Institutional Perspectives on Improving Solid Waste Management in Amman: A Governance Challenge

Rapid urbanization in developing countries intensifies solid waste management (SWM) challenges and demands integrated sustainability approaches. This study examines institutional actors’ perceptions of SWM governance and waste-to-construction-material conversion in Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), Jordan. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 experts from municipal, governmental, international, private, research, and professional organizations. Using hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis, the findings reveal that while participants described GAM as maintaining engineered sanitary landfill infrastructure and near-universal service coverage, participants identified systemic barriers to circular transitions: fragmented decision-making with unclear mandates and weak coordination; persistent cost-recovery gaps (participant-reported estimates of revenues covering only 30–35% of operational costs); absent building codes and quality standards for recycled materials; limited community engagement via top-down mechanisms; and weak regulatory enforcement. Contrasting perspectives emerged—operational actors emphasized technical/logistical constraints, policy actors cited regulatory/coordination failures, international actors diagnosed structural limitations, and private actors highlighted incentive/market deficits. This study uses public administration and political economy scholarship as its primary explanatory framework, using Balance Theory only as a sensitizing concept to diagnose perceived institutional imbalances, not as a formal theory to test empirically. Its elite-sample, single-case design constrains it and thus offers hypotheses that require validation through further research. Recommendations generated from participant accounts include establishing centralized coordination, developing regulatory frameworks with quality assurance measures, implementing integrated incentive-enforcement systems, and formalizing participation in the informal sector. These recommendations are presented as hypotheses for future testing rather than validated policy prescriptions. This research provides exploratory insights and hypothesis-generating guidance for sustainable urban development, emphasizing that technical solutions alone are insufficient without addressing the political economy of institutional reform, a dimension only partially explored here and requiring dedicated future research.