The role of urban governance in smart cities development in Vietnam

This paper examines the role of urban governance in shaping smart city development in Vietnam, with a focus on Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang. Drawing on three months of fieldwork (February-April 2025), the study combines 48 semi-structured interviews with government officials, private sector representatives, academics, and civil society actors, alongside a complementary survey of 312 respondents across the three cities. Policy and planning documents were reviewed and analyzed to contextualize the empirical findings. The mixed-methods design enables the study to capture both the institutional and political dynamics of smart city governance—that is, the formal rules, organizational structures, and coordination mechanisms shaping policy implementation, as well as the power relations, leadership practices, and decision-making processes that influence how different actors engage in governance- and the perceptions of diverse stakeholders. Results highlight three interrelated dimensions: (1) the centrality of state-led coordination and political leadership within Vietnam’s single-party system; (2) the differentiated stakes, interests, and value creation of government, firms, civil society, and citizens; and (3) contrasting governance models across cities, ranging from siloed (Hanoi) to hybrid (Ho Chi Minh City) to integrated (Da Nang). These findings extend governance and stakeholder theories by demonstrating how smart city initiatives in socialist-oriented contexts are shaped by hierarchical coordination, constrained participation, and state-led collaborative governance. The paper argues that Vietnam’s experience points to the emergence of a hybrid model of smart urbanism-distinct from market-led or citizen-led approaches in Western contexts-that foregrounds state leadership while still enabling negotiated stakeholder engagement.