The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused challenges to international affairs in term of health, economy, politics and security in addition to the changes of interaction between actors. Jakarta, one of the regional governments within the unitary state of Indonesia and a capital city of the state, projected its paradiplomacy in response to the pandemic. Its status as a lower administration below the national government did not prevent it from paying active efforts taking advantage of internet and digital technology development. The paper aims to describe Jakarta government’s paradiplomatic practice in responding to the COVID-19. The study applies the qualitative method with a descriptive analysis. In order to describe the regional government’s paradiplomacy, the study utilizes the concept of paradiplomacy and digital diplomacy. The findings show that Jakarta government carried out digital diplomacy as the form of its paradiplomacy in a number of activities such as providing reliable information, collaborating with foreign communities, participating in global forum, releasing gubernatorial message, improving data platform capability and initiating an international forum at home. Such internet-supported activities were meant to share experience, collaborate and provide transparency. Paradiplomacy through digital diplomacy activities was mainly conducted to gain trust to the regional government from its international audiences and create an image that Jakarta was a crisis-proof city and the part of global community. The paper argues that sub-national governments’ roles in international affairs are becoming important thanks to a new room for diplomacy practices, strengthened by unprecedented global crises.

Jakarta is a megapolitan city which is the most exposed to globalization in Indonesia. Just like other world’s megapolitan cities, it has a role as a center of national economy and culture. However, the city also contributes to causing climate crisis thanks to the carbon emission it has been producing for many years. The municipal government has been pursuing its ambition to be an environmentally friendly city by, one of the strategies, transforming long-existing mobility culture to sustainable urban mobility. This paper describes the innovation the municipal government has taken in diplomacy practice towards its British counterparts to pursue its interest. In addition, this paper describes the implications caused by regional development to the city’s para-diplomacy. This paper argues that Jakarta can be the forefront in leading “green” campaign by exploiting what it has achieved in both domestic and international level in addition to the leaders’ strong and continued commitment.

The Novel Corona Virus Disease or COVID-19 has caused unprecedented huge impacts and affected all aspects of governance including the relations among countries. Amid the crisis, sub-national governments have demonstrated their international engagements and innovations in order to respond to the pandemic. Jakarta as the largest city and the capital of the Republic of Indonesia became the national attention in early of the pandemic due to its functional position as the main gate of international mobility. However, the region held an international event called the International Youth Championship while the pandemic still existed. This research aimed to describe the region’s objectives to carry out the event as a para-diplomacy practice. This research applied the qualitative research method with a descriptive analysis. In addition, the research utilized para-diplomacy concept as a theoretical tool to help describe such objectives. This research found that the regional government had a number of objectives in hosting the event; promoting the success of handing the COVID-19, promoting sports tourism in the post-pandemic, and introducing a new icon of the region. Those objectives belong to the economic and cultural dimension of para-diplomacy. This paper argues that Indonesian para-diplomacy is an asset in as much as the national government can harvest benefits from sub-national governments’ para-diplomatic activities.

Mega-structures and mega-sports events have been attractions in many mega-cities representing their identity to the rest of the world. Such phenomenon has also taken place in Jakarta by the existence of the Jakarta International Stadium and the Formula E and both have gained attention and stimulated conversations in Indonesia. So have both been known as a green stadium and a green race. Integrating sustainability to urban development has been a global trend and Jakarta attempts to take advantage of such trend to create branding. This research aimed to describe the rationale of greening the stadium and race by the Jakarta regional government within its city branding policy under the leadership of Governor Anies Rasyid Baswedan. This research employed the qualitative method and descriptive analysis in addition to the concept of para-diplomacy and city branding. This research found that both green stadium and race were utilized as symbols or promotional value to promote green development in the city. City branding by the Jakarta regional government was a diplomatic practice bringing a message about the city transformation to be a green and global city. This paper provides a perspective that city branding is para-diplomacy itself or one of para-diplomacy practices. This paper argues that through city branding, cities should be able to not only widen their specific needs locally but also pave their global role in addressing the global challenges like climate crisis.

This paper aims to describe the Cold War with its implications to the system of international politics in high politics contexts. High politics, which has been the realists’ interest, is one of the issues much discussed especially regarding the Cold War as the period of which has provided many examples to international relations scholars. This paper applies the historical approach, relying on the information referring to recorded past events to describe the focus of what is presented. This paper shows that the Cold War was brought by the two superpowers to many geographical areas in many forms of crisis, that then enabled to affect the international political system in term of politics, security and sovereignty.