 Independent regulatory agencies represent a historically unfamiliar mode of governance in Turkey whose tradition of public administration favors a strong and centralized state with a preference of market intervention.The waves of liberalization and privatization measures taken following the 1980 coup d'etat, the conditionalities imposed by the European Union and the economic crises during the 1990s and early 2000s provided the necessary momentum for their establishment.Despite a certain degree of controversy in the Turkish legal doctrine most scholars have accepted that the concept has been well-established within Turkish legal and administrative system even though there is no legal framework governing these bodies nor a sufficient body of case-law by the supreme judicial courts that clarify their administrative nature.