Stakeholder participation in urban land readjustment: a meta-synthesis of global approaches and institutional challenges

Land readjustment (LR) has become a widely adopted urban development mechanism for reorganizing land parcels and providing infrastructure through cooperative arrangements among landowners, governments, and private actors. Yet the quality of stakeholder participation continues to vary substantially, undermining project legitimacy, equity, and long-term sustainability. This study conducts a systematic qualitative meta-synthesis of 47 peer-reviewed empirical studies, using the PRISMA protocol and thematic analysis, to examine how participation is practiced, supported, and challenged within LR processes globally. Seven recurring participatory approaches were identified including inclusive decision-making, negotiation and consensus building, transparency and trust, public agency leadership, equitable cost–benefit sharing, and technical and financial support. Key institutional barriers also emerged, including fragmentation, procedural complexity, and limited capacity. These findings were synthesized into a conceptual framework that maps the who, where, when, what and how of stakeholder participation across the LR lifecycle. The framework positions participation as a form of governance innovation within evolving urban land institutions and extends existing participatory models by introducing a temporal-institutional perspective and linking participatory quality to outcomes such as trust, social cohesion, and institutional legitimacy and adaptive capacity. The study concludes that embedding structured participation within statutory LR governance can improve equity, procedural legitimacy, and contribute to SDG-aligned objectives for sustainable, inclusive, and resilient cities through stronger institutions and multi-actor partnerships.