ARI Working Paper Series

This paper analyzes the recent developments in public space policy in the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. It has three aims. The first is to look at a potentially progressive urban policy in contrast to most work on ‘policies in motion’ that has primarily been concerned with neoliberal policies. The second is to put the process of public space policymaking in Hanoi in historical and cultural perspective. We therefore describe public space in Hanoi as historically constituted by different layers of meaning and physical urban patterns. The paper’s third aim is to analyze the translocal connections involved in a policy that is still in the making, and therefore characterized by a series of ‘loose threads’. We show how different types of connections – policy mobility, topological relations and inter-referencing – relate Hanoi to multiple locales elsewhere. The conclusion reflects on the ‘politics of reception’ of these connections in Hanoi and summarizes the methodological implications of our study. We argue in particular that different conceptual and methodological tools need to be combined to fully grasp the contemporary logics of translocal policymaking.