---
name: gec-conceptual-framework
description: Use when building the conceptual or analytical framework for a Global Environmental Change (GEC) manuscript. GEC values theoretically rigorous, interdisciplinary work, so the framework must connect concepts (vulnerability, governance, transitions, socio-ecological systems) to the empirical analysis. Builds the framework; it does not run the analysis.
---

# Conceptual Framework (gec-conceptual-framework)

GEC publishes work that is **theoretically and empirically rigorous**. The conceptual framework is what
makes a human-dimensions paper more than a description: it names the concepts, specifies how they relate,
and dictates what evidence would confirm or disconfirm the argument. This is the heart of a GEC paper —
treat it as a load-bearing contribution, not boilerplate.

## When to trigger

- Defining the concepts, mechanisms, and relationships the paper rests on
- A reviewer said the paper is "atheoretical," "descriptive," or "the framework does no work"
- Adapting an established framework (IPCC vulnerability, Ostrom SES/IAD, MLP transitions, livelihoods)
- Building an original framework or integrating two traditions

## What a strong GEC framework does

1. **Generates the question.** The framework should make clear *why* the question follows — the gap
   from `gec-literature-positioning` is what it is built to close.
2. **Defines concepts precisely.** Vulnerability, adaptive capacity, resilience, governance, transition,
   equity — these are contested terms. State which definition you use and why.
3. **Specifies relationships and mechanisms.** Name the causal or constitutive links (driver → pressure
   → response; hazard × exposure × vulnerability; actors × institutions × outcomes). A diagram often helps.
4. **Dictates the evidence.** The framework must say what observations would support or undermine it —
   this is the bridge to `gec-research-design`.
5. **Is interdisciplinary by construction.** Connect a domain concept to a social-science concept so the
   framework speaks across GEC's literatures.

## Common frameworks (adapt, don't decorate)

| Tradition | Core lens | Watch for |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|
| Vulnerability / risk | hazard × exposure × vulnerability; entitlements; livelihoods | conflating risk with hazard; ignoring social differentiation |
| Socio-ecological systems | IAD / SES (Ostrom); feedbacks; commons | box-ticking the framework without using it |
| Sustainability transitions | multi-level perspective; niches/regimes/landscape | treating transitions as automatic, apolitical |
| Governance | polycentric / adaptive / multi-level governance | describing institutions without explaining outcomes |
| Political ecology | power, scale, access, distribution | narrative with no analytic structure |

## Anti-patterns

- Citing a framework in the intro then never using it to structure the analysis
- A "kitchen-sink" framework with every fashionable concept and no mechanism
- Undefined contested terms (resilience, vulnerability) used loosely
- A framework that cannot be confronted with evidence (unfalsifiable)

## Referee-pushback patterns and the GEC-specific fix

These are the framework objections GEC referees write most often, paired with the move that converts them. The signature GEC failure is a framework borrowed from natural science with the human-dimensions content thinned to a label.

| Referee wording you will see | What it diagnoses | The fix that lands at GEC |
|------------------------------|-------------------|---------------------------|
| "The framework is invoked but does no analytic work" | A decorative citation, not a load-bearing lens | Re-derive each hypothesis from a named link in the framework; show one result the framework predicted and a rival did not |
| "Human dimensions are thin — this reads as natural science with a social gloss" | Coupled system asserted, only the biophysical half theorised | Give actors, institutions, and distributional stakes equal conceptual weight to the hazard or biophysical driver |
| "Concepts are used loosely (resilience, vulnerability)" | Contested terms left undefined | Commit to one definition with a citation, state what it excludes, and use it identically throughout |
| "The framework is not connected to the evidence" | No bridge from concept to observable | Add an explicit row mapping each concept to its measure and the disconfirming observation |
| "Integration is stapled, not genuine" | Two literatures cited side by side | Name the single constitutive link where the domain and social-science concepts meet on your question |

## Worked micro-example (illustrative — coastal adaptation vignette)

A team frames a mixed-methods study of climate adaptation and social vulnerability in a coastal delta region. Numbers below are illustrative.

- **Weak version (desk-reject risk):** "We apply a resilience lens to flooding in the delta." Resilience is undefined; the framework predicts nothing; the social half is a sentence.
- **GEC-strong version:** the framework specifies *hazard exposure (storm-surge depth) × differentiated entitlements (land tenure, credit access) → adaptive action → residual vulnerability*. It commits to a livelihoods-plus-entitlements definition of vulnerability, and predicts that households in the bottom tenure tier adapt 40% less (illustrative) despite equal exposure.
- **Payoff:** when the survey shows adaptive-action rates of 0.62 vs 0.37 (illustrative) across tenure tiers at equal surge exposure, the framework — not the hazard alone — explains the gap, and a pure biophysical rival cannot.

## Calibration anchors (hedged where uncertain)

- **Interdisciplinary integration bar:** a GEC framework that a social scientist and a domain scientist would both recognise as theirs clears the bar; one half present, the other labelled, does not.
- **Falsifiability bar:** if no realistic observation could undermine the framework, referees treat it as narrative, not theory.
- **Global-significance framing:** the framework should explain why the mechanism travels beyond the case, even when the evidence is local; confirm the journal's current scope statement on its author guidelines for the exact wording.

## Output format

```
【Core concepts】defined (with the definition chosen)
【Relationships / mechanism】the links the framework asserts
【Interdisciplinary link】the domain ↔ social-science connection
【Evidence implied】what would confirm / disconfirm it
【Diagram?】yes/no (recommended for complex frameworks)
【Next】gec-research-design
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — conceptual frameworks and systems-mapping tools
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — GEC emphasis on theoretical rigor