Reconfiguring Urban Governance: Paradiplomacy and Triple Helix Dynamics in ASEAN–Republic of Korea Smart City Collaboration

Abstract

Established in 2018, the ASEAN Smart Cities Network (ASCN) places cities at the forefront of regional cooperation for smart and sustainable urban development. While smart city initiatives in Southeast Asia are often framed as technocratic responses to rapid urbanisation and environmental pressures, their implications for governance restructuring and regional power dynamics remain insufficiently examined. This article analyses how the ASEAN–Republic of Korea (ROK) smart city partnership reshapes subnational governance and regional cooperation, and investigates why its outcomes vary across participating cities. Drawing on paradiplomacy as an analytical lens and the Triple Helix model as a governance framework, the study shows that ASCN expands the external engagement of city governments while institutionalising the participation of private firms and knowledge institutions in urban development processes. However, implementation remains highly uneven. The findings indicate that disparities in institutional and political capacity among ASEAN cities constitute the principal constraint shaping cooperation outcomes. Although technological and financial limitations are relevant, a more decisive factor is the limited capacity of many municipal governments to coordinate stakeholders, develop bankable projects, and sustain political commitment over time. This institutional unevenness both enables and conditions external engagement. It creates opportunities for middle-power actors such as the Republic of Korea to deepen their regional role—particularly through initiatives like the New Southern Policy—while simultaneously reinforcing asymmetric dependencies and fragmented governance patterns across the region. Positioned as a governance and regional political economy study rather than a technical assessment of smart city performance, this article conceptualises ASEAN–ROK smart city cooperation as a contested arena in which authority, capacity, and external influence are continuously renegotiated. In doing so, it contributes to scholarship on subnational diplomacy, middle-power engagement, and the political foundations of digital urban transformation in Southeast Asia.