Does gender influence executive climate commitments? The case of American gubernatorial offices

Media, social movements, and general culture portray an environment in which women politicians are strategically placed to emerge as leaders in climate policy development. Research has generally corroborated this characterization, demonstrating women’s heightened pro-environmentalism in legislative settings. However, no published research to date has investigated whether these gendered behaviors are mirrored in executive political offices. Through this paper, I seek to shed light on existing findings on the relationship between gender, executive leadership, and climate policy by examining it in an American gubernatorial context. Specifically, I ask whether women’s descriptive representation in the governorship results in more ambitious climate agendas. State of the State addresses are used to evaluate governor’s legislative intent while state environmental budgets are used to evaluate substantive policy outcomes, and special attention is given to the role of party affiliation. Results from the regression analyses fail to identify a relationship between gender and state-led climate agendas, raising questions about the effect of gender in executive office and exposing multiple avenues for future research.