‘Getting the Science Right’? Epistemic Framings of Global Soil and Land Degradation

Abstract

International environmental advisory bodies are tasked with the daunting challenge of collecting and synthesizing knowledge about a specific issue-area by speaking in one ‘global scientific voice’. However, the ‘type of knowledge’ issuing from these bodies can hardly meet the expectations of ‘getting the science right’, as scientific issues inevitably end up being framed in different ways. Although accounts of contestation between various knowledge claims are abundant in the literature focusing on international advisory bodies, the implications of these tensions for science–policy interplay remain poorly understood. In particular, analyses of and reflections on the relationship between knowledge outputs and particular institutional arrangements are underdeveloped. This paper attempts to address this gap, postulating a link between knowledge outcomes and institutional design. By introducing the concept of ‘epistemic framings’, it explores the different ways in which soil and land degradation issues are framed by scientific advisory bodies at the global level. The analysis, conducted through the Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) method, suggests that international scientific advisory bodies may frame epistemic issues in ways that are influenced by the policy setting to which they are institutionally bound. Further research on the dynamics of science–policy interaction at the global level could test the assumptions made in this paper and shed light on the structural (including institutional design) and agential factors influencing advisory bodies’ epistemic framings.

1. Introduction

Due to the growing significance of environmental issues in the global policy agenda, there are understandably high societal expectations of international and intergovernmental scientific advisory bodies. These expectations are likely to have risen even more since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most well-known of these bodies, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. However, bodies such as the IPCC do not only face the daunting tasks of proposing policy-oriented solutions to complex global environmental threats such as climate change. They also bear the responsibility of collecting, synthesizing and representing relevant knowledge on behalf of the global scientific community concerning particular environmental issues. In other words, they constitute the ‘global voice’ of science for that particular domain. In light of this responsibility, a relevant question in the study of global environmental governance pertains to the ‘type of knowledge’ synthesized and produced by such prestigious bodies, which are faced (and often tasked) with accommodating various ontological and epistemological perspectives. Therefore, the research questions guiding this paper are: what kind of knowledge do international scientific advisory bodies focusing on a specific environmental issue-area produce and how does this knowledge differ across such scientific advisory bodies? What can be inferred about such epistemic outcomes and their relationship with institutional settings?

The complexity of international scientific advisory bodies’ task is compounded by the fact that “getting the science right” [1,2] is not as straightforward as it may seem.1 Moreover, getting it scientifically right (or being credible) may not be sufficient for a global scientific assessment to make an impact [3]. The IPCC is a clear demonstration of this challenge, as many of its early assessments were criticized on the grounds of offering an overly narrow and reductionist framing of climate change science [4,5,6]. Despite being often labelled as the ‘IPCC for biodiversity’, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was designed to incorporate the IPCC’s lessons learnt on knowledge breadth and inclusion from the very start [7,8]. However, notwithstanding its innovative institutional arrangement for knowledge inclusion [9,10], the IPBES could hardly escape the political tensions deriving from its attempts to synthesize potentially incommensurable knowledge claims [11,12,13,14].

While the above research strongly indicates that the ‘type of knowledge’ produced by intergovernmental advisory bodies is always susceptible to contestation, few studies discuss the implications of such tensions for science–policy interplay. Even research that does so [14,15,16] tends to focus on broader social and political dynamics of knowledge and stakeholder engagement, without offering systematic ways to assess how knowledge outcomes are reflected in institutional design. Furthermore, although studies entailing a systematic analysis of the ‘type of knowledge’ produced by international scientific advisory bodies do exist [17], reflections on the relationship between knowledge outputs and particular institutional arrangements remain underdeveloped.

This paper sets out to fill this gap in the literature by proposing a theoretical and methodological approach to systematically investigate the link between the ‘type of knowledge’ produced by an international advisory body and the institutional features of its ‘policy side’. The analysis of two case studies, the Science–Policy Interface (SPI) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) of the FAO Global Soil Partnership (GSP), reveals that epistemic issues are framed in ways that reflect to a significant extent the nature of each policy setting. Exploring how soil and land degradation issues are framed by scientific advisory bodies at the global level, the study advances the hypothesis that the knowledge outputs of scientific advisory bodies are influenced by the characteristics, history and institutional legacy of their parent (or associated) policy organizations. It is thus suggested that institutional arrangements may play a significant role in contributing to knowledge outcomes. Overall, the author hopes that the findings from this study can contribute to stimulate further research on the dynamics of science–policy interaction at the global level in order not only to test hypotheses about institutional design but also to investigate the role of actors other than advisory bodies.

This paper intends to provide theoretical, empirical and methodological contributions to the literature. Theoretically, it introduces the concept of ‘epistemic framings’ as a tool to define the outcomes of the knowledge synthesis and production processes carried out by international advisory bodies. Empirically, it takes the focus away from the highly researched thematic areas of global climate change and biodiversity, concentrating instead on the often neglected issue-area of soil and land degradation. Methodologically, it encourages the use of systematic methods such as Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) for the study of science–policy interplay in global environmental governance.

The paper is structured as follows: after this introduction, the background literature is reviewed, the case studies are presented and a theoretical framework based on the concept of epistemic framings is delineated; the subsequent section outlines the research design and the methodology chosen for the analysis; after that, another section presents the results of the analysis in both written and visual forms; in the two final sections, the implications of the analysis are discussed and conclusions are made vis-à-vis the study of international advisory bodies and, more broadly, the relationship between science and policy in intergovernmental settings.

2. Background Literature, Case Studies Description and Theoretical Framework

2.1. Types of Knowledge in the IPCC and IPBES

The literature on the IPCC and IPBES has placed a significant focus on the ‘type of knowledge’ used by these international advisory bodies.2 It has often done so by adopting critical, normative or transformative approaches.

One of the most clearly visible trends in this literature pertains to the tension between the narrow concept of ‘science’ and the broader idea of ‘knowledge’ (including, for instance, indigenous, local and traditional knowledge). Criticism is mostly directed at the hegemonic position occupied by Western science in international environmental assessments, the effects of this dominance and the discursive strategies adopted to sustain it. According to Jasanoff [18], by detaching knowledge from meaning and facts from values, the IPCC imposes a sense of neutrality and objectivity that creates tensions with the local. This is what makes the IPCC become a “truth regime” [5] or a body with “globalizing instincts” that erase differences [4]. By the same token, several studies indicate that the ‘capture’ tendencies of the natural sciences are evident vis-à-vis the social sciences as well [17,19,20]. The setting is further compounded by the IPCC’s institutional design features, which contribute to shrinking the space for different epistemic perspectives on climate change [6].

On the other hand, the IPBES was explicitly designed to incorporate the IPCC’s lessons learned from the very start, with a view to ‘open-up’ to a wider spectrum of knowledge types [7,8] and with awareness of the normative and epistemological challenges of integrating (or ‘translating’) knowledge types [9,10]. With explicit reference to issues of power relations and incommensurability of knowledge types, Tengoö, et al. [9] develop a ‘multiple evidence base’ (MEB) approach, a mechanism intended to “parallel” different knowledge systems instead of integrating them. Presenting the IPBES Conceptual Framework, Diaz, et al. [10] endorse the MEB approach, emphasizing its potential for “complementarity, synergy and cross-fertilization of knowledge systems”, without having to integrate them. However, such high expectations about knowledge inclusion in the IPBES turned out to be overly optimistic. This is not only due to the sporadic resistance to non-scientific knowledge by the international scientific community [21]. It is also related to the fragile political compromises, ‘boundary objects’ or typologies, such as the Conceptual Framework [12,13], on which the body’s endeavors rest. Moreover, as leanings towards standardization and depoliticization of knowledge (favored by the UN structure and its regional representation system) appear in the IPBES as well [14], the platform displays a tendency to shy away from addressing conflict-laden issues, with the result that scientific knowledge and indigenous local knowledge (ILK) are hardly treated on the same footing [11].

As the burgeoning literature on the IPBES demonstrates, the academic interest in global epistemic issues is very high. However, while this research is highly informative about (and rich in description of) epistemic struggles, the implications of such tensions as well as the power relations embedded of science–policy interplay are rarely addressed in depth. Although some studies partially do so, for instance, by hinting at power imbalances [15] or by denouncing limitations of institutional arrangements [14,16,22] in the IPBES, they maintain a focus on broader social and political dynamics of knowledge and stakeholder engagement (this particular scholarly trend may be a reflection of the way in which questions about non-scientific knowledge are framed in IPBES, as these seem to be treated as an issue of participation and inclusion rather than an actual knowledge-building dilemma [23]. Conversely, research actually assessing the impact and usefulness of ILK in the IPBES is sketchy in teasing out reflections about power asymmetries [24]. On top of that, despite notable exceptions hinting at power relations [25], there is a dearth of studies offering a systematic way to assess how knowledge outcomes relate to institutional settings; in fact, not even work analyzing the ‘type of knowledge’ produced by international scientific advisory bodies such as the IPCC [17,26] provides theoretical accounts about the relationship between epistemic outputs and particular institutional intergovernmental arrangements.

2.2. UNCCD (SPI) and GSP (ITPS)

Moving away from the climate change and biodiversity arenas, this paper focuses on a less-researched area of global environmental governance: that of soil and land degradation. In particular, the investigation pertains to two relatively similar science–policy platforms, the Science–Policy Interface (SPI) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) of the FAO Global Soil Partnership (GSP).

The UNCCD is a multilateral agreement established in 1994 as the result of a lengthily negotiated North–South compromise [27,28]. The least funded and least well-known among the ‘Rio Conventions’3, it soon gained the reputation of being the ‘convention of the poor’ [29]. Being a hybrid environment–development treaty, the UNCCD has historically been characterized by a broad and ill-defined thematic scope, having adopted a definition of desertification that has been labelled “the child of sustainable development” [30]. As confirmation of the UNCCD’s wide-ranging attention to the socio-economic dimensions of desertification, land degradation and drought, the text of the convention includes several references to themes such as traditional knowledge, gender and migration [31]. The breadth and vagueness of the convention’s scope had negative impacts on the provision of scientific advice to the policy side; this was compounded by institutional design problems and by the inefficiency of the Committee on Science and Technology (CST), the scientific subsidiary body tasked with providing advice to the UNCCD Conference of the Parties (COP) [32,33,34]. To redress this situation, since 2014 the UNCCD is assisted by the Science–Policy Interface (SPI), a body mandated “to facilitate a two-way science–policy dialogue and ensure delivery of policy-relevant information, knowledge and advice on desertification/land degradation and drought” [35]. The SPI has a hybrid membership, consisting of 25 individuals belonging to both the scientific and policy spheres. The SPI membership, which ensures broad regional representation, also features the presence of five observers, including one from a civil society organization [36].

The Global Soil Partnership (GSP) is an initiative launched jointly by the FAO and the European Commission in 2011, with the aim of garnering both governmental and non-governmental actors’ support towards the sustainable management of global soil resources [37]. As a voluntary governance instrument open to both FAO member states and other stakeholders, the GSP relies chiefly on donor support. The main contributors to the Partnership include the EU, Germany, the Russian Federation, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Thailand. Therefore, despite the latter exception (Thailand’s former king Bhumibol Adulyadej was particularly concerned about soil issues), the GSP tends to be significantly influenced by Global North agendas, usually displaying marginal or passive participation of developing countries.4 The GSP focuses on different dimensions of soil science (including soil biodiversity, soil fertility, soil carbon) and its work is based on five ‘pillars of action’: sustainable management of soil; investment, policy, and awareness in soil; targeted soil research; more and better soil data; harmonization of methods [38]. Since 2013, the GSP is assisted by the Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS), an advisory body tasked to provide “scientific and technical advice and guidance on global soil issues” [39]. Including 27 “recognized experts ensuring proper regional coverage, proper scientific expertise and gender balance” appointed by the GSP Plenary Assembly [40], the membership of the ITPS consists of soil scientists only.

Even though the UNCCD is primarily concerned with land and the GSP is chiefly focused on soil, the thematic foci of the two organizations are often overlapping, allowing for occasional collaboration between the SPI and the ITPS. Despite exhibiting some differences in composition and nomination process, the SPI and ITPS are analogously attached to and dependent on their parent institutions (although the ITPS can respond to specific requests coming from other global and regional institutions, [39]). Therefore, there are significant similarities in the institutional designs of the two bodies. This makes the SPI and the ITPS different from the IPCC and the IPBES, which are not institutionally bound to their most common clients (i.e., the UNFCCC for the IPCC and the CBD for the IPBES).

2.3. Epistemic Framings

As a broad and vaguely defined term, ‘framing’ is inevitably susceptible to different interpretations across and within disciplines, including when associated with epistemic and scientific issues. In the scope of this paper, the use of the term is limited to the domains of environmental expertise and scientific advice for environmental governance.

In an often-cited opinion paper discussing the centrality of ‘framing’ in representing science and making it “relevant to different audiences”, ‘frames’ are described as means to “organize central ideas, defining a controversy to resonate with core values and assumptions”, and to “pare down complex issues by giving some aspects greater emphasis” [41]. Halffman [42], who analogously understands ‘frames’ in environmental expertise as ways to “reduce complexity” and to “indicate what is valuable and how situations should be understood”, emphasizes the significance of the knowledge that comes with a particular ‘frame’ in contributing to identifying potential solutions.

Suggesting an analysis of embedded institutional practices as a way to detect frames, Halffman also describes how the latter can easily be identified in text and language (e.g., advisory reports, policy documents, scientific articles) [42]. In this respect, the application of text analysis to the documents produced by international environmental advisory bodies is not new. For instance, a study conducted on climate change discourse from a linguistic perspective adopted ‘framing’ as an analytical dimension to examine, among others, the IPCC’s text [43]. By seeking discourses and narratives, this way of understanding ‘framing’ entails a predominant focus on how things are communicated, emphasizing the underlying broader meaning of texts.

However, since frames can also be detected by looking at what is included and what is not in texts [42], the present paper puts the accent especially on what is communicated, in line with the tradition of Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) [44]. As much as other qualitative methods for data analysis, QCA implies a process of interpretation of the relevant manifest and latent content. Its peculiarity is to reduce the empirical material and focus on selected aspects of it [44]. Arguably, this enables the emergence and description of peculiar ‘framings’ in a way that enhances the potential of comparative analysis.

In this paper, which focuses predominantly (though not entirely) on documents, ‘framing’5 pertains to the peculiar, selective and non-value-free orientations by which international environmental advisory bodies consider, represent and convey epistemic issues; the ‘type of knowledge’ emerging after these bodies finalize their knowledge synthesis process is understood here as ‘epistemic framings’. The latter can be defined as the outcomes of the processes by which international scientific advisory bodies and science–policy platforms tackling environmental issues (in the case of this study, soil and land degradation) incorporate the different inputs they receive, including from the policy side. These outcomes, whose outputs usually take the form of public documents (e.g., policy briefs, reports, assessments), can diverge from each other depending on the way in which an environmental problem is portrayed or a solution is proposed. Epistemic framings are directly derived from the content of these documents as well as other relevant sources (e.g., interviews). Epistemic framings are conceivable across various dimensions, which can hardly be all simultaneously and comprehensively be accounted for. However, as dimensions are selected following a concept-driven approach, they become particularly meaningful and significant when analyzed in comparative fashion.

The detection of epistemic framings is enabled by the identification of relevant categories for the conduct of Qualitative Content Analysis [44]. This requires an overview of the different ‘epistemic outcomes’ (and possible epistemic tensions) emerging in international environmental governance; to this end, as mentioned above, the coding frame for QCA is derived in a predominantly concept-driven way, drawing on relevant prior research (see Section 2.1) as well as existing knowledge about the cases at hand (see Section 2.2). The building and features of the coding frame are further illustrated in Section 3 and Section 4 below.

3. Research Design and Methodology

3.1. Sampling

The selection of the two cases was informed by generic purposive sampling, based on the suitability of the cases to address the research questions [45]. In line with this approach, the UNCCD SPI and FAO ITPS cases were selected as unique examples of international scientific advisory bodies focusing on land and soil issues within the UN institutional landscape, with a view to comparing their epistemic outcomes and formulating hypotheses about the drivers of their epistemic framings. Adopting a comparative approach enables the highlighting of variations in the framing of the same or a very similar environmental issue (see Section 2.3). As Bryman [45] puts it, “the key to the comparative design is its ability to allow the distinguishing characteristics of two or more cases to act as a springboard for theoretical reflections about contrasting findings”.

3.2. Empirical Material

To ensure data triangulation, the empirical material consisted of both official documents and interviews. The selection of these units of analysis was done in a way to ensure equal representativeness of the two sample cases.

The UNCCD and FAO documents were selected following two criteria: (1) bearing the logo of either the SPI or the ITPS; and (2) including a substantial contribution of either the SPI or ITPS (at least two members as authors). As a result, five SPI documents (618 pages in total) and three ITPS documents (732 pages in total) were analyzed.6 Twenty-two interviews were conducted with individuals (including members of the two bodies, UN officials, representatives of UN member states, other relevant stakeholders) familiar with the work of either the SPI (11 interviewees), the ITPS (10 interviewees) or both (1 interviewee).

3.3. Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA)

The method used in this study was Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA). The software NVivo was used to support most stages of QCA: pilot phase (including trial of the coding frame); segmentation of the material; coding and analysis; presentation of findings.

Following Schreier [44], a coding frame was built in order to analyze the material. The coding frame was developed based on a concept-driven approach, deriving categories and subcategories deductively. In part, the creation of the categories composing the coding frame was informed by patterns identified in the literature on IPCC and IPBES (see Section 2.1), notably the tension between global scientific knowledge (dominated by natural science understandings) and other forms of knowledge. To a larger extent, it was driven by concepts and themes that can relate to soil and land, but which do not fall within the scope of the natural sciences (see Section 2.2, with particular reference to the UNCCD). The coding frame was developed and regularly assessed taking into consideration the requirements of unidimensionality, mutual exclusiveness and exhaustiveness [44].

The coding frame comprises six main categories (or ‘dimensions’): general social science; indigenous, traditional and local knowledge (ITLK); land tenure; poverty; gender; migration. The ‘general social science’ dimension has to be considered as a residual category [44], including the social science aspects that are not captured by the other five categories. Since the outset, the coding frame included two types of subcategories: ‘present’, pertaining to instances in which a particular category occurs and is actively dealt with in the material (contributing to shape the epistemic framings of each organization); and ‘absent’, pertaining to instances in which the presence of a particular category is negated or explicitly ruled out by information included in the material. The following examples refer to the ITLK category:

-

Positive: “our assessments were complemented with traditional knowledge obtained from local communities”;

-

Negative: “there was no uptake of non-scientific knowledge”.

An overview of the final version of the coding frame, including category definitions and subcategories, is provided in

Table 1. Overview of the coding frame.

Category	Definition	Subcategories
General social science	This category pertains to general social science. It includes the social science aspects that are not directly captured by the other five categories composing the coding frame. ‘Social sciences’ are to be intended broadly, encompassing all subjects falling outside the natural sciences’ domain (e.g., soil science; chemistry; medicine) and including interdisciplinary approaches (provided that they have a social science component). Typical disciplines/subjects covered under this category are: sociology; political science; economics; history; human geography; human ecology; law; development studies; etc.	Present
		Absent
		Mixed
ITLK	This category pertains to indigenous, traditional and local knowledge (ITLK).	Present
		Absent
		Mixed
Land tenure	This category pertains to land tenure issues. Besides the conflictual aspects related to these issues (e.g., land grabbing), this category also includes considerations about land governance arrangements that pertain to land tenure security and land tenure rights (access to land; property).	Present
		Absent
		Mixed
Poverty	This category pertains to the theme “poverty”.	Present
		Absent
Gender	This category pertains to gender issues. This primarily includes considerations about the role of women, but can also encompass other relevant aspects such as gender relations and gender equality.	Present
		Absent
Migration	This category pertains to the theme “migration”. It includes all dimensions directly related to the features, causes and consequences of migratory processes.	Present
		Absent

. No specific decision rules were assigned. In case of potential conflict between two dimensions, coding decisions were made based on the main aspect emerging from the unit of coding. For example, the unit of coding “Land degradation impacts may cause younger men to migrate to look for work” was coded under ‘migration’, as the ‘gender’ dimension (which primarily focuses on the role of women) emerges only indirectly.

In light of the diversity of the source materials and in order for units of coding to fit the coding frame, the segmentation of the material was conducted following a thematic criterion, i.e., by “looking for changes of topic” [44].

To assess the consistency of the coding frame, an intra-coder reliability test was conducted, yielding a k-coefficient of 0.92. In line with the recommendations by Schreier [44], 15% of the material was selected for the trial coding, following criteria of variability and diversity. The first round of trial coding was carried out on 11 February 2021, followed by a second round fifteen days later. A content validity check was also performed between the two rounds of trial coding, to assess the adequacy of the subcategories in encompassing the relevant material. After the first round of trial coding, only a minor change was made to the coding frame to strengthen its exhaustiveness and overall validity [44]; a ‘mixed’ subcategory was added to three of the categories to adequately capture the sometimes nuanced and nonbinary perspectives obtained from the interview material (Table 1). The following is an example of a unit of coding falling under the ‘mixed ITLK’ subcategory: “As far as traditional knowledge is concerned, there were talks about it until 2007. But after that, we stopped talking about it because of the opposition of states such as Brazil”.

4. Results

The analysis was conducted by applying the coding frame to all empirical material (both documents and interviews) in order to assess the SPI’s and ITPS’s epistemic framings. This section presents the results of the comparative analysis in three stages. The first subsection displays the overall frequency of the categories and examines in detail the features of three specific categories (general social science, ITLK, land tenure). The second subsection provides a qualitative assessment of the results through text matrices and continuous text [44], offering examples of the subcategories detected in the analysis. The third subsection focuses on the relation between the categories, highlighting relevant patterns and co-occurrences [44].

4.1. Trajectories in Epistemic Framings

In order to determine the adherence of each organization to the coding frame and to sketch out differences in their respective epistemic framings, a quantitative assessment based on the occurrence of the subcategories was conducted first. Figure 1 provides an overview of the frequency with which each category was present in the material, as far as the two advisory bodies are concerned.

Overall, the results of the assessment reveal a substantial prevalence of the ‘present’ subcategory in the SPI case. In the SPI, the subcategory ‘general social science’ occurs more than twice as much (222) as in the ITPS (106) case. The difference is striking for ‘gender’ and ‘land tenure’, which are far more prominent in the SPI. The latter appears much more sensitive to ITLK issues too, although the ratio is less pronounced (25 vs 7). Finally, a more balanced trend is revealed for ‘poverty’ and ‘migration’; interestingly, ‘migration’ features slightly more in the ITPS (12) than in the SPI (8).

More detailed insights about differences in epistemic framings between the SPI and the ITPS can be obtained by focusing on specific categories: Figure 2 offers an overview of the ‘general social science’, ‘ITLK’ and ‘land tenure’ categories, with a breakdown into the absent and mixed subcategories. Most of these data derive from interview material.

These figures confirm that the SPI takes social science into serious consideration, as the material shows no instances in which such a dimension is absent. Only in 11 cases did the material hinted that this dimension could be further strengthened (i.e., the ‘mixed’ subcategory). Although, as outlined above, the ITPS also displays some ‘general social science’ components (especially due to references to socio-economic aspects of soils in the material), there are negative views (11 instances in the material, i.e., the ‘absent’ subcategory) suggesting that this element is overlooked in the advisory body’s work. In addition to the 25 instances of the ‘present’ subcategory outlined previously (see Figure 1), the material indicates a significant uptake of ITLK by the SPI; while there is a lack of ‘absent’ cases in this category, only five instances in the material indicate a mixed perspective about work in this field. The scenario is very different in the ITPS, where attention to ITLK seems to be largely absent; although this topic is touched on in seven cases in the material (see Figure 1 above), an equal number of instances reveal that this category is out of the body’s focus. Finally, a tiny score of two in the ‘mixed’ subcategory demonstrates that the SPI is highly engaged in land tenure issues. In contrast, a relatively high score in the ‘absent’ subcategory (eight instances in the material) corroborates the idea that epistemic discussions about land tenure are far from a priority within the ITPS.

4.2. Qualitative Assessment of Epistemic Framings

The above subsection illustrated the sharp differences in the frequency with which the categories and subcategories appear in the two cases, suggesting that divergence in epistemic framings can easily be captured in quantitative terms. However, in order to more closely appreciate such differences, a qualitative assessment is essential.

Table 2. Comparison of the two cases across selected subcategories.

Category/Case	SPI	ITPS
General social science:
Mixed	“There could have been a more balanced input from social sciences as well, but it was not absent.” “Maybe social sciences were not strongly represented in the skill set of the individual scientists. But my opinion is that it was constantly being raised […] certainly I found myself in many occasions championing social science issues, and I never met resistance for that.”
Absent		“The ITPS is much worse than the SPI […] It’s a group of so-called soil scientists, so it’s even more limited, even less interdisciplinary, even less open to ‘alternative’ ideas if we could call them like that.” “In the ITPS a sociological component is missing. Most of the researchers that are represented therein are first of all field specialists of soil science.” “Per definition, the ITPS is called “technical panel”, so we are more on the scientific and technical side, while the social…well […] because in the ITPS we are just soil scientists, actual soil specialists, we do not really have economists, political scientists, we don’t have that…”
ITLK:
Mixed	“There were some discussions about that and there are always mentions about indigenous knowledge in the statements. But yeah, there is also some resistance to that.” “It was considered maybe at a meta-level! I mean, the SPI members were very much aware of the fact that this is important and it should be taken into consideration, and that one should apply participatory ways… So yes, they were very much aware…but was it really done within the SPI? Probably not as much as it should be. There is an NGO representative with observer status within the SPI, but this does not mean that you have local knowledge on board.”
Absent		“In the ITPS, this is not even debated.” “You will find reference to some of these associated aspects, soils in a context and you know… But it’s not brought up as a main theme or…I mean, the thematic focuses of the GSP have been more on the natural science side than other aspects. Definitely.”
Land tenure:
Mixed	“I think you can’t address land degradation without addressing land rights. I think it’s absolutely the elephant in the room in many developing countries […] So, I think it’s huge and needs to be constantly put forward, the problem of the SPI is that the majority of the members are put forward and nominated by countries, so they are less likely to nominate people that are going to focus on those issues. But the UNCCD has the freedom to identify a few people, so I think it could certainly look closer at that gap.”
Absent		“Surely these questions are relevant here, in terms of land tenure—which is extremely important for managing soil obviously—in terms of local knowledge and gender issues in agriculture…But these themes are kind of lurking there, because then you have FAO and all its other divisions that deal with these issues, at high level and since a lot of time.” “The GSP does not want any binding directives, particularly on land governance which pertains to nation states. In any case, the GSP does not want to ‘make waves’ in the eyes of the FAO member states.”

presents a qualitative comparison of the ways in which ‘general social science’, ‘ITLK’, and ‘land tenure’ (the same categories considered in Section 4.1, Figure 2) are framed in the SPI and the ITPS. The examples in the matrix, focusing on the subcategories ‘mixed’ and ‘absent’, are based on interview material.

As the excerpts show, there is a sharp contrast between the SPI and the ITPS as far as the uptake of the three dimensions is concerned. Statements such as “this is not even debated” or “it is much worse than the SPI” indicate that the topics at hand are absent from the ITPS debate and that they are, at best, mentioned only cursorily in the reports. On the other hand, the ‘mixed’ outlook upholds the image of the SPI as an advisory body attentive to land rights issues and non-scientific inputs. The main caveats are that the SPI could ‘do more’ to address these issues and that the social sciences are still not considered on the same footing as the natural sciences.

A further illustration of the qualitative differences in epistemic framings between the SPI and the ITPS can be obtained by focusing on the ‘present’ subcategory. Relevant examples for each category are provided below.

4.2.1. General Social Science

In the SPI reports, numerous and diverse references to the non-natural science aspects of land degradation exhibit a significant uptake of social science:

“Legal pluralism may be an adaptive solution to governing land in varying socio-ecological contexts but it can also be a source of conflict when land users are subjected to contradictory sets of rules.”

“However, evidence also suggests that positive well-being and livelihood impacts do not always accrue from interventions or may not be evenly distributed.”

“Political will and strong institutions can create the environment to enable widespread adoption of D-SLM. An important success factor to make landscape approaches work is a functional decentralization.”

This general trend towards interdisciplinarity is further confirmed by interviews:

“I would say in the last biennium we did have quite a range of expertise that included various different sciences, including the social sciences. And I wouldn’t say that I thought we were lacking in that regard.”

Conversely, on the ITPS side, considerations usually gravitate towards the economics sphere:

“Widespread adoption of SSM practices generates multiple socioeconomic benefits, especially for smallholder farmers and large scale agricultural producers worldwide whose livelihoods directly depend on their soil resources.”

“It is widely accepted by economists that when land markets function in an efficient manner, the resulting land use patterns provide the highest possible benefits to the society.”

References to other social science aspects are much rarer:

“Where appropriate, education on soils (formal or informal) should be strengthened. That could start with the reflection of their importance in the school’s curricula and extending to more professional levels.”

4.2.2. ITLK

Despite the limitations mentioned previously, several interviewees underscored the SPI’s commitment to ITLK:

“I don’t even remember a meeting of the SPI on any of these studies where people don’t talk about indigenous and traditional knowledge.”

“The UNCCD was one of the leaders in terms of recognizing the value of indigenous knowledge and it has tried its best to ensure this through the implementation of the Convention. And I think probably the most effective way in which it is doing it at the moment is through the inclusion of NGOs and CSOs in the SPI. It has also got a really wide-ranging interdisciplinary breath, which is good because it allows us to capture the kind of…the scientific approaches that bring together indigenous knowledge with scientific knowledge.”

In the documents, references to ITLK corroborate this perspective:

“Traditional or local-community knowledge of ecosystem functioning, and landscape specifics can be a significant asset. Improvements need to be made in the incorpora tion of this knowledge into assessments and decision making.”

“In the late 1980s, it was identified that the imposition of top-down ideas and practices failed to adequately take the issues of contextual specificity and local knowledge into account while working on development programmes.”

In the ITPS reports, the topic is not completely ignored. However, it appears more sporadically and superficially:

“A strong commitment to including local and indigenous knowledge is critical.”

“In many regions, traditional knowledge still plays an important role in determining land management. However, most traditional systems have been disrupted or modified for a wide range of reasons.”

4.2.3. Land Tenure

The important role played by the SPI in championing land tenure issues emerges repeatedly in the interviews:

“I would say the SPI has been working quite closely on that and one of the reports in the last biennium was specifically focused on the issue of enabling policy for land access to support LDN implementation.”

“There were discussions. Land tenure was put on the table as an important aspect, for example in the LDN discussion, on the Land Degradation Neutrality conceptual framework. There, land tenure was certainly one of the issues that have been incorporated in the conceptual framework of LDN. Also in relation to other work on sustainable land management practices for climate and people, so how SLM can be effective for land tenure is an important aspect and I think that’s reflected in the report that was provided as well.”

“I know these kinds of things have been really put forward.”

The topic is addressed comprehensively and from different angles in the SPI reports as well:

“Ensuring effective local institutions in combination with place-based policies and legal security on land tenure and water rights to ensure relevant and inclusive design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of land-based interventions to mitigate the effects of drought.”

“Land managers are more likely to invest in SLM measures if their livelihood assets are sufficient and secure. This link is most strongly evidenced in the literature concerning land tenure security.”

“The governance of tenure is a crucial element in determining if and how people, communities and others are able to acquire rights, and exercise the responsibilities that come with those rights, to use and control land. Many tenure problems arise because of weak governance, and attempts to address tenure problems are affected by the quality of governance.”

By contrast, and similar to what was shown regarding the ITLK dimension, the ITPS reports include only occasional and isolated references to the issue:

“Promoting secure land tenure rights according to the VGGT SSM is affected by secure land tenure rights being in place or not. Access and tenure rights are an important factor for SSM to be properly implemented by land users and to enable long-term planning.”

“Experience in Africa, Eastern Europe, South America and South and Southeast Asia has shown that in an unregulated environment this ‘land grab’ can lead to the displacement of local farmers.”

“Encourage land use and land tenure policies that incentivize farmers to improve soil fertility and soil health.”

4.2.4. Gender

Gender issues, which are discussed at length in all the SPI reports, are presented from numerous perspectives as well:

“With regard to gender equality, agricultural sectors are highlighted—more so than any other sector—as providing opportunities for empowering women and reducing their vulnerability to climate change.”

“Studies evaluating these D-SLM options from gender lens highlight higher barriers for adoption of D-SLM practices among women than among men due to more restricted access to resources and agricultural advisory services.”

“The Scientific Conceptual Framework for Land Degradation Neutrality states that the drivers of land degradation are not gender neutral, with gender inequality playing a significant yet underestimated role in the processes that lead to land degradation.”

“These vital roles of women need to be understood and addressed to enable, on the one hand, communities to support women as farmers and as leaders, and on the other hand, to ensure that men and women benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated.”

The ITPS exhibits a radically divergent approach on this topic, as references to the latter are scant and perfunctory (or attached to other dimensions such as land tenure, see Section 4.3):

“Women play a key role in agriculture. They represent 43 percent of the agricultural labour force world-wide, ranging from around 20 percent in Latin America to 50 percent in parts of Africa and Asia (FAO, 2011b). Women are responsible for half of the world’s food production, providing between 60 and 80 percent of the food in most developing countries (World Bank/FAO/IFAD, 2009)”.

4.2.5. Migration

Despite being mentioned several times in the text of the UNCCD, migration is barely addressed in SPI reports. Interestingly, in one of the rare instances in which this occurs, an FAO report is cited (see the first example below):

“Drought and hunger can, in the extreme, force people to abandon their land, resorting to migration as the last livelihood strategy (FAO, 2018).”

“Land degradation impacts may cause younger men to migrate to look for work.”

For the ITPS’s part, although the issue appears not to be central either, the relationship between migration and soil health is highlighted on a few occasions:

“Rural/urban migration continues to feed urban growth, causing environmental changes including effects on land use and soils.”

“Thus, new policies that favour sustainable rural development, oriented to avoid rural-urban migration as well as to support the return to rural areas of people living in the cities, could avoid soil degradation and promote food security.”

“Socioeconomic impacts of war include local desertification and displacement of large populations of refugees towards safe regions, resulting in pressure on the environment and soils in the receiving sites.”

4.2.6. Poverty

In the SPI reports, poverty features as an important dimension, as its relation with desertification, land degradation and drought is often recalled:

“This is particularly crucial for assessing the resilience of poor people, who are overwhelmingly exposed to the impacts of natural hazards such as droughts.”

“Higher agricultural incomes and/or lower food prices resulting from the application of D-SLM practices help reduce poverty.”

“Land degradation is leading to increasing poverty and worsening inequality by negatively affecting the agricultural sector and by reducing access to environmental incomes upon which poor populations are relatively more reliant.”

On the ITPS side, the scenario is analogous, as linkages between poverty and aspects such as soil governance and sustainable soil management are explicitly made:

“SSM is an integral part of sustainable land management, as well as a basis for addressing poverty eradication.”

“Good soil governance requires that these differing soil capabilities be understood and that land use that respects the range of capabilities be encouraged with a view to eradicating poverty and achieving food security.”

“Soils came to be seen in relation to the services they provide for human well-being and poverty reduction.”

4.3. Patterns and Co-Occurrences

This final subsection highlights the relationship between categories across the two cases. By focusing on patterns and co-occurrences, it aims to add a further layer to the comparative analysis of epistemic framings. Although numerous examples of co-occurrences can be found in the material, telling patterns were identified, especially for the ‘gender’ and ‘land tenure’ categories.

The passages below show examples of ‘gender’ intersecting with the ‘poverty’ and ‘land tenure’ categories in the SPI and ITPS cases, respectively:

“Poverty is a root cause, and at the same time a consequence, of land degradation, and gender inequality plays a significant role in land-degradation related poverty.” (SPI)

“However, evidence shows that women still own less land and have smaller landholdings with generally poor soil quality. Improving women’s access to land and secure tenure can have direct impacts on farm productivity and in the long run improve household welfare.” (ITPS)

However, as shown in

Table 3. Co-occurrences between ‘gender’ and other categories.

	ITLK	Land Tenure	Migration	Poverty	General Social Science
SPI	0	6	0	4	2
ITPS	0	1	0	0	0

, the ITPS example is unique. In fact, most co-occurrences between ‘gender’ and other categories occurred in the SPI case. In particular, in the latter case, the intersections with ‘land tenure’ (six co-occurrences) and ‘poverty’ (four co-occurrences) stand out.

As far as the ‘land tenure’ dimension is concerned, there are co-occurrences with ‘poverty’ in both cases:

“People can be condemned to a life of hunger and poverty if they lose their tenure rights to their homes, land, fisheries and forests and their livelihoods because of corrupt tenure practices or if implementing agencies fail to protect their tenure rights”. (SPI)

“Many rural poor live under regimes of weak land policy and insecure tenure systems”. (ITPS)

Yet, as illustrated in

Table 4. Co-occurrences between ‘land tenure’ and other categories.

	Gender	ITLK	Migration	General Social Science	Poverty
SPI	6	0	0	12	2
ITPS	1	0	0	0	1

, the ITPS example is isolated. Co-occurrences between ‘land tenure’ and other categories are again prevalent in the SPI case. In particular, besides the relationship with ‘gender’ outlined above, the connections with ‘general social science’ (12 co-occurrences) stand out.

5. Discussion

The analysis indicates that there are important differences between the SPI’s and the ITPS’s framings of soil and land degradation issues. This contrast emerges in both quantitative and qualitative terms, as trends in the frequency of the categories (Section 4.1) are matched by subsequent in-depth assessments (Section 4.2). The overwhelming prominence of the ‘general social science’, ‘gender’ and ‘land tenure’ categories on the SPI side demonstrates a keen attention to the socio-political dimensions of land degradation. This applies to the ‘ITLK’ category as well, although the gap with the ITPS is less acute. Poverty appears to be considered in equal terms by the two advisory bodies, suggesting that reversing soil and land degradation is perceived as an uncontroversial pathway to contribute to tackling this issue within both regimes. Finally, the ‘migration’ category constitutes an interesting outlier: as this issue receives some consideration within the ITPS-FAO side, the SPI largely neglects it, notwithstanding it being mentioned seven times in the convention’s text [31].

Overall, the picture stemming from the analysis reveals that the SPI engages with the non-natural science aspects of soil and land degradation substantially more than the ITPS. This key finding is corroborated by the observation of patterns across the categories, with the SPI displaying a more cross-cutting and intersectional approach to these issues compared to the ITPS (Section 4.3).

In other words, the difference in epistemic framings between the two advisory bodies is reflected in the extent to which issues associated with the social and political aspects of soil and land degradation are acknowledged. Whereas the SPI exhibits a wide-ranging and inclusive approach by embracing these spheres, the ITPS adopts a narrower and more circumscribed framing, leaving subjects such as general social science, gender, land tenure and ITLK mostly unattended.

Ascertaining divergencies between epistemic framings is an essential starting point to investigating the reasons behind such divergencies. Notably, since adopting a particular epistemic framing entails making value-laden choices about what epistemic issues to consider and how to represent them (Section 2.3), a crucial question to be addressed is why international scientific advisory bodies such as the SPI and the ITPS espouse some values rather than others.

In fact, although the present analysis did not (and was not designed to) map out and reconstruct the socio-political processes leading to the epistemic framings at hand, it provides sufficient elements to formulate hypotheses about the factors influencing these knowledge outcomes. In the SPI and ITPS cases, it is possible to observe a relationship between the advisory bodies’ epistemic framings and the characteristics (which may include multiple aspects, such as values, worldviews, history and institutional legacy) of the organizations to which they belong. In the SPI case, general openness towards and uptake of non-’hard science’ are in line with the spirit of the UNCCD, a convention with hybrid environment–development ambitions, designed especially for the Global South and for Africa [31], and privileging, historically as well as by mandate, the socio-economic dimensions of desertification (Section 2.2). The hybrid membership of the SPI, with its strong regional focus and inclusion of a civil society representative as an observer, is likely to have contributed to such outcomes. Along the same lines, although in the opposite sense with respect to the SPI, the ITPS’s scant attention to what falls outside of soil science is not only a consequence of the absence of social scientists within the body’s membership, but also mirrors the essence of the GSP, an initiative launched and largely driven by the Global North, with a firm focus on the natural science aspects of soils (Section 2.2).7

Since the epistemic framings of both the SPI and the ITPS reflect the spirit of their parent organizations (the UNCCD and the GSP FAO, respectively), one may wonder whether the latter have an influence on the former. A possibility may be that the advisory role played by the two bodies is affected by their direct dependence on the UNCCD COP and the GSP Plenary Assembly; in other words, institutional design (including policy-mandated membership and policy-defined tasks) may contribute decisively in shaping the SPI’s and ITPS’s epistemic framings. In fact, constraining institutional arrangements can reduce the opportunities for scientific advice ‘to get its space’ by escaping the influence of policy. Besides taking into consideration the UN institutional structure in which the SPI and the ITPS operate, testing this hypothesis would also require closely studying the social interactions between the two bodies and other relevant actors (e.g., member states, international secretariats), which may have an impact on epistemic framings.

To sum up, the analysis of the SPI and ITPS cases leads to two main implications about the role of scientific advice in international environmental governance:

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‘Getting the science right’ is a misleading aspiration8, as epistemic framings uphold the centrality of value choices in scientific advice;

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Instead of ‘getting the science right’, scientific advisory bodies that are not institutionally independent are likely to be more concerned with ‘avoiding trespassing the boundary of what is politically acceptable’ within a given policy regime.

6. Conclusions

This paper investigated the ways in which epistemic issues about soil and land degradation are framed by two international advisory bodies, the UNCCD SPI and the FAO ITPS. The concept of epistemic framings was introduced to support this endeavor. The analysis disclosed significant differences between the two advisory bodies, not only in terms of the ‘type of knowledge’ they produce but also as far as the value choices they make are concerned.

Aside from revealing differences in epistemic framings between the two bodies, the analysis showed that both of them tend to reproduce the characteristics and spirit of their parent organizations. This gave rise to the hypothesis that the latter may exercise an influence on the advisory bodies’ epistemic framings. It also led to the implication that, far from the unrealistic ambition of ‘getting the science right’, international science–policy platforms such as the SPI and the ITPS may have to frame knowledge in ways that are acceptable for the policy regimes in which they operate and to which they are bound. Along the same lines, advisory bodies that are detached from the direct control of a parent organization may exhibit independent epistemic framings.

In light of these possibilities, questions about institutional design remain crucial for the study of scientific advice in global environmental governance. For this reason, this study calls for further reflection on the institutional design of international advisory bodies, as well as, more broadly, on the relationship between science and policy at the UN level. To be sure, research in this direction is advancing, including attempts to conceptualize the knowledge-ways of international advisory bodies. A recent example of this is the introduction of the ‘institutional epistemology’ concept, along with its application to the IPCC and the IPBES [25]. Yet, despite ambitions to account for the “voices of certain powerful actors”, the analytical potential of institutional epistemology remains vague and underdeveloped, as this concept says little more than that international advisory bodies tend to provide “views from somewhere” [25]. In other words, overreliance on this concept carries a risk of obscuring power relations and downplaying the role of powerful actors (e.g., states) in intergovernmental settings. Instead of establishing whether epistemic views come from ‘somewhere’, ‘nowhere’ or ‘everywhere’ [25], what ‘epistemic framings’ try to do is inquire about what and who actually influences them.

Therefore, in connection with an enhanced focus on structural factors such as institutional design, it would be beneficial if future research on the role of scientific advice in global environmental governance closely investigated the power relations existing between advisory bodies and the agents they engage with, as the influence of actors such as members states and international bureaucracies on epistemic framings and institutional epistemologies is still poorly understood. In this respect, besides helping to open up the black box of many international scientific advisory processes, research building on the concept of epistemic framings may offer new starting points to investigate the persistence of global environmental challenges such as soil and land degradation.