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This paper comprehensively investigates the lack of youth involvement in the intricate tapestry of urban policymaking in the Jordanian context. It attempts to present and illustrate the obstacles, challenges, hindrances and complexities facing engaging youth in urban planning in Jordan. Participants aged 18–24 were the primary focus of the investigation, as Jordan's population is predominantly youthful, with approximately 70% of the population under the age of 30.

The research methodology adopted in this study is a mixed-methods approach, which integrates both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analytical techniques to provide a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the research problem.

Youth involvement in Jordan's urban policymaking is limited and inconsistent. Most notably, the prevalence of adultism emerges as the predominant and most substantive impediment, exerting a considerable influence on constraining the agency of young Jordanians in shaping urban policy.

Detailed examples can be developed to offer discerning elucidations relevant to each frame of reference.

A total of 12 discernible barriers emerged from a systematic deductive thematic analysis of primary data.

This comprehensive inquiry highlights the pervasive gaps in support for youth participation in urban policymaking within the administrative framework and across Jordanian society. Subsequent quantitative analysis was employed to strengthen the external validity of the research findings, thereby enhancing the generalizability of the qualitative insights. By employing Jordan as a case study, this paper significantly contributes to the expanding corpus of scholarly work on planning processes and practices within the Global South and the Arab world.

Organizations remain a vital sociological topic, but organizational sociology, as a subfield, has evolved significantly since its inception. In this paper, I argue that organization sociology is becoming increasingly disconnected from organizational theory, as currently conceived. The focus of sociological research on organizations has become more empirically grounded in the study of social problems and how organizations contribute to them. Sociologists continue to see organizations as important actors in society that play a role in shaping social order and as contexts in which social processes play out. I propose two main sociological approaches for organizational research, which I describe as “organizations within society” and “society within organizations.” The first approach examines the role of organizations as building blocks of social structure and as social actors in their own right. The second approach treats organizations as platforms and locations of social interactions and the building of community. These approaches are somewhat disconnected from the sort of grand theorizing that characterizes much of organizational theory. I argue that the problem-oriented sociology of these two approaches offers a vital way for organizational scholars to expand and theoretically revitalize the field.

Informal housing stands out as a major challenge surrounding the massive reconstruction of Syrian cities, devastated by a bloody war and a terrible earthquake. The purpose of this article is to assess the adequacy of the Syrian Law to adequate provide a solution to this problem.

With the purpose of informing the question, this paper offers a legal-institutional analysis of the informal housing phenomenon and the corresponding regulatory responses in Syria. A literature review is conducted, and functional analysis of the legal texts and their effective implementation is provided.

First, informal housing in Syria has been fostered by the existence of an erratic regulation, particularly burdened by the incoherence of passing repressive provisions against informal housing while master plans were conspicuously absent or incomplete. Second, the regulatory policy seems to be leaning toward the urban renewal option, indicating a supply-oriented housing approach that may face serious challenges due to the scarcity of capital. In this context, regulation should not underestimate any policy tools at hand (renewal and upgrading; with the contribution of public, private and cooperative sectors).

Although there have been several studies on informal housing in Syria, none has taken a legal institutionalist approach. Furthermore, this study offers an up-to-date account of the problem, taking into account the problematic after the 2023 earthquake and the content of Law 2/2023.

Poor municipal solid waste management is a major characteristic of urban development in Africa. In Ghana, local governments are mandated to ensure the collection, treatment and disposal of solid waste. However, this has been a herculean task for local governments in Ghana, owing to inadequate resources and weak technical capacities. This has prompted calls for, and actual involvement of the private sector through public-private partnerships (PPPs) in municipal solid waste management, particularly in the urban areas. This study aims to assess the roles, effectiveness and challenges of PPPs in urban waste management in the Sunyani municipality of Ghana.

Adopting a case study design, the study used a qualitative research approach to provide in-depth insights into PPPs in municipal solid waste management in the Sunyani municipality of Ghana. Therefore, key informant interviews and two focus group discussions were conducted.

The study revealed that some policies and actions of the local government (Assembly) do not positively facilitate the effective functioning of PPPs in municipal solid waste management. There is also lack of effective stakeholder consultation, collaboration and grassroot inclusion in the PPPs which affect the effective management of the increasing volumes of solid waste being generated within the municipality.

To achieve the objectives of the PPP arrangements, local authorities should initiate steps to effectively coordinate all the involved private companies. There must also be ways of involving the beneficiaries in the design and implementation of PPPs on waste management to allow for effective grassroots and participatory monitoring and evaluation.

The uniqueness of the case study being a mid-sized and secondary city in a developing country enhances the value of the findings and the application of recommendations in cities with similar characteristics and initiatives in improving PPPs in municipal waste management.

This current review examines the scientific literature report on non-timber forest products (NTFPs) commercialisation and forest conservation in different jurisdictions.

A systematic review using Scopus-indexed articles on NTFP commercialisation and forest conservation was done using the PRISMA framework.

The review categorised the factors influencing the commercialisation of NTFPs and forest conservation into five broad factors and sub-factors: socioeconomic, market-based, ecosystem, cultural and institutional factors. The scholarly publications on NTFP commercialisation and forest conservation have been undulating, with two years recording no publication on the subject matter under review. Besides, China and India in Asia are leading in the number of publications on NTFPs’ commercialisation. The review revealed ambivalence and symbiotic relationship among the factors influencing the commercialisation of NTFPs and forest conservation. Specifically, tenure arrangement, strict regulations to forest entry, market information asymmetry, bureaucracy in certification acquisition, seasonality and distance were identified as barriers to NTFPs’ commercialisation. While market demands for NTFPs increased, NTFPs’ prices and unsustainable harvesting activities were threats to forest conservation. Policymakers should focus on safeguarding customary property rights and indigenous knowledge in forest conservation, designing workable capacity-building schemes for NTFP entrepreneurs and reducing the cost and processes in certification acquisition.

There are reviews on NTFPs’ commercialisation and livelihoods, but a synergy between NTFPs’ commercialisation and forest conservation for forest policy direction is yet to be done in the literature. Also, while earlier studies systematically reviewed literature on NTFPs’ commercialisation, they did not relate the studies to forest conservation.

The paper aims at addressing the following research questions: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency? And which pillars of institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

By specifying a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method where GHG emissions are considered as the bad output and the GDP is referred as the desirable one, the work computes the environmental efficiency into the appraisal of a production function for the European countries over three decades.

According to the countries' performance, the findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries. In this environmental context, the role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries.

This article attempts to analyze the role of different dimensions of institutional quality in different European countries' performance – in terms of mitigating GHGs (undesirable output) – while trying to raise their economic performance through their GDP (desirable output).

1. The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

2. We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

3. The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

4. The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.

The paper aims at addressing the following research question: does institutional quality improve countries' environmental efficiency?

We adopt a directional distance function in the context of stochastic frontier method, considering 40 European economies over a 30-year time interval.

The findings confirm that high and upper middle-income countries have higher environmental efficiency compared to low middle-income countries.

The role of institutional quality turns out to be really important in improving the environmental efficiency for high income countries, while the performance decreases for the low middle-income countries.