Even though the expanding relevance of city diplomacy has unsettled the traditional state-centered conceptualization of international politics, the growing transnational dynamism of city governments is still embedded in, and structurally constrained by, a state-centric international polity. We exemplify this through consideration of Singapore’s exceptionalism as a city-state, and what this means for its capacity for global self-promotion as an urban policy model. When the city-state selectively decides to engage among ‘peer cities’ in city-based institutional venues like city networks, it does so within a hierarchical logic dominated by the political authority and decision-making powers that derive from its capacity for and interest in entertaining relations with other sovereign nation-states. Through a counterfactual logic, Singapore’s outstanding transnational urban position reveals the current constraints of city diplomacy, as other merely city-level governments are compelled to join forces transnationally within a logic framed in terms of (lack of) access to state-centric institutional venues and resources. For the overwhelming majority of city governments, in contrast to Singapore, city networks are obligatory passage points to bypass traditional policy scales. Extending a theoretical bridge between the bodies of literature on urban policy mobilities and city networks, the article excavates Singapore’s ‘privileged’ position to deepen our understanding of the relationship between the city and the state. In doing so, we situate and provide a corrective to overstated narratives of the international rise of cities in the larger contemporary picture of global governance.

中文翻译：

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跨城市网络的国家主权：新加坡与全球城邦的外交

尽管城市外交的相关性不断扩大，动摇了传统的以国家为中心的国际政治概念，但城市政府日益增长的跨国活力仍然植根于以国家为中心的国际政体，并在结构上受到其制约。我们通过考虑新加坡作为一个城邦的例外论，以及这对其作为城市政策模式在全球自我推销的能力意味着什么来证明这一点。当城邦有选择地决定参与城市网络等基于城市的制度场所中的“同等城市”时，它是在一种由政治权威和决策权主导的等级逻辑中进行的，而政治权威和决策权源于其对城市的能力和兴趣。与其他主权民族国家发展关系。通过反事实的逻辑，新加坡杰出的跨国城市地位揭示了当前城市外交的局限性，因为其他单纯的城市级政府被迫在（缺乏）进入以国家为中心的机构场所和资源。与新加坡相比，对于绝大多数城市政府来说，城市网络是绕过传统政策规模的强制性通道点。本文在城市政策流动性和城市网络的文献之间架起了一座理论桥梁，挖掘了新加坡的“特权”地位，以加深我们对城市与国家关系的理解。在此过程中，我们将城市国际崛起的夸大叙述置于当代全球治理的更大图景中，并提供纠正。