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151
development space is of federal nature. In Turkey, unlike states, the provincial or special provincial administration area refers to an administrative area, where the official functions of central administration for the public sector activities are defined by socio-economic development issues.
Map 2. The Distribution of Gross National Product Per Capita at Current
Prices in Level 3 Regions, 2001
Source: produced from die.gov.tr, 2004 and 2006 data
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Table 2. The Development Performance Data for Selected Provinces
(Level 3) in Turkey, 2000
1
Most developed provinces in Level 1
Rank in socio-economic development according to Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics covering 81 provinces prepared by State Planning Organization in 2003.
1
12 regions at Level 1 have been listed from the most developedness to the least developedness
1
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153
In Turkey, Law No. 5302 on Special Provincial Administration (2005)
constitutes the main legal framework for spatial planning at provincial level.
On the other hand, in Law No. 3194 on Public Works (1985), the provincial
level is not included in the planning stages. It can be said that the specific
political climate and development ideology of 1980s Turkey, during which
Law on Public Works was prepared, was influential in the definition of this
hierarchical structure.
According to Law No. 5302 on Special Provincial Administration (2005),
special provincial administrations governed by governors are responsible
for exercising certain duties and powers related to economic development
and spatial planning within the provincial and outside the municipal boundaries. These are the attainment of sectoral development, preparation of
1:25 000, 1:50 000, 1:100 000 and 1:200 000-scale provincial environmental plans, protection of environment, and social services and aids in
line with the social state understanding and public works. In addition to
these duties, special provincial administrations are responsible for the planning, establishment and management of infrastructure facilities, and all socio-economic development issues in rural and semi-rural areas outside the
municipal boundaries (Law No. 5302 on Special Provincial Administration,
2005).The realms of duty and responsibility concerning development at
provincial level are clearly defined in Law on Special Provincial Administration. On the other hand, the Law highlights “strategic planning and investment and work programs” rather than the preparation of provincial development plans. Likewise, the realms of duty and responsibility related to the
attainment of “development” and “sustainable development” within the
municipal and neighboring boundaries are defined in the “Duties, Powers,
and Responsibilities of Metropolitan Municipalities” section of Law No.
5216 on Metropolitan Municipalities (2004). Thus, it can be said that the
place of provincial development planning in spatial planning stage is ambiguous in the legal framework. On the other hand, the rationales for planning at provincial level take place within a functional framework like mitigating the developmental differences between provinces.
Despite the vagueness of its place within the existing legal framework, in
early 2000s, a new level of regional planning (sub-regional planning)
emerged under the heading of provincial development planning in Turkey.
In the subsequent period, legal regulations on the spatial planning system
and redefinition of planning stages increased the importance of subregional planning. Sub-regional planning is a sub-stage of regional planning, which is closer to the physical structure, and whose absence in the
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Turkish planning system is intensely felt. In the same period, the provincial
development planning studies, where administrative boundaries are taken
as basis, and which might actually be strategically significant within a subregion, determined the spatial planning agenda of many provinces. The
provincial development reports prepared by the Undersecretariat of State
Planning Organization (SPO) in that period (Erşahin and Şerifeken, 2002;
Özaslan et al., 2001; Özaslan and Şeftalici, 2002) in a sense, served as an
analytical rationale for provincial development planning. The relevant reports state that analyses on spatial and socio-economic structure are conducted in a number of provinces such as Kayseri, Bolu, and Düzce, sectoral
potentials are identified, and suggestions are brought for the solution of the
problematic areas in the mentioned provinces. While in these provincial development methods, provincial boundaries are taken as basis in identifying
problems and determining the levels of analysis, in some cases like Kayseri
Provincial Development Report (Özaslan and Şeftalici, 2002), the level of
analysis covers both the regional and sub-regional scales. The provincial
development reports pioneered the preparation of the provincial development plans in the following period. The provinces with high potential of
economic development and which are nodal points of regional transport
routes, such as Bolu, Düzce, Malatya, and Sivas, are the first examples of
development plans gathered under the name of the provincial development
plan or strategic provincial development plan. Another common characteristic of the provinces is that they failed to adequately make use of their potential of development offered by their built and natural environment. As in
Bolu Provincial Development Plan, central and local administrative units
took part jointly by universities in the preparation of these plans.
One of the major rationales for the sub-regional planning that has found
itself a field of practice in recent provincial development plans in Turkey is
the need for new spatial levels of development planning in conjunction with
the need for a new planning stage emphasized in the Ninth Development
Plan (2007-2013). In the Ninth Development Plan, the importance of institutional restructuring for the establishment of an integrated development
policy is underlined at regional and sub-regional scales. “The preparation of
regional development strategy” assumes importance for achieving the
goals of compromising development efforts at a common spatial level, and
establishing a definition framework for lower level spatial plans (The Ninth
Development Plan, 2006: 91). The re-definition of the theoretical framework of planning brings about a new planning stage to the agenda too.
With the new planning stage, it is aimed to produce new implementation
tools at sub-regional scale (Level 2) in order to organize the efforts of local
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initiatives for the achievement of pre-set goals of economic development
and to establish consistency among different scales of spatial plans. In a
sense, it is aimed to achieve goals such as establishing integrity and consistency between the implementation tools in Level 2 units and the existing
implementation tools at regional, provincial and urban levels, and to continue development efforts outside the current framework of implementation
tools and with the support of local dynamics by means of new actors like
“Development Agencies”. In this respect, the Provincial development space
defined as Level 3 is seen as a basic spatial level in ensuring consistency
among Turkey’s new regional development tools in terms of goals and objectives, and complementarity in terms of implementation scale.
Another policy tool that determines the legitimacy framework of provincial development planning is “spatial prioritizing”, which is one of the major
policy tools of the Ninth Development Plan. The Ninth Development Plan
draws attention to the “spatial prioritizing” policy in rational regional utilization and distribution of public investments: “Spatial prioritizing and focusing will be ensured in public investment and service provision in order to increase job opportunities and quality of life in the regions and to increase
both inter-regional and intra-regional interactions through improving accessibility” (The Ninth Development Plan, 2006: 91-92). Here, the “spatial
prioritizing” refers to a major policy tool in favor of underdeveloped regions
and provinces for the creation of new regional centers and then hierarchy
of restructuring of regional economic relationships. A similar approach is
observed in the 2006 Ninth Development Plan Provincial Development
Strategies and Policies Ad-Hoc Committee Report of the Regional Development Ad-Hoc Committee: “Considering the changes occurred in the
world economy and the understanding of development along with the developments in Turkey’s EU accession process and the priorities of our understanding of planning, the need for an understanding of development
that begins with at provincial scale, which is the foundation of the administrative division and the national administrative system in our country and
developing an appropriate planning system arises spontaneously” (R.T.
Prime Ministry State Planning Organization, the Regional Development AdHoc Committee, 2006: 2). The same report also draws attention to the
need for a local planning are at district level, and underlines the need for a
new “development and planning system” based on this planning area (R.T.
Prime Ministry State Planning Organization, the Regional Development AdHoc Committee, 2006: 2).
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In conclusion, the consideration of the provincial level as the main base
for development efforts, besides being a new regional policy orientation, will
also determine the direction of the debates over the functional-normative
regions distinction, whose theoretical foundation has recently begun to be
formed. The principles, which “provincial development” policy, whose importance and necessity are emphasized in the most recent development report, is founded on, are basically the principles that might be meaningful
within the concept of functional region. Here, despite the existence of the
normative framework, which the statistical geographical units are based on,
the geographical composition of socio-economic development or underdevelopment and the existence of the areas of special nature that are in need
of a different classification and labeling such as natural boundaries, areas
prone to disaster and transportation and development corridors point to
the need for a different regional classification system. Likewise, the definition of local planning space shaped by its main principles in the most recent development plan requires the analysis of different scales and contents
other than the provincial level. The provincial level often falls short in forming common planning agenda, where the spatial problems of different districts of municipality areas meet. Recently, provincial development planning
has come onto the agenda as a popular planning and development initiative in Turkey. The offering of the spatial labeling and classification system
for the achievement of analytical goals brought by the Nomenclature of
Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) as a ready-made base has played major role in its popularity. This form of geographical and statistical representation should be thoroughly examined in terms of the issues of delineation
of the regional space for functional goals and the implementation area and
efficiency of regional development strategies. The next section addresses
these issues within a critical framework.
Rethinking Normative Regional Development Strategies
Administrative boundaries may cause some problems in determining the
implementation area of regional development strategies and implementation activity. Boundaries primarily serve different functional goals in regional
development. The definition of socio-economic problem areas and the establishment of new sub-regions according to physical, social, and economic indicators are among these goals. In many cases, administrative or symbolic boundaries remain inadequate in defining functional areas. The clustering of development, underdevelopment, or transportation linkages in the
space in the form of corridors specific distribution patterns, the areas of biodiversity based on flora and fauna components, climate regions, and his-
Normative Regions and the Provincial Development Planning in Turkey
157
torical and cultural areas are only some of these functional areas. Although
in some cases, the boundaries of administrative division conflict with these
functional boundaries, the basic mentality behind the establishment of administrative areas comprise rational administrative units in terms of the requirements of public administration and the state bureaucracy. Another issue is the spatial stages system and the differences in the administrative division of the state’s domain of sovereignty. As administrative boundaries
are mostly based on symbolic criteria, they serve as the means of a strict
hierarchical division aiming for classifying and labeling regional space. This
symbolic and strict division might be an appropriate spatial base for regional strategies constructed on a specific set of a problems and goals. The
third important point is that administrative boundaries can be used to define statistical units at different spatial levels. Statistical units and sub-units
constitute the basis for defining (identification) social and economic structures of urban and rural settlements. Nevertheless, the implementation areas of spatial strategies are not just the simple collage of these statistical
units. The boundaries of functional areas that manifest themselves in the
form of corridors, clusters, and distribution in regional space and those of
historical areas might have been shaped as a result of special political, geographical, and historical conditions. Lastly, as the administrative definition
of spatial units conveys the bureaucratic and structural priorities of the public administration system to the initiative realm of the planning actors of
central and of local administration, it might adversely affect the performance of regional development strategies.
In general, the requirements of the public administration system and
uncertainties in the central administration ideology and the functional delineation of regional area have played major role the formation of tradition
of normative regional classification and labeling in Turkey. The provincial
administration and organization constitute the basis in respect of the requirements of public administration. The realm of authority and functions
of this administration of this administration are very close to the functions
of plan regional authorities. The powers of the Office of Governor and special provincial administration are very clear within the goals within the provincial boundaries. On the other hand, Level 1 and Level 2 regions consisting of the composition of special provincial administrations seem problematic in forming functional areas, where regional development strategies can
be considered integrally. The compositional sub-regional and regional
boundaries based on province aim for creating statistical units. In this respect, they become the basic tools of a division serving descriptive and
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administrative goals, rather than identifying the action- and strategyoriented areas.
In general, central administration’s outlook of regional area and its approach to development space require the delineation of regions and subregions on administrative basis. In the past, under the unitary state understanding, the concept of region was vague and had dubious connotations.
On the other hand, the concept of plan region and the idea of forming regions for functional purposes that gained importance in the 1960s eliminated these doubt to some extent. Nevertheless, the functional region approach took its privileged place within the development strategies not fast
enough, and the macroeconomic development approach and the prevailing state ideology of the ruling government of every period became decisive
in this change. In this respect, the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics, which was put into force in 2002, has become a symbolic form of
the expression of development space of nation-state. Although the establishment of provincial-centered, modular regions, in respect of the harmonization of public administration with the provincial organization, is regarded as a consistent approach in terms of public service provision, collection
of statistical data and harmonization with the EU regional labeling system, it
incorporates all the problems of the administrative-functional dilemma. Today, some of the criticisms towards the excessive normative nature of the
European Union regions become meaningful in the case of Turkey too.
This point takes us to the fact that in Turkey, the delineation of functional region is not founded on an adequately strong strategic and legal
framework. Regional levels, which were expressed in different concepts in
the period from the climate-based studies of the 1930s to the plan region
studies of the 1960s, pointed to the homogeneous region approach. On
the other hand, these homogeneous regions were created by symbolic
borders, and were mostly provincial-centered areas lack of special planning
authorities. It is seen that the delineation of functional or polarized region
entered Turkey’s planning agenda from the mid-1970s, and that throughout the 1980s, the concepts of functional boundaries of metropolitan areas
and domain became common discussion topics.
In Turkey, provinces and provincial boundaries have begun to play major role in recent physical planning studies as the main descriptives of administrative division and unit. One of the major problems of recent provincial development plans is the lack of a supra-provincial analysis related to
socio-economic problems. Provincial development plans are taken as basis
in setting the socio-economic development goals and preparing the devel-
Normative Regions and the Provincial Development Planning in Turkey
159
opment scenarios as the basic tool of defining and drawing administrative
boundaries (Özbek, 2008: 82). In these strategic plans based on provincial
boundaries, the issue of ensuring goal and objective consistency between
national and sub-national regional development policies is considered within official and symbolic boundaries of NUTS as well.
Recent institutional efforts towards forming provincial development
space mentioned in the previous section have made the provincial area as a
new planning level for new implementation tools of planning. The formation of this new planning level is in a sense closely related with the organizational structure of spatial planning. Nation is a scale, whose organizational base and implementation tools are very precise, for development efforts. Likewise, region, despite the existence of problems in the success of
its implementation tools, can be considered as a scale, through which
mostly central administrative units function. On the other hand, in the case
of Turkey, province, as sub-national or sub-regional space, is not a scale
with precise planning tools or institutional base in terms of spatial planning
efforts. Physical planning for province has legal foundation. Yet, there is not
a clear hierarchical framework for power and duty sharing among spatial
planning institutions within the provincial boundaries.
The emphasis on provincial boundaries as the main determinant of regional problem areas in recent regional and sub-regional planning practices
in Turkey is an outcome of the consideration of planning-related strategies
and the institutional structure of planning in a structure that overlaps with
the public administration system. In such a structure, how variable and
mostly ambiguous boundaries of structural socio-economic problems can
be identified, or the necessity for such identifying and labeling should be investigated. A normative division provides administrative and supervisory advantages for practical development goals and short-term strategies, but on
the other hand, largely restricts data collection base of structural sociospatial problems and long-term strategies for solving these problems, and
gives a statistical rigidity.
The solution of the above-stated problems arising from the above-stated
functional-normative region distinction can be considered in two categories. First, the implementation boundaries current and future regional strategies in Turkey must be defined on a clear functional basis. Development
corridors, historical regions according to physical and geographical and intra-regional interaction, homogeneous regions and sub-regions according
to socio-economic indicators, special physical (disaster-prone regions, nature protection areas, etc.) and socio-economic (underdeveloped regions,
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migration areas, etc.) on functional basis. At this point, the current public
administration system constitutes a major problem in the establishment of
functional regions. This is, in a sense, implementation regional strategies.
In the functional regions that do not overlap with administrative borders
(provincial and municipal), how will development strategies will be managed, supervised, and financially supported? In Turkey, in recent subregional planning for nature protection areas in river and lake basins (defined entirely according to functional goals), executive planning actors encounter important implementation and supervision problems. The main
problem here is the failure in establishing adequate coordination between
different municipalities that comprise planning region in an eclectic manner. Law No. 5355 on Unions of Local Administrations (2005) clearly lays
down the fields of duties responsibilities of public legal entities in infrastructure services and environmental protection have very clear. On the other
hand, in the projects for sub-regional and regional development that interest more than one municipality, the implementation activities of municipal
unions are not satisfactory. The multi-actorship in these eclectic areas often
brings about administrative and supervisory problems. Therefore, formation
of new planning regions abased on functional boundaries and assignment
of planning authorities related to these regions stand out as an important
necessity. In connection with this necessity, the restructuring of spatial and
public administration system is another important field of task, and this
takes us to the second problematic area, i.e., the problem of statistical and
administrative unit.
In Turkey, the spatial classification of statistical units is based on the
normative criteria of NUTS. This classification sets the regional boundaries
in a simple and rigid manner in the delineation of regional space for practical purposes. Turkish Statistical Institute (Turkstat) labels the statistical levels of Level1 (sub-regional groups) and Level 2 (provincial groups) as “region”. The rationales of this labeling are rather administrative and statistical: establishing basic statistical units for census purposes, strengthening
and emphasizing the administrative position of provinces as within the unitary state structure, supra-provincial regional and sub-regional levels bring
along certain political doubts and defining the duties and responsibilities of
each executive actor (central and local administrative units) based on the
location, and ensuring more efficient implementation and supervision of
spatial development strategies. In the other hand, such administrative or
normative consideration of regional space overlooks the value and importance of functional regions that are able to represent the socioeconomic phenomenon in the relevant space. Here, the basic point this
Normative Regions and the Provincial Development Planning in Turkey
161
study suggests is that functional regions aiming at special problem areas
can be defined without neglecting statistical, analytical, and administrative
concerns. In Turkey, one of the major analytical problems in the short history of regional planning and regional analysis is the collection, production,
and standardization of regional data. Here, making the basic statistical unit
smaller may be a solution. In puzzles, using smaller pieces produce more
realistic and high-resolution pictures. Likewise, smaller statistical units may
serve the establishment of more realistic analytical regions and sub-regions.
In the short term, the districts in Turkey can be labeled similar to LAU1
AND LAU2 (local area units) sub-provincial statistical units established in
some European Union countries. Nevertheless, making the basic statistical
unit smaller does not change the fact that the general picture of regional
space will likewise be created simply by collage of small statistical units.
Here, it should be underlined that the “planning region” and “planning region authority” policy tools generated by the regional development experiences of the 1930s and 1940s can still be used in Turkey. Plan region authorities in functional regions that will newly be established particularly in
development corridors and areas prone to natural disasters may serve ensuring a more efficient coordination between local and central planning actors. Regional development agencies that have recently begun to operate in
Turkey were founded to serve this purpose. However, the geographical areas of operation of development agencies remain within the normative
framework stipulated by NUTS. In Turkey, establishing new plan region authorities similar to the case of Southeastern Anatolia Project Regional Development Administration should be regarded as an entirely problem-free
field of duty. The concept of plan region authority seems to be a disputable
area in the issues of statistical unit, public administration, unitary state, and
institutional legitimacy.
CONCLUSION
Different methods of defining and identifying regional space affect the
achievement of regional development strategies. In this article, this assumption has been considered based on the institutional framework for
functional and normative regions. Recent examples of provincial development planning in Turkey indicate that administrative boundaries pose some
problems for the implementation area of regional development strategies.
Here, there are three problem areas: spatial representation, statistical units
and the implementation problem. These problems are the components of
the same field of analysis. In Turkey, negligence of different layers (socioeconomic, cultural, historical and physical) of regional reality die to admin-
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istrative and statistical reasons and consideration of the existing regional
development problems in an eclectic manner causes the construction of
the content (goals, objectives, implementation tools and scenarios) of development strategies detached from space. This adversely affects the performance of regional development strategies in practice. In the case of
Turkey, why the “provincial” level cannot be labeled as “regional” level in
strategic terms can be explained by the lack of a comprehensive institutional structure that will integrate spatial development strategies and development agendas of neighboring provinces. This is not merely the management problem of spatial planning, but also one of the structural problems of the Turkish public administration system.
This article suggests two solutions for the above-stated problem areas.
Firstly, a likely public administration reform, which is frequently mentioned,
may produce a new spatial planning construction by determining the distribution of spatial duties and responsibilities among different administrative
levels and spatial units. By this way, coordination can be en ensured in the
context of joint socio-economic development efforts among different subregions, metropolitan areas, city centers and districts. The municipal unions may be possible actors of these coordination efforts. Secondly, in Turkey, re-arrangement of statistical-geographical representation system
through sub-scale statistical units (districts) may be helpful in increasing
the representation and identification strength of administrative boundaries
in special problem areas (particularly in areas prone to natural disasters).
That is to say, this increases the resolution of “regional puzzle”. With the
help of smaller-scale statistical units, identifying regional boundaries inclusive of regional facts and problems will improve the efficiency of current
public administration system, and will not prevent the establishment of statistical regional units.
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