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Beyond community characteristics: a leader's gender and local government adoption of energy conservation practices and redistributive programmes
Abstract
Most research examining factors associated with local government adoption of sustainability practices focuses on the impact of community characteristics. Little is known about whether adoption is also related to the characteristics of the leaders in these jurisdictions. To address this gap in the literature, this exploratory study uses data from a national survey of U.S. local governments (n = 1,672) to examine the potential correlation between adoption of certain sustainability practices and the gender of a jurisdiction's highest elected official. Our regression models find that jurisdictions led by women were more likely to have adopted redistributive programmes and practices encouraging community-based energy conservation. But, there is no correlation between a local government's adoption of measures promoting government energy conservation and its leader's gender. Future research should explore whether female leaders’ greater openness to citizen involvement in the policymaking process and women's socialisation to focus on communal rather than individual interests help account for our findings.
... The research [53] showed that female managers have lower overall debts than male managers in the structure of their expenses; more expenses than those of male managers are focused on social items. Accordingly, women are more prone to spending on social improvements [44,54]. When the administration of a local government is gender balanced, these different priorities of men and women in management lead to better decisions that improve the development of their community in various spheres. ...
... At the same time, Homsy and Lambright [54] examined the implementation of energy conservation and redistribution programs by local governments and found that the gender of the leadership did not have a significant impact on these decisions. Although they found that women-led jurisdictions were more likely to adopt community-level energy conservation programs, their results suggest that contextual variables, such as community needs and political frameworks, are more decisive. ...
... This research has become a driving force in terms of women's participation in local government in countries with varying geographical locations and cultures and where there is diversity in terms of the mentality of citizens and their conception of women's roles in society [54]. While assessing the gender policy of local governments, it is essential to analyze the international and local legal frameworks and institutional mechanisms that indicate the pivotal role of local governments in enabling gender equality [80]. ...
Achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development requires proactive measures at different levels worldwide. In particular, increasing equality and women’s empowerment (SDG 5 “Gender equality”) in public governance is a crucial step in boosting economic growth and the sustainable development of communities, regions, and countries. This research investigates the relationship between gender equality in local governance and communities’ economic development. It is based on the correlation and regression analysis of statistical data pertaining to 118 territorial communities (TCs) in Ukraine and depicts the dependence between the gender composition of the local governments and the economic capacity of the territorial communities. These findings may influence comprehensive sustainable development at the community level globally.
... It might also depend on the specific type of policy being addressed. In a survey of local-level governments in the United States, men and women showed equal support for government-led initiatives to reduce energy consumption, but women leaders were more likely than men to advocate for community-led energy conservation projects (Homsy and Lambright 2021). ...
... This is certainly due to the accessibility of gender data for national parliaments, but it impedes this literature's ability to draw causal conclusions concerning the effects of women's representation on policymaking. The case study literature fares only slightly better: only Homsy and Lambright (2021) investigate the gender-climate connection in local-level politics. 1 This oversight reflects gender scholarship as a whole, which has tended to neglect sub-national political representation. ...
Environmental scholars, activists, and media have openly condemned the widespread political failure to enact ambitious, sustainable measures to mitigate climate change. This article reviews a proliferating empirical literature that examines whether women’s underrepresentation in climate policy—and the lack of gendered considerations more broadly—could help explain this failure. Three main questions arise from this work: Do male and female policy actors differ in their climate policy preferences? Do higher shares of female representatives lead to better climate policy outputs and outcomes? How do notions of “gender” influence climate policy framings? The results confirm the importance of gender in climate change governance. However, the aggregate findings of this research, which draw on a diverse range of methods and epistemologies, suggest that gender’s relationship to climate policy is dynamic, and highly contingent on cultural, economic, and institutional settings. This review points to knowledge gaps and methodological shortcomings when accounting for mechanisms as well as an outsized focus on parliamentary arenas and the global North, and concludes by outlining promising directions for future research.
... At the firm level, women board leadership is correlated with more CSR activities (Hafsi and Turgut, 2013;Al-Shaer and Zaman, 2016) and increased community-based energy conservation initiatives (Homsy and Lambright, 2021). Saha et al. (2022) argue that female involvement in the environmental decision-making process is crucial for eco-innovation. ...
... Using a sample period of 1990-2004, a UNDP (2007 study shows that 14 countries (out of 70 sample countries) that achieved the largest carbon emission reductions have had a higher proportion of female legislators in parliament. Homsy and Lambright (2021) show that female-led local governments substantially increase community-based energy conservation in the U.S. ...
Using a large sample of 47 countries from 2007 to 2022, we provide evidence that female political empowerment (FPE) is a critical determinant of green finance (green bonds). Our results remain robust when addressing concerns of cross-sectional dependence, omitted variable bias, alternative definitions, and various alternative specifications. We explore three key economic mechanisms underlying our findings: firstly, FPE positively influences the prevalence of environmental regulations; secondly, it increases the stringency of environmental policies; and finally, it imposes a higher financial burden on businesses for environmental misconduct through tax collection. Our findings are significantly stronger in countries with higher levels of climate change exposure to the economy and human life, as well as in countries with higher levels of carbon emission and better-developed credit markets. However, the long-run impact is only significant in sample countries where females do not hold the top position in the government. Overall, our results provide important insights into how female political influence can yield positive outcomes in addressing financial challenges to environmental sustainability.
... In this way, the workload of female employees can be reduced and their job satisfaction can increase. Current studies examine the influence of the leader's gender on subordinates (Barthel and Claudia, 2023;Homsy and Lambright, 2021). However, this study empirically considered employee gender as the moderating variable. ...
Purpose
The first aim of this study is to determine the effect of lean leadership on the workload and job satisfaction of healthcare workers, and the second aim is to reveal the moderating role of workload and employee gender in this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, we created a comprehensive model to determine the effect of lean leadership on the workload and job satisfaction of healthcare employees and to reveal the moderating role of workload and employee gender in this relationship. We collected 1,207 valid questionnaires among Turkish health workers.
Findings
The results indicate that: (1) Lean leadership reduces perceived workload, (2) Lean leadership increases job satisfaction, (3) Workload moderates the effect of lean leadership on job satisfaction and (4) Employee gender moderates the effect of lean leadership on job satisfaction and workload. These findings have provided theoretical and practical suggestions for reducing the workload and increasing the job satisfaction of healthcare employees. Finally, we will make some suggestions for the future.
Research limitations/implications
As with other studies, there are some limitations in this study. The data used in this study were collected in Turkey. Turkish culture has a more collectivist culture than Western countries (Koksal 2011). In addition, the research was carried out with the participation of health employees. Due to Turkish cultural characteristics and the characteristics of health services, the generalization of research results may be limited. Therefore, it is recommended that the research be repeated across different cultures and different sectors to determine whether our results are culture-specific, sector-specific or generalized.
Practical implications
Healthcare managers can reduce the perception of employees’ workload by showing lean leadership behavior. Healthcare managers can increase their job satisfaction by valuing employees, inviting them to participate in business processes and providing them with the resources they need.
Social implications
In order to maintain and increase health workers’ job satisfaction, we recommend that health managers should ensure fair job sharing. In addition, health managers should take into account that female employees are more sensitive about the workload.
Originality/value
This research is the first study to examine the effect of lean leadership behavior on healthcare professionals’ workload perception and job satisfaction. Therefore, it offers important theoretical and practical implications.
... This higher environmental consciousness among women is manifested in their greater endorsement and advocacy for policies, such as plastic ban, as well as their increased preference for recyclable and reusable products [75,[82][83][84][85][86]. Moreover, several studies indicate that women exhibit a greater inclination to adopt renewable energy practices [87][88][89][90][91][92] and consistently display more responsibility and care towards energy consumption and conservation [93][94][95][96][97][98][99]. ...
This study explores the intricate interplay between female representation in national parliaments and government fiscal policies, with a specific focus on fossil fuel subsidies, environmental taxes, and expenditure, in the context of climate change mitigation. Using a sample of 160 countries over the period from 1997 to 2022, this empirical analysis demonstrates the positive relationship between the presence of female parliamentarians and environmentally friendly fiscal measures. While women in the parliaments reduce the amount of the subsidies granted to fossil fuels, they levy environmental taxes and increase environmental spending. The findings illustrate the pivotal role of female parliamentarians in advocating for environmental legislation and transcending political ideologies and national boundaries. Addressing potential concerns of endogeneity by employing additional control variables, omitted variables, and instrumental variable analyses, this study emphasises the robustness of the results. Notably, this study finds that a critical mass of at least 30% female representation in parliaments enhances the efficacy of environmental policy outcomes. This research highlights the multifaceted impact of gender diversity on fiscal policies related to environmental protection, offering valuable insights for policymakers and organisations committed to sustainability and gender equality.
... However, from the table above, it can be seen that the mean score of female students is higher than that of male students. This condition has similarities with previous research which stated that the dominance of women in their attitude of caring for the environment is very visible compared to men and even being at the forefront of caring for natural ICMScE disasters [13][14][15]. However, the potential of women as agents of change for climate mitigation and adaptation remains untapped. ...
The rapid development of science and technology has caused changes in all aspects of human life, including the attitude of concern for nature and human lifestyles. The purpose of this study is to describe gender differences in the attitude of caring for nature to support sustainable development. This research was conducted using a descriptive method involving 54 prospective physics teacher students at a university in Tasikmalaya, consisting of 26 males and 28 females aged 19-23 years. Data were collected by using a questionnaire on caring attitudes towards nature and a sustainable lifestyle. The collected data are processed by determining the average percentage of their answers. The results showed that the attitude of caring for nature and the sustainable lifestyle of female students was higher than that of male students. Females have an average percentage of 86.1% (high category) and males have a percentage of 82.9% (high category). Several recommendations were delivered to prospective physics teacher students, especially for the males, to effectively increase their awareness of nature and collaborate with females to promote sustainable development. Keywords: Gender Differences, Attitude of Caring, Sustainable Development
... More generally, giving women greater access to leadership positions in both the public and private sectors and at all levels of decision-making can help focus priorities on environmental goals (Ben-Amar et al., 2017;Bonewit and Shreeves, 2015). Where they are able to reach such positions, women are likely to integrate sustainability considerations into their organization's vision and strategy (Homsy and Lambright, 2021). Hence, environmentally centered policy efforts together with a well-structured approach to gender equality can have a positive net effect on measures to protect the planet. ...
This research analyses the issue, unexplored to date, of the causal relationship between women politicians and selective waste collection. Differing attitudes towards environmental issues between men and women may affect waste management at the municipal level, so an increase in women's political representation can be expected to enhance the effectiveness of selective waste collection. The analysis tests for this in Italy, exploiting a gender quota measure (Law 215/2012) as an exogenous shock to the percentage of female municipal councilors. Difference-in-differences instrumental variable analysis finds that an increase of one standard deviation in the percentage of female councilors increases the percentage of selective waste collection by 2.18 percentage points and the total tonnage of selective waste by 447.86. At the same time it reduces the amount of non-selective waste collection by 491.22 tonnes. The study comprises a number of sensitivity analyses for different model specifications, different definitions of dependent variables, different size of municipalities and different geographical areas.
... Meanwhile at the local level, a higher number of female employers along with greater education expenditure and renewable energy consumption has helped reduce CO 2 emission in China (Zaman et al 2021). A comparable conclusion is drawn from work in the United States that finds that local governments led by women were more likely to have adopted redistributive programs and encourage community-based energy conservation (Homsy and Lambright 2021). Similar but more sector specific findings were discovered for women in transport planning in Sweden (Kronsell et al 2016). ...
Though the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were crafted through an inclusive process, research on the relationship between greater female or younger legislative representation and SDG performance has been lacking. This article employs a linear mixed effects modeling approach to shed light on this relationship. Controlling for economic and democracy levels and population, the modeling reveals a positive correlation between female and youth legislative representation and SDG performance. Additional analyses, however, suggest the strength of the relationships with female and youth legislative representation vary between the socioeconomic and environmental SDGs. Female and youth representation are strongly correlated with the socioeconomic SDG index; they improve the fit of the model for the environmental SDG index. This result may stem from a tendency in developed countries to trade off the environmental SDGs for the socioeconomic SDGs. It may also imply that greater legislative representation is not sufficient to overcome constraints in energy and consumption and production systems that often lead to those trade-offs. Rather bringing women and younger people into legislatures may need to be combined with institutional and policy reforms that turn socioeconomic and environmental trade-offs into synergies.
... That paradox makes the use of technologies as a development tool highly contentious, as Sweetman (1988) noted almost 35 years ago, since they have the potential to significantly empower men and increase their control of gender power relations, undermining development goals of greater well-being for all, especially for women. This remark is still valid today with sustainable development advancing techno-environmental solutions (Nightingale et al., 2020), at the expense of a social nature approach that would address gender at its core (MacGregor, 2017;Resurreci on & Elmhirst, 2008) and inequalities in political power that undermine progress toward sustainability (Doneys & Resurrecci on, 2022;Homsy & Lambright, 2021). The Covid-19 pandemic brought this dilemma in stark relief as technological solutions were unable to address inequalities that engender vulnerability, both in terms of health status and the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic (Ryan & Nanda, 2022). ...
This paper aims to analyse and further capture nuances of gender representation in local political decision-making bodies, focusing on implications for transport policy. Since gender is highly relevant for both attitudes towards transport policy as well as political votes, data on the gender and political colour of executives (members of presidiums) of transport-related committees, councils, and boards is analysed. The study is aimed at the local level, since municipal transport policy decisions include areas with clear differences between masculinity and femininity norms. The mapping of representation reveals, in line with other studies, that women are underrepresented in the most leading position (as chairperson of the City Board 31–37%), and that presidiums of transport-related committees, especially, are highly dominated by men (72–74%) with no clear positive trend in female representation identified over the studied years. The result suggests that transport-related decisions are disproportionally shaped by men as well as masculine norms, with implications for the transition towards transport sustainability.
What leads to more age-friendly cities: professional management, passive gender representation in management, or active public engagement? In a survey of 1,378 local governments, age-friendly features were measured in the community comprehensive plan, zoning codes, and economic development plan. Gender representation does not distinguish level of age-friendly planning, but public engagement promotes age-friendly practices in all three areas: comprehensive plans, zoning, and economic development plans. Structural equation models find professionalism and public engagement matter more than gender representation in management, as they promote active representation, which leads to more age-friendly practices.
Problem, research strategy, and findings:
Incentive zoning provides bonuses to developers (e.g., increased density or height) in return for public amenities (e.g., affordable housing or green buildings). We surveyed and interviewed local officials to investigate a) the adoption rate of incentive zoning across the United States, b) the bonuses offered to developers and the amenities sought by governments, c) whether municipalities conduct a cost–benefit analysis between bonuses and amenities, and d) the relationship between local autonomy, growth, public participation, and incentive zoning. Forty-one percent of surveyed communities reported having incentive zoning. The most common bonus offered to developers was density. The most common amenities sought by municipalities were mixed-use development, open space conservation, walkability, affordable housing, and public parks. Most communities did not conduct a cost–benefit analysis while developing or applying incentive zoning, which we found was correlated to lower utilization. Some communities used incentive zoning to entice developers to provide benefits (e.g., affordable housing or green buildings) that state legislation prohibited them from requiring.
Takeaway for practice:
Planners can use incentive zoning to induce developers to provide public amenities as part of their projects, especially when the political, market, or legal environment is not conducive to requiring desired amenities. Our findings suggest that planners and local officials frustrated by state preemptions in certain land use areas can investigate incentive zoning to achieve local goals. Also, practitioners must find ways to make the incentives attractive to developers while maximizing community benefit.
There are large discrepancies in the transport sector along gender lines in travel patterns and means of transportation used, but also in attitudes and norms among citizens, planners and decision-makers, with women generally more positive towards measures involving the lowering CO2 emissions. At the same time, the number of women involved in transport-related decisions is low. This is a problem for gender equality but possibly also for sustainability. A careful review of previous studies indicated a lack of analyses on the subject based on quantitative data at the local level. We investigated a possible link between women’s presence in local policymaking and more sustainable transport policies, and whether it is possible to capture such an effect. The main contribution of this paper is a methodological approach in which, besides generating unique data on representation in municipalities (confirming men’s dominance, specifically in transport policymaking), possibilities for quantitatively measuring gender and the level of sustainability in transport planning are discussed and tested. Challenges in collecting relevant data and analyzing possible covariances in the data set are discussed and presented as well as suggestions for further investigations into the possible link between gender and sustainable transport performance.
In this article, we examine the connections between resiliency and sustainability by asking: Can disaster planning lead to more sustainability actions? In a survey we conducted of 1,899 cities, towns, and counties across the United States in 2015, we found that disaster plans are three times more common than sustainability plans. Our regression models find both types of plans lead to sustainability action as does regional collaboration across the rural‐urban interface. However, we find that hazard mitigation planning may be done without including sustainability staff, citizens, and other officials. After controlling for motivations, capacity, and cooperation, we find that rural communities are more likely to have sustainability plans than suburbs, though their level of sustainability action is lower due to capacity constraints. Our models of multilevel governance find local motivations balance sustainability’s concept of environmental protection, economic development, and social equity—and are more important drivers of action than grassroots or higher‐level government funding and policy. This bodes well in a context where federal government leadership on sustainability is absent.
This study analyses preferences regarding leave length, gender division of leave, and leave financing in four countries with different welfare-state and leave regimes. Embedded in a gender perspective, institutional, self-interest, and ideational theoretical approaches are used to explore the factors shaping individuals' preferences (ISSP 2012 data). Findings show dramatic crosscountry differences, suggesting the institutional dimension is most strongly related to leave policy preferences. Self-interest and values concerning gender relations and state responsibility are also important correlates. The study identifies mismatches between leave preferences, entitlements, and uptake, with implications for policy reform and the gendered division of parenting.
Policy entrepreneurs are energetic actors who work with others in and around policymaking venues to promote significant policy change. After several decades of study, we know a lot about what policy entrepreneurs do, and how to assess their effectiveness in given policymaking contexts. Here, we review common practices of policy entrepreneurs, emphasising their problem framing activities and their role in catalysing large-scale behavioural change related to climate change. We then review what policy entrepreneurs operating in various locations and at different levels of government have begun doing to tackle the climate change challenge. Like others, we contend that policy entrepreneurs will play a vital role in future efforts to address climate change. We conclude by discussing opportunities for new research on policy entrepreneurship, policymaking processes and the diffusion of policy innovations relating to climate change.
Zusammenfassung Abels und Mushaben (2012) argumentieren, dass in der Europaischen Union ein doppeltes Demokratiedefizit bezogen auf Geschlecht existiert: Frauen seien in den EU-Institutionen unterreprasentiert und der EU-Politik fehle es insgesamt an einer Geschlechterperspektive. Dieser Beitrag tragt mit einem spezifischen Fokus auf Klimapolitik zu dieser Forschungsperspektive bei. Die EU ist eine wichtige Konstrukteurin des internationalen Klimaregimes und sie hat sich gleichzeitig verpflichtet, Gender Mainstreaming umzusetzen. Daruber hinaus sind in Europa geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede bezogen auf das Verhalten zum und Ansichten uber den Klimawandel dokumentiert. Dieser Artikel untersucht, wie relevant das doppelte Demokratiedefizit in der EU Klimapolitik ist. Wir stellen die Anteile der Expertinnen und Experten bei den zustandigen Referaten fur Klimapolitik in der Europaischen Kommission dar und zeigen mit Dokumentenanalysen und Interviews mit politischen Entscheidungstrager*innen, dass geschlechtsspezifische Aspekte in den EU Klimadokumenten nicht enthalten sind. Mittels feministischem Institutionalismus kommen wir zu dem Ergebnis, dass die bestehenden geschlechtsspezifischen Machtverhaltnisse innerhalb der Kommission die erforschten Klimaeinheiten beeinflussen und diese mannlich konnotierte institutionelle Praktiken reproduzieren. ----- Abstract Abels and Mushaben (2012) argue that there is a double democratic deficit in the European Union regarding gender: women are underrepresented within the EU institutions and gender awareness is lacking in EU policymaking. This article contributes to this scholarship with a specific focus on the climate domain. The EU is an important constructor of the international climate regime and the Union is committed to gender mainstream all its policies and processes. Furthermore, there are documented gender differences in Europe regarding behaviour and views on climate change. This article investigates the relevance of the double democratic deficit for the EU´s climate policymaking. We map the representation of female and male experts at the European Commission´s climate units and search for gender recognition in the EU´s climate documents. There we discover silence regarding gender, confirmed through interviews with policy-makers. Using feminist institutionalism we conclude that existing gender power relations within the Commission affect the explored climate units, which reproduce masculine institutional practices. ----- Bibliographie: Magnusdottir, Gunnhildur Lily/Kronsell, Annica: The Double Democratic Deficit in Climate Policy-making by the EU Commission, Femina Politica, 2-2016, S. 64-76. https://doi.org/10.3224/feminapolitica.v25i2.25353
The purpose of this paper is to gain empirical footing on the mechanisms that drive and mitigate global warming, which is a topic of growing significance to themes of social justice. Using components of the ecological footprint, we construct a measure of each nation’s relative contributions to carbon dioxide emissions after accounting for the amount sequestered by domestic forestlands. We refer to this measure as the “climate footprint,” and construct a structural equation model to test key theorizations in the environmental sociology literature. We add to this body of work by incorporating and empirically testing ecofeminist positions that the status of women is a cause and an effect of environmental conditions. Results suggest women and the environment are interconnected dimensions of exploitation, as ecological losses weaken women’s status in nations. We also find that nations with greater female representation in governing bodies have lower climate footprints, controlling for domestic (urbanization, production) and global (world-system integration) drivers. Conclusions point to the potential for gender equality and improving the status of women worldwide to curtail climate change. Other theoretical and empirical implications are treated, including the benefits of bringing women into theories of the environment and the utility of structural equation techniques for testing hypotheses that specify direct and indirect connections among relevant predictors and the outcome.
Sustainability in a local context involves not only environmental practices such as energy conservation, but also policy efforts to involve communities, develop organizational capacity, and encourage widespread adoption. Sustainability leadership is the promotion of an array of practices, over time, by a broad array of actors including council members, citizens, state legislators, and others—that is, the type of social change leadership defined by Van Wart in Dynamics of Leadership. However, the key role of public administrators in local sustainability has largely been ignored in the literature. Using a national database from U. S. cities, this study provides an organizational-change explanation of the important subroles of administrators in local sustainability. It finds that administrators can have a substantial function in sustainability leadership by engaging citizens, enhancing technical expertise, mobilizing financial resources, and developing managerial execution capacity for sustainability. Effective administrators help overcome dispersed public perspectives, organizational constraints, and technical challenges in local sustainability, which can result in better organizational performance of sustainability policies.
This article explores the link between gender representation and climate policy-making in Scandinavia. We ask to what extent equal descriptive representation (critical mass) results in substantive representation (critical acts). Our study shows that women and men are equally represented in administrative and political units involved in climate policy-making, and in some units women are in the majority. However, a text analysis of the outcomes, that is, the Scandinavian climate strategies, reveals a silence regarding gender, further confirmed through interviews. Accordingly, a critical mass of women does not automatically result in gender-sensitive climate policy-making, recognizing established gender differences in material conditions and in attitudes toward climate issues. In interviews, we also note that policy-makers are largely unaware of gender differences on climate issues in the Scandinavian context. We discuss why a critical mass of women in climate policy-making has not led to critical acts and offer alternative explanations informed by feminist IR theory. For example, poststructural feminism claims that masculine norms are deeply institutionalized in climate institutions; hence, policy-makers adapt their actions to the masculinized institutional environment. Thus, substantive representation should be understood in relation to gendered institutional processes.
Although European cities have generally been regarded as far ahead of American cities in the degree to which they pursue sustainability, recent research suggests that U.S. cities are catching up. But why would this be? Is it possible that U.S. cities have been able to "close the gap" with European cities as a consequence of the development of local citizen groups? That is the central hypothesis of this paper. Our expectation is that across a range of cities, where nonprofit environmental groups have been included or incorporated into the local policymaking process, there is greater commitment to environmental protection, and more extensive adoption and implementation of local policies and programs designed to protect the environment. To test this idea we draw on our own research that combines two original data sets. First we have collected information on what programs and policies are in place in America's large cities. Second, for 50 large American cities we have also surveyed administrators, city councilors, and interest group advocates. Our expectations are validated by the data. We find that commitment of city administrators is strongly linked to the inclusion of environmental groups in policymaking. The number of local environmental protection policies and programs also demonstrates a strong relationship to inclusion of environmental groups in city policymaking. These two bivariate relationships hold when subjected to multivariate analysis with appropriate controls.
Why do some governments implement more sustainability practices than others? Based on a national survey of U.S. cities, this article finds moderate levels of sustainability efforts and capacity in U.S. cities; about one-third of the sustainability practices identified in this article have been implemented. The authors conclude that, first, capacity building is a useful conceptual focus for understanding sustainability implementation in U.S. cities. Capacity building involves developing technical and financial support and increasing managerial execution. Second, sustainability is strongly associated with managerial capacity, which includes establishing sustainability goals, incorporating goals in operations, and developing a supportive infrastructure. Third, getting stakeholders involved furthers the capacity for sustaining sustainability efforts. Citizen involvement is strongly associated with securing financial support for sustainability.
Despite the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change and its implications, there is considerably less certainty or strength of belief among the general public in some industrialised countries. One explanation for the lack of consensus is the partisan nature of political debate about climate change. A survey of Australian politicians demonstrates that political party affiliation and ideology have a powerful influence on climate change beliefs. Politicians from Labor and Green parties (centre-left and progressive parties) exhibited beliefs that were more consistent with scientific consensus about climate change than non-aligned or conservative leaders. Moreover, political ideology (left–right) emerged as the most important predictor of politicians’ climate change beliefs. These findings highlight the role of political partisanship and ideology in undermining consensus around climate change and suggest the need to build consensus through constructing climate change messages that appeal to closely held values and which advance the discussion of solutions along non-partisan lines.
Local government is attributed a vital role in climate-change adaptation. Previous studies contend that conflicting priorities, insufficient institutional incentives and knowledge of risks, and inadequate resources all impede local climate adaptation. Though the importance of local political support in enabling climate adaptation is widely acknowledged, the views of local politicians have rarely been analysed. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with local politicians in Sweden, we explore what affects their engagement in climate adaptation. The study claims that climate adaptation contrary to mitigation is not viewed as political beyond directing attention and sanctioning guidelines set by officials. A limited number of interviewees claim a more strategic political role in adaptation. The combined effect of institutional incentives (e.g. fragmented national guidelines, unappealing goals, and lack of funding), relative weight in local politics, and ability to exercise political leadership (e.g. campaign value, public and media pressure, and lack of ideology) is perceived as too insignificant to trigger strong political engagement. In less-populous municipalities, adaptive measures were highly valued for demonstrating political action.
There is an implicit assumption behind advocating for more minorities or women in elected office, namely, that these officials will bring a new power and influence to their underrepresented groups. However, for women, this idealized viewpoint ignores the social dynamics that subordinate women's words and actions even in “well-balanced” male and female group interactions. Using transcribed verbatim transcripts of 12 state legislative committee hearings, this research analyzes the conversational dynamics of committee members, witnesses, chairs, and sponsors. Sex differences among committee members are highly significant, even after accounting for political factors and structural features of the hearing. In addition, male and female chairs do not conduct hearings in the same way, and these differences affect the behavior of witnesses and committee members. The findings suggest that as the proportion of women increases in a legislative body, men become more verbally aggressive and controlling of the hearing. Women legislators may be seriously disadvantaged and unable to participate equally in legislative policymaking in committee hearings.
Full the list of publications citing this article (n=288), please see my google scholar citation page, http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=sM8NoacAAAAJ
Using data on the adoption of e-government, reinventing government, and strategic practices, and the Nelson and Svara (2010) typology of municipal government form, the authors investigate the characteristics of municipal governments that are related to the implementation of innovative practices. The authors find that higher innovation rates are associated with council-manager governments—both with and without an elected mayor, higher population, greater growth, lower unemployment, sunbelt location, and higher population density. Controlling for all other variables, form of government (and variations within form) account for the greatest explanation of the adoption of innovative practices in municipalities. The authors conclude that form of government remains an important variable to consider when investigating local government management and performance.
Based on a mail survey of lower house legislators in twelve states, this paper examines whether the increasing proportions of women in state legislatures have changed the behavior and priorities of women legislators or had an effect on men legislators. Compared to twenty years ago, we find that gender differences in legislative activites have nearly disappeared, but men and women now have different legislative priorities. Thus, as women have become more fully integrated into the political process, they have adapted to ongoing political styles, but have brought distinctive policy concerns to legislative agendas.
The paper investigates public attitudes toward welfare state policies as a result of both situational, i.e. unemployment, and ideological factors, i.e. egalitarian ideology, at both the individual and national level. The dependent variables are public support for the sick and the old as well as for the unemployed as target beneficiaries of welfare state policies. Data from the ISSP-study «Role of government» are analyzed using a multi-level regression technique. Findings indicate that the nation level is important in shaping public attitudes toward welfare state policies in industrialized nations, and that both situational and ideological factors play a role. Apparently, various nations generate different public beliefs about national social problems and about the relationship between individuals, the state and other institutions. Eventually, these understandings and beliefs influence popular attitudes regarding what kind of policies the state should pursue, and who should benefit.
What differentiates communities that emphasize social equity in their sustainability policy? We use a 2015 survey of 1,899 cities and counties across the United States and find only 26% of local governments report prioritizing social equity. We use a distributional justice lens to create measures of social equity policy, and a procedural justice lens to assess processes for community engagement. We find that both distributive and procedural justice are important in local sustainable development. Our regression models find that plans and organizational capacity are important, but what differentiates municipalities that engage in more social equity policy is procedural justice - formal citizen engagement through a citizen task force and cross agency collaboration, as well as explicit links to economic development actors – notably, municipal ownership of utilities, and pressure from local businesses. A more engaged governance that incorporates the public, business, with cross-sectoral government agencies may mitigate the conflicts between three Es and help localities pursue a more balanced local sustainability agenda.
The influences of state government have been curiously absent from most studies of collaboration among cities. Extant research on city collaboration which promotes on climate and environmental sustainability issues focuses primarily on local-level institutions, politics, and processes. Thus, the role of states to constrain or facilitate collaboration among local governments needs to be more fully accounted for. Building on transaction cost and institutional collective action theory and drawing on data from a national survey of US cities, we investigate the influences of city-level factors together with the hierarchical effects of state rules and policies on the extent to which mechanisms for interlocal collaboration are employed in pursuing climate protection and renewable energy development goals. The results confirm predictions that multilevel intergovernmental forces influence the extent to which cities collaborate. These results have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding interlocal collaborations.
Today at least twenty-five major U.S. cities have pursued some form of sustainability initiative. Although many case studies and "how-to" manuals have been published, there has been little systematic comparison of these cities' programs and initiatives. In this book Kent Portney lays the theoretical groundwork for research on what works and what does not, and why. Distinguishing cities on the basis of population characteristics and region for his analysis, Portney shows how cities use the broad rubric of sustainability to achieve particular political ends. Cities that take sustainability seriously, such as Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle, use broad definitions that go well beyond concern for the physical environment or creating jobs. They pursue sustainability at many levels and integrate concern for economic development, the environment, and quality of life across all activities of city government. Cities that take sustainability less seriously, such as Cleveland, Boston, and Orlando, confine it to such issues as solid waste disposal, brownfields, redevelopment, and neighborhood beautification. Still other cities, such as New Haven, Brownsville, and Milwaukee, do considerably less to work toward sustainability. Portney begins by reviewing the conceptual underpinnings of sustainable development and sustainable communities. The comparisons that follow provide a foundation for assessing the range of what is possible and desirable for sustainability initiatives. In the book's conclusion, Portney assesses the extent to which cities can use the pursuit of sustainability either to foster change in public values or merely to reinforce values that are already reflected in systems of governance.
Fragmented authority and service responsibilities within governments can impact the design and implementation of policy. Administrative structures can play an important role in mitigating the challenges associated with coordinating activities across independent units within city government. In this study, we use the broad policy arena of sustainability as a testbed to explore "Functional Collective Action" problems and the consequences of cities' administrative design on the portfolio of policy actions related to energy and climate protection. Empirical analyses of survey data from a national sample of local governments indicate that political institutions, government capacity, and community support influence, to varying degrees, administrative structures related to sustainability initiatives. Our analyses also suggest that these are not inconsequential decisions, since they influence the extent to which cities achieve greater policy integration. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Public Management Research Association. All rights reserved.
With the U.S. federal government stepping away from climate change, a number of cities have indicated that they will continue their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Broad statistical analysis and case studies of larger and often progressive cities have provided some insight into what drives local governments to act on climate change mitigation. However, the vast majority of U.S. municipalities, most of them small, do nothing. Understanding what might drive smaller, poorer, and less progressive places is important if local governments are expected to take the lead on this issue of the global commons. In this exploratory study, I examine a group of “unlikely pioneers”—communities that statistical modeling indicates are the least likely to undertake climate change action, but then do act. Using interviews and document reviews in 12 of these communities, I seek to answer the question: what drives these unlikely pioneers to act? I find that local leaders reframe climate change action as a way to save money and attract economic development. Personal environmental ethics drive small town leaders to reduce greenhouse gase emissions. Citizen committees can provide technical resources and political support. Otherwise, and more subtly, citizens can create a political environment that reduces resistance to climate change policymaking. Despite research that indicates fiscal health is correlated to increased sustainability, no communities in this study initiated climate change mitigation from general revenues. All required grants or other revenue to act. In four of the communities, the income from municipally owned utilities provided the fiscal resources for climate change programs.
Women are underrepresented in most elected and appointed positions in local government in the United States. This essay details what we know about women’s representation in cities and counties, with a discussion of the factors associated with women’s higher or lower levels of representation. The effects of women’s lack of parity are then discussed including policy attitudes, the policy process, and policy outcomes. In sum, this essay organizes knowledge on women in local government, identifies gaps in what we know, and promotes future investigations to expand our knowledge of gender politics, local politics and governance, and public policy.
Local governments in the USA are facing increased levels of fiscal stress after the Great Recession. We conducted a national survey in 2012 to assess differences in sources of stress and service delivery responses (privatization, inter-municipal co-operation, and public delivery) across places. Our discriminant analysis on 1,889 US cities and counties contributes to the literature on state rescaling. We differentiate three types of stress: fiscal, housing market decline and demographic. Fiscal stress and demographic stress are linked and highest in metro core and rural places, while housing market decline is associated with population density and revenue diversification. Diverse revenue sources can ameliorate some of the fiscal challenges brought on by housing market decline. Regarding service delivery, we find privatization and co-operation are higher in suburbs. State aid dependence is highest in rural and metro core areas with greater need, but decrease in state aid is highest in the South and West, where fiscal stress is also highest. Decentralization has exacerbated spatial inequality in the wake of the Great Recession challenging the efficiency claims of fiscal federalism. More redistributive state policies are needed.
Policymakers and scholars are increasingly looking to cities to address challenges including income inequality. No existing research, however, directly and systematically measures local political elites’ preferences for redistribution. We interview and survey 72 American mayors—including many from the nation’s largest cities—and collect public statements and policy programs to measure when and why mayors prioritize redistribution. While many of the mayors’ responses are consistent with being constrained by economic imperatives, a sizable minority prioritize redistributive programs. Moving beyond the question of whether mayors support redistribution, we find that partisanship explains much of the variation in a mayor’s propensity for redistribution. Moreover, the impact of partisanship very rarely varies with institutional and economic contexts. These findings suggest that national political debates may be shaping local priorities in ways contrary to conventional views, and that they may matter even more than other recent findings conclude.
This article provides a timely review of the interdisciplinary and disjointed literature on social sustainability and identifies some readily available measures of this concept for American cities. Based upon a comprehensive review of the literature, four broad dimensions are identified as being reflective of social sustainability: equal access and opportunity, environmental justice, community and the value of place, and basic human needs. Breaking these four dimensions into measurable indicators, this research provides a method for researchers and for American cities to begin to evaluate and to assess social sustainability efforts within their jurisdictions.
As theories of developmental psychology continue to define educational goals and practice, it has become imperative for educators and researchers to scrutinize not only the underlying assumptions of such theories but also the model of adulthood toward which they point. Carol Gilligan examines the limitations of several theories, most notably Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development, and concludes that developmental theory has not given adequate expression to the concerns and experience of women. Through a review of psychological and literary sources, she illustrates the feminine construction of reality. From her own research data, interviews with women contemplating abortion, she then derives an alternative sequence for the development of women's moral judgments. Finally, she argues for an expanded conception of adulthood that would result from the integration of the "feminine voice" into developmental theory.
Objective. Surveys demonstrate somewhat consistent gender differences in environmental concern, but there is no consensus on reasons for these differences. This research makes the case that differences in perceived vulnerability to risk explain the gender gap found in environmental surveys and other, quite distinct, areas of potential risk as well. Methods. Two national surveys, administered simultaneously and each involving very different environmental risks (hazardous waste sites and global warming), are analyzed in terms of gender differences. Results. In both surveys, in every question that involves reactions to a specific risk, women are more concerned than men. Standard deviations also are consistently smaller for women. When health-risk perceptions enter equations accounting for environmental concerns, however, the gender gap disappears. Conclusions. Questionnaire items that imply specific risks tend to produce significant gender differences. These types of survey results can be construed as communication events in which respondents who feel vulnerable answer in ways that urge caution on policymakers.
Polycentric theory, as applied to sustainability policy adoption, contends that municipalities will act independently to provide public services that protect the environment. Our multilevel regression analysis of survey responses from 1,497 municipalities across the United States challenges that notion. We find that internal drivers of municipal action are insufficient. Lower policy adoption is explained by capacity constraints. More policy making occurs in states with a multilevel governance framework supportive of local sustainability action. Contrary to Fischel's homevoter hypothesis, we find large cities and rural areas show higher levels of adoption than suburbs (possibly due to free riding within a metropolitan region).
Environmental sustainability is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. A number of explanations have been advanced for why some local governments make strong commitments to sustainability while others do not. Most of the extant empirical research, however, has relied on models that employ only one or just a few of these explanations. As a result, empirical analyses do not encompass a comprehensive set of variables that account for alternative explanations. This study begins to fill this lacuna by specifying an empirical model that examines six explanations for local commitment towards sustainability: local sustainability priorities, regional governance, climate protection networks, interest group support, local fiscal capacity, and characteristics of the local governing institution. Moreover, we use the designation of human and financial resources specifically for sustainability to operationalise commitment. This is a more substantive measure than has been used in previous studies. We accomplish this by utilising data from the Integrated City Sustainability Database. Our results indicate that local priorities, participation in regional governance, and membership in climate protection networks influence the likelihood of cities’ devotion of resources to sustainability. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice.
Objective. This research tests the proposal that women will be more concerned about the environment than men because of their socialization to the caregiver role and because of their structural position relatively outside the labor market and in the home. Previous research has produced mixed results. Methods. We employ data from the 1993 General Social Survey to explore the issue of gender differences in environmental concern in more depth. The 1993 survey includes over forty items measuring environmental beliefs, attitudes, and reported actions, from which we derive ten environmental orientation indexes. We look specifically at effects of social status, knowledge, trust in science, and religiosity. Results. We find that while women do tend to show somewhat more personal concern than do men, they are no more likely to engage in environmental action than are men. Women (and men) of higher social status, with more knowledge, and with greater trust in science are more likely to engage in proenvironmental action, not less. Further, we replicate some findings of adverse effects of homemaker status and parenthood on environmental orientations. Conclusions. While there appear to be a few gender differences in environmental orientations, these are not strong or consistent, and they do not extend to actions.
During the 1960s and 1970s, divorce rates rose to unprecedented levels in Western countries but plummeted in Islamic Southeast Asia from initially very high values in the 1950s and earlier, continuing thereafter to fall to levels well below those in the West. In Islamic Southeast Asia, explanations emphasize radical change in the mate selection context, linked in particular to extended periods of education for girls, whereby the couples contracting marriage gained a greater stake in its success. Greater wealth, less polygyny, and social and religious pressures to tighten divorce procedures all played a role. In Western countries, by contrast, increased emphasis on individualism and postmaterialist values are usually stressed. In the West, promotion of women's wellbeing emphasized the ease of breaking from unsatisfactory marriages; in Islamic Southeast Asia, the avoidance of entering into such marriages. Although sharing some common elements, the two regions started from such different situations that their divorce trends must be explained in their own terms rather than according to a universalist theory of divorce.
A growing body of literature has found there are important differences in the priorities, leadership styles, and policy agendas of women and men public officials. In this article we examine and compare the behavior of men and women city managers. Explorations of gender and city management have been entirely overlooked in the public administration and women and politics literature. In the end, we find that women city managers are more likely than their male counterparts to incorporate citizen input, facilitate communication, and encourage citizen involvement in their decision-making process. This finding emerged when women and men stated their motivations for involvement in city administration, and when they explained how they made decisions. As a result, women may provide a distinct "voice" in the politics of city management.
Administrative structure can shape bureaucratic process, performance, and responsiveness and is a particularly important consideration
when new bureaucratic functions and programs are being established. However, the factors that influence the assignment of
these functions to specific government agencies or departments are understudied, particularly at the local level. The absence
of empirical evidence regarding bureaucratic assignment in local government limits understanding of institutional design and
the organizational choices available, particularly as they relate to specific policy areas. As an initial step in developing
a theory of agency assignment at the local level, we examine the placement of sustainability programs in 401 US cities and
assess explanations for assignment based on policy scope, interest group support, governmental capacity, policy characteristics,
and institutional structures that shape the incentives of local decision makers. Although it is not a traditional function
of local government, sustainability is becoming an increasingly common objective. Because of its newness and cross-cutting
nature, local policy makers have an array of institutional units to which they can assign the primary responsibility for sustainability.
We focus on two dimensions of assignment of bureaucratic responsibility: whether the locus of responsibility lies within the
executive or a line department and whether there is a specialized unit within the city government that is explicitly responsible
for sustainability. The scope and maturity of cities’ sustainability policies and the structure of local representation (i.e.,
whether council representatives are elected by district, at-large, or via a mixed system) have the greatest influence on shaping
administrative placement. The latter suggests potential distributive outcomes from local sustainability efforts.
Numerous studies find modest, consistent gender differences in environmental concern within the general publics of North American and European countries, but results from the few studies of gender differences among politicians are inconsistent. We test if women report stronger environmental concern than men across four levels of the Swedish polity, utilising three data sets: a representative sample of the general public, a survey of all representatives in municipal-level and county-level councils, and a survey of members of the Swedish Parliament. Results from our multivariate ordered logistic regression models reveal a consistent pattern across the lower three levels: women report greater environmental concern than men in the general public and in municipal and county councils. In the Swedish Parliament, however, the apparent effect of gender is largely explained by political orientation.
Research on environmental concern in the past few decades consistently finds that women express slightly greater environmental concern than men. This pattern is robust across samples, nations, time, and facets of environmental concern measured. In a recent suite of articles analyzing data from a few nationally representative data sets for the U.S. general public, we examine explanations for gender differences in environmental concern derived from gender socialization theory. We explain our key findings here, before providing five insights for supporting a comprehensive research agenda on gender and environmental concern. These range from specific suggestions on conceptual measurement and analytical techniques to more general ones for improving our social science data infrastructure.
Using information from a 2010 International City/County Management Association survey of 2,176 local governments, this article considers why and how counties, cities, and towns are pursuing sustainability objectives. The article first breaks down sustainability into 12 distinct areas, with discussion of the activities local governments are pursuing in each area, and then develops explanatory models to consider the factors that might motivate sustainability activities. Although most communities are participating in some sustainability activities, they are generally not taking advantage of the more innovative possibilities available to them. Multivariate analyses indicate that sustainability does not appear to be an issue associated with a "typical" division based on race, class, or community wealth. Our evidence also suggests that those communities that give a high priority to energy conservation achieve higher sustainability ratings than other communities.
Climate action at the local level represents an important and unique complement to global and national-level policies. This study provides one of the first systematic analyses of local climate actions in the State of California by comparing cities’ adoption of alternative policies and statistical modeling of local choices of climate actions. The pattern of adopting different climate actions incrementally suggests that cities prefer certain actions than others. Coastal location, instead of the usual predictors of local mitigation actions, is found to affect cities’ adaptation actions. Whether a city is more likely to keep its commitment to mitigate climate change depends on the nature of the commitment.
Objective
Although the United States 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act is considered meager by international standards, significant variation in family leave policies exists across U.S. states. This article develops a political theorydriven by mobilized interest groupsto explain variation in the duration and pay level of state parental leave policies. Methods
Employing four different measures of family leave policy, we use ordinary least squares and logit models to test the effects of partisanship, women in the legislature, and evangelical populations on parental leave outcomes. ResultsWe find that states with a pattern of Democratic Party controlled legislatures and high percentages of legislative seats occupied by women see more generous parental leave protections, while states with large populations of evangelical Christians see less generous policies. Conclusion
Family leave policies are the product of a battle between competing visions of the family and the state, shaped by partisanship, gender, and religion.
Using LCV score data, we find that female legislators favor stricter environmental policies than do their male counterparts. Moreover, gender-corrected estimates suggest that voters do not push environmental policy towards the middle, but rather select the ideologically closest candidate.
While a great deal of research documents women elected officials’ more liberal policy attitudes and concludes that increased women’s representation will produce more liberal policies, I argue that the influence of gender and ultimately the influence of women’s representation remain unclear. First, constituency demands may explain observed gender differences. Second, the influence of gender may vary among legislators. I find that although constituency interests do have a significant effect, women continue to express significantly more liberal welfare policy preferences than men. In addition, I find that gender differences in legislators’ preferences are greater among Republican and conservative legislators than among Democratic and liberal legislators. Consequently, predicting the impact of increasing women’s representation on policy is likely to be more complex than previously thought.
Some feminist theory suggests that women have different value priorities compared to men, which should lead to different political perspectives and political behavior among candidates for elected office. By contrast, the theory of responsible party government predicts that there should be few gender-based differences in perspectives and behavior among candidates, due to party discipline. Studies conducted in the United States and elsewhere, however, have consistently shown that legislators are district-oriented, irrespective of party affiliation. In this article, the authors apply multivariate analysis to matched mass-elite survey data collected during the 1987 Australian federal election to analyze the policy views of male and female candidates and to compare them to attitudes among their constituents. For candidates, party dominates political attitudes, with much less influence for constituency opinion and little at all for gender except on the question of advancement for women. These findings are somewhat at variance from similar studies in the United States and Britain.
A social-psychological model is developed to examine the proposition that environmentalism represents a new way of thinking. It presumes that action in support of environmental quality may derive from any of three value orientations: egoistic, social-altruistic, or biospheric, and that gender may be implicated in the relation between these orientations and behavior. Behavioral intentions are modeled as the sum across values of the strength of a value times the strength of beliefs about the consequences of environmental conditions for valued objects. Evidence from a survey of 349 college students shows that beliefs about consequences for each type of valued object independently predict willingness to take political action, but only beliefs about consequences for self reliably predict willingness to pay through taxes. This result is consistent with other recent findings from contingent valuation surveys. Women have stronger beliefs than men about consequences for self, others, and the biosphere, but there is no gender difference in the strength of value orientations.
Rational choice theory predicts that women, when significantly involved in the production of private competitive goods and services, will adopt the same self-interested political orientation as similarly economically situated men. Guided by this approach, this nationwide survey of state legislators finds that competitive occupational background significantly reduces support for representing distributive-redistributive policy among both women and men legislators. However, it also finds that women legislators in general, as well as women holding leadership positions, retain a significant concern for representing women. Democratic Party affiliation and noncompetitive occupational background predict support for distributive-redistributive policies among women and men legislators, while only Democratic Party affiliation predicts concern for representing women among women and men legislators. Other explanatory variables (i.e., lower education, liberal ideology, African-Americans, lower-socioeconomic status districts, and political ambition) are in the direction hypothesized to influence representing distributive-redistributive policies and women but are not all statistically significant.
Relatively little information yet exists regarding gender differences in environmental concern and activism. What information is available has so far provided a mixed picture, with some studies indicating men to be more concerned than women, others indicating women to be more concerned, and still others finding no significant differences. This study provides additional evidence from national survey data. From these data, women were found to express greater concern for the environment than men before and after applying multivariate controls for age, education, labor force/homemaker status, and other variables. However, the magnitude of the differences was not great. Gender differences in environmental activism provided an ironic contrast. Even though women indicated somewhat greater concern, rates of environmental activism for women were substantially lower than for men. Furthermore, these differences were greater than differences in rates of general political participation and persisted in spite of multivariate controls for socioeconomic status, homemaker status, and other variables. That the environmental activity of women appears to be constrained by factors in addition to those constraining general political activity is similar to earlier findings regarding the environmental activity of blacks. Common threads in these findings are explored.
There are several compelling reasons to expect that gender equality may serve to foster state environmentalism. However, most previous research on environmental politics has neglected gender. To help further our understanding of the connection between gender and environmental politics, the authors empirically assess the association between the representation of women in national Parliament and environmental treaty ratification, using a large sample of nations. The findings indicate that nations with higher proportions of women in Parliament are more prone to ratify environmental treaties than are other nations. The results point to the importance of considering the role of gender in analyses of state behavior and environmental politics and are consistent with the argument of some feminist theorists that the exploitation of nature and the exploitation of women are interconnected.