Gendered Governing? Women’s Leadership Styles and Participatory Institutions in Brazil

Abstract

Previous research argues that the leadership styles of men and women differ significantly, with women’s styles being more inclusive and participatory. I test this argument by examining whether women elected officials are more likely to increase citizen participation using data on the adoption of two different types of participatory institutions in Brazilian municipalities: participatory budgeting and participatory policy councils. Results suggest that women leaders are not inherently more participatory than men. Rather, the decision to initiate participation in a certain policy area appears to be a strategic choice. Mayors of both genders are likely to initiate participation in policy areas that appeal to constituents of the opposite gender and counter stereotypes: men are more likely to adopt participatory councils for women’s rights, children’s rights, and health care, while women are more likely to adopt a council for sports. These findings suggest that women’s styles of leadership are not inherently more inclusive than men’s. It appears that strategy, rather than style, likely determines whether a leader will be more inclusive.

Keywords

Latin America local governments gender participation leadership styles

Are women more likely to open avenues for citizen participation in the decision-making process? Previous literature argues that the leadership styles of men and women differ substantially (Burke and Collins 2001; Duerst-Lahti 1990; Eagly and Johnson 1990; Gilligan 1982; Helgesen 1990; Stivers 2002). Such work suggests that women’s leadership styles are more open, inclusive, and participatory. Whereas men tend to govern in a more hierarchical and authoritative manner, women leaders tend to be more democratic and more likely to facilitate the incorporation of citizens into the decision-making process. The purpose of this study is to test this argument empirically using objective measures of leadership styles. The majority of the literature on gendered leadership uses subjective (i.e., self-reported) measures obtained through small-N research methods based on samples from the United States to examine gender differences in leadership styles. This may be problematic for two reasons: (1) Self-reported behaviors may not correspond with observed behaviors, and (2) it is questionable whether these findings generalize to women leaders in other countries.

This study examines whether women elected officials are more likely than men to increase citizen participation within the context of Brazilian local governments. If arguments about the leadership styles of women are correct, then women mayors should be more likely than men to open formal channels for popular participation. Since the return to democracy in 1985, the Brazilian government has advocated for increased citizen participation in multiple aspects of government. This has led to the creation of several participatory mechanisms, including the creation of participatory budgeting (orçamento participativo) and municipal participatory policy councils (conselhos municipais). Participatory institutions exist in nearly all of Brazil’s 5,570 municipalities, and most municipalities have multiple institutions that facilitate participation in different areas. I use the adoption of these participatory institutions as a measure of the mayor’s preferences to increase citizen participation and to test whether the mayor’s gender is associated with a certain style of leadership.

Empirical results suggest that the decision to increase participation in a certain policy area is more likely a strategic choice made by the mayor, rather than an expression of an inherent style of leading. Although women are not more likely than men to increase participation in all policy areas, they may be more likely to initiate participation in policy areas that are not stereotypically feminine. Findings from this study suggest that women mayors are more likely to increase participation in a stereotypically masculine policy domain—sports. Results also suggest that men are more likely to initiate participation in stereotypically feminine policy domains—women’s rights, children’s rights, and health care. Furthermore, mayors are less likely to adopt participatory institutions when they are ineligible to run for re-election and more likely if they are from a left party, are highly educated, or govern a municipality with a large, urban, or wealthy population or a municipality that has a large number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Knowing whether different types of elected officials have distinct styles of leading is important because these differences in style may ultimately result in differences in policy outcomes. The way a leader leads might also impact public opinion, representation, and the strength and legitimacy of democratic institutions. The results of this study suggest that women’s styles of leadership are not inherently more inclusive than men’s; rather, the behaviors of both men and women appear to be determined by strategic choices. Both men and women are likely to adopt participatory institutions in areas that appeal to constituents of the opposite gender and disassociate the mayor with traditional gender stereotypes. Other characteristics of the mayor, including ideology and education, along with the mayor’s electoral concerns and incentives to adhere to public demands, appear to matter more than gender for explaining the adoption of participatory institutions.

Gendered Differences in Leadership Styles

A substantial body of literature suggests that the leadership styles of men and women differ on a number of dimensions, including the way that men and women communicate, resolve conflicts, lead their organizations, and interact with their peers and their subordinates. One subset of this literature suggests that women are more likely to pursue transformational leadership over transactional or laissez-faire leadership styles. Whereas transactional leadership approaches exchanges between leaders and subordinates as transactions worthy of reward or punishment, transformational leadership seeks to transform the interests of subordinates to reflect the interests of the group as a whole through the pursuit of a common goal (Rosener 1990). Women leaders in many contexts have been found to prefer transformational leadership, including women business leaders (Rosener 1990), women accountants (Burke and Collins 2001), women in laboratory experiments, and women in other organizational settings (Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt 2001; Eagly, Johannesen-Schmidt, and Van Engen 2003).

A second way that men and women leaders may differ is in the way they communicate. Some research finds that men are more likely to dominate group deliberations by taking more than their share of time to speak and interrupting more often than women (Karpowitz, Mendelberg, and Shaker 2012; Kathlene 1994; Mendelberg, Karpowitz, and Oliphant 2014). Women speak less than men in most settings (Karpowitz, Mendelberg, and Shaker 2012), and men have been found to be more verbally aggressive as the proportion of women in the group increases (Kathlene 1994). However, there is some evidence that women speak at equal rates as men when they are a numerical majority or when institutional rules promote equality in participation (Duerst-Lahti 1990; Funk and Taylor-Robinson 2014; Karpowitz, Mendelberg, and Shaker 2012; Mendelberg, Karpowitz, and Oliphant 2014).

Women leaders’ styles of communication are also argued to be more open, accessible, and transparent. In a qualitative study of four women senior executives, Helgesen (1990) found that these women made a deliberate effort to be accessible to their employees and facilitated spaces for information sharing by structuring their organizations as networks instead of hierarchies. Research on local governments found that women were more likely to increase transparency and were more responsive to groups that were previously excluded from the policymaking process (Flammang 1997, 235). A later study found that women local officials were characterized as more open and accessible, and more likely to share power and information (Beck 2001).

A third way that men and women leaders may differ is in the way they resolve conflicts. Some literature has found that women have more cooperative conflict resolution behaviors that rely on compromise, collaboration, and accommodation (Rosenthal 2000). However, other literature has found little to no differences in men’s and women’s approaches to resolving conflicts (Reingold 1996; Tolleson-Rinehart 2001). In a study of U.S. state legislators, Reingold (1996) found that men and women were equally skeptical of stereotypically masculine behaviors involving coercion and manipulation, and legislators of both genders were likely to support stereotypically feminine leadership styles that emphasize compromise and consensus-building to resolve conflicts.

A fourth difference includes men and women’s inclinations toward participation and inclusion. Women’s leadership styles are argued to be more conducive to citizen involvement because women tend to adopt more democratic means of leading, while men tend to lead in more autocratic or directive ways (Eagly and Johnson 1990; Eagly, Karau, and Johnson 1992). Research on U.S. state legislators found that women were more likely to prioritize getting people involved, building coalitions, forging consensus, and sharing power (Rosenthal 1997, 1998). In studies of public sector managers, Rosener (1990, 1995) observed that men more often chose to use a top–down “command-and-control” leadership style, while women were more likely to create spaces for participation in the organization. These differences are also found among local government leaders. Studies of U.S. mayors found that women have a more “hands-on” style of leadership (Tolleson-Rinehart 2001) and are more willing to modify the budget process to facilitate broader participation (Weikart et al. 2007). Women city managers were also likely to express attitudes that favor the incorporation of citizens and facilitate communication (Fox and Schuhmann 1999).

The majority of studies on leadership behavior have been conducted in U.S. settings. However, there is some research from other countries as well, including Brazil. Overall, these studies echo previous findings, suggesting that men and women’s leadership styles differ on several dimensions. In a study of Latin American business executives, Consuelo Cárdenas et al. (2014) found that women believed that their leadership styles differ from men executives, specifically because women are more sensitive and emotional. Women managers in Nicaragua and Costa Rica also perceived gender differences and suggested that women are more relationship oriented and participative than men (Osland, Snyder, and Hunter 1998). Studies of Brazilian business managers suggest that women are likely to value honesty and compassion and present a leadership style that is more related to people than to tasks (Grzybovski, Boscarin, and Migott 2002). Other studies of Brazilian leaders find that women’s styles are more flexible (Corsini and de Souza Filho 2004) and democratic (Thon et al. 2012). However, some studies report no differences in the leadership styles of Brazilian men and women (Gomes et al. 2011; Silva dos Santos and Antunes 2013).

Studying Gender and Behavior in Brazilian Municipalities

I study whether women’s leadership styles differ from their male counterparts using data from over 5,500 municipalities in Brazil during the 2005–2008 term. Brazilian municipalities provide a useful research design for several reasons. Because municipalities are smaller units of government, local leaders may be better situated to open opportunities for citizen participation in the policymaking process. Opening formal venues for popular participation at higher levels of government may not be feasible in practice.¹ However, at the local level, it may be easier for elected officials to institute participatory mechanisms because political processes and outcomes can be better tailored to the preferences of a smaller group of citizens.

Municipalities in Brazil are highly decentralized (Falleti 2010; Samuels 2004), so mayors have substantial autonomy and decision-making power. The 1988 Constitution provides mayors with significant authority that they can exercise with relatively few checks on their power (Wampler 2007). As mayors in Brazil are so powerful, this should be one of the most likely cases in which the preferences of elected officials match their actual behaviors. In addition, as the constitution encourages citizen participation, mayors who value the inclusion of citizens may be especially likely to adopt participatory institutions. Thus, the mayoral office in Brazil should be the context in which women would be most expected to facilitate channels of popular participation if their leadership styles are really more inclusive than men’s.²

This subnational research design allows for certain variables—such as electoral laws and the timing of elections—to be held constant at the national level, while simultaneously exploiting the variation in other variables—such as population, wealth, and gender of the executive—at the subnational level. About 8 percent of mayors were women during the 2005–2008 term. Despite this low percentage, women mayors do not seem to differ much from their male counterparts. Roughly the same percentages of men and women are from parties on the left, center, and right of the ideological spectrum. On average, they govern municipalities that are similar in size and urban status; however, women tend to govern poorer municipalities. Women mayors tend to be slightly younger and more educated, but the differences are small. Furthermore, a woman—Dilma Rousseff—was elected President shortly after this time period (in 2010), suggesting that a large number of Brazilian voters view women as capable political executives.

Participatory Institutions in Brazil

Since the end of authoritarianism in the 1980s, Brazil has experimented with different methods of participatory governance (Avritzer 2009). The most researched is participatory budgeting (PB). PB provides citizens with the opportunity to influence how a portion of the municipal budget is to be spent (Cabannes 2004; Souza 2001; Wampler 2007; Wampler and Avritzer 2004). In 2005–2008, 102 of Brazil’s 252 municipalities with more than one hundred thousand residents had PB.³ The design of PB varies greatly from one municipality to the next. These systems vary in terms of their level of institutionalization and sustainability, the size of funds being deliberated, the amount of influence that citizens have over the budget, and the way that citizens are incorporated into the budgetary process. Overall, research concludes that these institutions help reduce clientelistic practices, improve the distribution of scarce resources, enhance public deliberation and negotiation, and fortify Brazil’s democratic government.

A less researched, yet just as common, form of participation in Brazil is local participatory policy councils (conselhos municipais). These councils represent the most significant constitutional effort to disperse political authority in Brazilian municipalities and were designed to be public spaces for deliberation between state and civil society actors and representative of different groups in the population (Avritzer 2009; Coelho 2006; Cornwall 2008; Houtzager and Lavalle 2010; Lavalle, Acharya, and Houtzager 2005; Wampler 2007). This form of institutionalized participation was created as an effort to reduce corruption and clientelism and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public services (Barth 2006).

The councils are legally required to follow the rule of parity, so that there is an equal number of state and civil society representatives on the council. (For example, if a council has fourteen members, seven should be government representatives and seven should represent civil society.) However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as in the case of health and food security councils that may be composed of 25 percent government representatives, 25 percent representatives of NGOs, and 50 percent consumers of public services. Council members are nominated or elected by their institutions in the case of government representatives and by civil society in the case of civil society representatives. The participatory councils are established through municipal legislation, so the particular structure of each council varies.

The participation of the public in some policy areas, such as health, social assistance, and education is mandated by the 1988 Brazilian Constitution (Articles 198, 204, 205). Municipalities are legally required to have five councils: Conselho Municipal de Saúde (health), Conselho de Assistência Social (social assistance), Conselho de Controle Social do Bolsa Família (social welfare program), Conselho do Fundef (elementary education program), and Conselho de Alimentação Escolar (school meals). These mandatory councils are designed to inform municipal decisions about how to spend federally transferred funds in these areas. As of 2008, approximately 97 percent of municipalities had a council for health, 95 percent had one for Fundef, and 98 percent had one for school meals.⁴ Initiating participatory councils in other areas is voluntary, so there is a lot of variation in the number and types of additional participatory councils that exist in each municipality (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Number of Municipalities that Have Adopted Each Policy Council.

Policy council	Number of adoptions in 2005–2008	Number of adoptions prior to 2005	Total number of adoptions up to 2008
Health care^a	471	4,756	5,227
Children and adolescents’ rights	856	4,046	4,902
Education	1,021	3,222	4,243
Environment	1,086	1,712	2,798
Housing/habitation	1,480	561	2,041
Rights of the elderly	886	968	1,854
Culture	539	739	1,278
Urban policy and development	606	276	882
Sports	156	423	579
Women’s rights	272	275	547
Public safety	200	319	519
Rights of disabled persons	278	186	464
Transportation	105	204	309
Rights of the youth	158	114	272
Racial equality	75	61	136
Human rights	30	44	74
LGBT rights	2	2	4

N municipalities: 5,558. Additional councils may exist. As of 2009: 5,466 municipalities had a Tutelary Council; 5,260 had a FUNDEF (Fundo de Mantenção e Desenvolvimento do Ensino Fundamental e de Valorização do Magistério) Council^a; 4,284 had a School Council; 5,459 had a School Meals Council^a; 2,197 had a School Transportation Council; and 931 had a Community of Safety Council. These councils are not included in the analyses because the year of adoption is not reported. LGBT = lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

Participation is mandated.

In 2009, the Brazilian federal government included several questions on its annual survey of municipalities (Pesquisa de Informações Básicas Municipais) to collect information about the participatory policy councils that exist in each municipality and the year in which each council was established. In total, the survey asked about the year of adoption for seventeen participatory councils. Table 1 lists the policy purview of each council as well as how many municipalities adopted each council. These participatory policy councils, along with PB institutions, provide useful measures of the mayor’s efforts to increase citizen participation in governmental affairs. Adopting one of these types of institutions signals that the mayor is willing to govern in a more participatory way by conceding some power to his or her constituents or by being willing to listen to the preferences of citizens through a formalized channel of communication.

Mayors who do not comply with the legal requirements for participation run the chance of being audited by the federal government (Tribunal de Contas) and potentially risk losing state and/or federal transfers and facing impeachment. However, initiating participation in other areas is voluntary, and mayors may have incentives to increase participation in areas that go beyond the constitutional mandate for several reasons. These incentives can be broadly categorized into three groups: (1) personal incentives, (2) incentives from the public, or (3) political incentives.

The mayor’s gender falls into the first category. Socialization experiences or compliance with gendered norms and expectations may cause women to prefer more participatory ways of governing. In addition, personal characteristics, including age and education, or ideology (Donaghy 2011), might incentivize the mayor. The second category includes public demands for participation. Avritzer (2009) discusses the fundamental role that civil society organizations (CSOs) played in the development of the first council in São Paulo in 1979. Two popular movements, one led by health professionals and the other by poor people lacking health care, led to the creation of the first participatory council, which then led to the mandates for participation included in the constitution (Avritzer 2009, 119). CSOs are argued to play a role in the adoption of voluntary councils as well (Donaghy 2011). The final category includes political or electoral incentives that the mayor may face. As Wampler (2004, 82) suggests, politicians may use participatory institutions “as a means to create new bases of political support.” CSOs can help politicians campaign, mobilize voters, and distribute informational materials, so officials may be inclined to implement participatory institutions as a way to increase interactions with CSOs, suggesting that motivation to increase participation can stem from electoral concerns as well.

Data and Variables

I use several dependent variables to measure whether the mayor’s leadership style is pro-participation, including the adoption of participatory budgeting, the total number of participatory councils adopted, and the adoption of participatory councils in sixteen specific areas.⁵ As the same council cannot be adopted twice, each analysis is limited to the municipalities that do not currently have that particular council (i.e., municipalities that adopted the council prior to 2005 are omitted).⁶ The analysis for PB is limited to municipalities with more than one hundred thousand residents due to data availability; however, the analyses for participatory councils include all municipalities. The data cover one mayoral term (2005–2008), and the adoption of a participatory institution at any point during this term is counted as part of the mayor’s efforts to increase participation.⁷

Aside from the mayor’s gender, other characteristics might influence the mayor’s decision to increase citizen participation. For this reason, the analyses control for the mayor’s age, education, party affiliation, and whether the mayor is eligible for re-election. The mayor’s gender is coded 1 for a woman and 0 for a man. The mayor’s age is a continuous variable and education is a categorical variable that indicates the highest level of education completed by the mayor.⁸ The mayor’s party affiliation is classified as left, center, right, or unclassified based on Power and Zucco’s (2009, 2012) classifications of Brazilian parties using surveys of national legislators.⁹ Mayors are ineligible for re-election if they have already served two consecutive terms in office, so this variable is coded 1 for mayors who are serving for a second term (i.e., ineligible for re-election) and 0 for mayors serving their first term.

Characteristics of the municipality and municipal government might also influence the mayor’s decision to open avenues for popular participation. Although power is mostly concentrated in the executive branch in Brazil (Power and Mochel 2008; Samuels 2003), the municipal legislature does have some formal powers that could constrain the mayor’s behaviors (Wampler 2004).¹⁰ In addition, having a larger municipal legislature might mean that many voices are already represented, and therefore, participatory institutions seem less necessary.¹¹ For this reason, I control for the size of the municipal legislature, the percentage of the legislature that is from the same political party as the mayor, and the percentage of women in the legislature.

To account for public demands for participation, I also control for the size of the municipal population, the percentage of the population residing in an urban area, and the average monthly income of municipal residents. As demands for participatory institutions are likely to increase as the size and strength of civil society increases, I include a control for the number of NGOs that exist in each municipality per thousand residents. Finally, in the analyses for participatory councils, I control for the number of councils that were adopted in the municipality prior to 2005. Mayors in municipalities with many participatory councils may be unlikely to adopt more councils. However, mayors in municipalities with few councils may decide to adopt more participatory councils to increase participation in different policy areas.

Empirical Analyses and Results

Table 2 presents the results of a logistic regression, where the dependent variable equals one if the mayor adopted PB while in office. The results suggest that women mayors are not significantly more likely than men to adopt PB—at least in large municipalities (>100,000 residents). This finding is echoed in the results presented in Table 3, where the dependent variable is a count of the total number of participatory councils adopted between 2005 and 2008. Results from this regression (using all municipalities) suggest that there is no statistically significant difference in the overall number of councils adopted by men and women. From this evidence, we might conclude that women mayors in Brazil are not significantly more likely than their male counterparts to increase opportunities for citizen participation. However, given that previous research has found that men and women often prioritize different policy areas (Barnes 2012; Jones 1997; Thomas 1994), men and women might also prioritize increasing participation in certain policy areas over others.

Table 2.

Are Municipalities with Women Mayors Likely to Have Participatory Budgeting?

Woman mayor	−0.024
	(0.576)
Age of mayor	0.012
	(0.017)
Mayor’s education	0.112
	(0.125)
Ineligible for re-election	−0.803*
	(0.333)
Mayor party left	1.724***
	(0.370)
Mayor party right	−0.128
	(0.434)
Mayor party unclassified	1.793^†
	(0.997)
Size of municipal legislature	0.016
	(0.059)
% Women municipal legislature	−0.005
	(0.014)
% Legislature of mayor’s party	0.056***
	(0.015)
Population (logged)	0.432
	(0.455)
% Urban population	0.028
	(0.024)
Average income of residents	−0.001
	(0.001)
NGOs per 1,000 people	−0.299
	(0.300)
Constant	−9.942^†
	(5.386)
Pseudo R²	.180
Observations	252

Results from a logistic regression. Standard errors in parentheses. Dependent variable equals 1 if PB was adopted in 2005–2008. Sample limited to municipalities >100,000 residents. PB = participatory budgeting. NGO = nongovernmental organization.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 3.

Do Women Adopt More Participatory Councils than Men?

Woman mayor	−0.061
	(0.045)
Age of mayor	0.003*
	(0.001)
Mayor’s education	0.023**
	(0.008)
Ineligible for re-election	−0.171***
	(0.028)
Mayor party left	0.169***
	(0.033)
Mayor party right	0.021
	(0.029)
Mayor party unclassified	0.014
	(0.065)
Size of municipal legislature	−0.008
	(0.006)
% Women municipal legislature	−0.000
	(0.001)
% Legislature of mayor’s party	0.001
	(0.001)
Population (logged)	0.260***
	(0.013)
% Urban population	0.004***
	(0.001)
Average income of residents	0.001***
	(0.000)
NGOs per 1,000 people	0.026***
	(0.006)
No. of councils before 2005	−0.118***
	(0.008)
Constant	−2.703***
	(0.138)
Alpha	0.122
Pseudo R²	.047
Observations	5,546

Results from a negative binomial regression analysis. Standard errors in parentheses. Dependent variable is a count of the number of councils adopted in 2005–2008. NGO = nongovernmental organization.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Using a series of sixteen logistic analyses, I examine whether women are more likely to adopt participatory councils in certain policy domains. The dependent variable for each model is coded 1 if the mayor adopted a participatory council for that policy area and coded 0 if no council was adopted.¹² Results suggest that there are statistically significant differences in the likelihood that men and women mayors will adopt councils in four areas: women’s rights, children’s rights, health care, and sports. Figure 1 shows the predicted probability that men and women will adopt certain councils holding control variables at their mean values. These estimates suggest that men are nearly twice as likely as women to adopt a council for women’s rights (p = .017 for women and p = .031 for men). Men are also significantly more likely to adopt a council for children’s rights (p = .487 for women and p = .580 for men) and health care (p = .426 for women and p = .613 for men) compared with women mayors. Women, however, are significantly more likely than men to adopt a participatory council for sports (p = .032 for women and p = .020 for men).

Figure 1.

Probability that men and women will adopt certain participatory councils.

Regarding the control variables, mayors who are older and better educated are more likely to adopt participatory institutions, while mayors who are ineligible to run for re-election are significantly less likely to adopt participatory institutions in almost all areas. Mayors from leftist parties are also more likely to increase participation, relative to mayors from center parties. The size of the municipal legislature appears to decrease the probability of adopting participatory institutions, while a larger percentage of legislators from the mayor’s party increases it for some models. The percentage of women in the legislature does not appear to have a significant effect. The probability of adopting participatory institutions also increases as the population, percentage of population in an urban area, and average income of citizens increases. The presence of NGOs also appears to increase the overall number of councils that are adopted. Finally, the number of policy councils adopted prior to 2005 appears to have a negative relationship with the total number of councils adopted in 2005–2008. However, this variable has a positive effect on almost all of the individual councils, suggesting that mayors are likely to adopt certain institutions if other types of participatory institutions already exist in the municipality.

Discussion

The results of this study suggest that women leaders are not inherently more participatory than men. Women are not more likely to adopt PB and do not adopt more participatory policy councils than men. Women are more likely than men to adopt a council for sports; however, men are more likely than women to adopt councils for women’s rights, children’s rights, and health care.

There are several possible explanations for these results. The first is that the mayoralty in Brazil is a gendered institution, and women mayors are adapting to the leadership styles of men. Acker (1992, 567) defines an institution as gendered if “gender is present in the processes, practices, distribution of power, and images and ideologies” of the institution. Less than 10 percent of mayors are women, so it is possible that newly elected women act similar to their male counterparts because they assimilate to the institutional roles that have typically been filled by men (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995; Lovenduski 1986; Reingold 1996). Furthermore, if the mayoralty is a gendered institution, then women may feel obligated to emphasize leadership traits that are tied to masculinity to display the characteristics expected of a leader. If women emphasize a different image of leadership, they risk being seen as unfit for their leadership role, “as indecisive, soft, and not assertive enough” (Stivers 2002, 72).

A second explanation for these results is the Brazilian political context. Given that the Brazilian government encourages citizen participation in the policymaking process—and even legally mandates it in some policy areas —both men and women elected officials may be especially likely to value citizen participation, and thus, gender differences may be minimized in this aspect. Future research may find greater gender differences in contexts where participation is not as highly emphasized.

A third reason for these findings may be that there is a disjuncture between the preferences and behaviors of women elected officials. Studies that find that women’s leadership styles are more participatory than men’s often rely on self-reported data about women’s preferences toward participation. It could be that (1) women do prefer to be more participatory, but their actions are constrained by the environments in which they work or (2) women do not actually prefer to be more participatory but think that this trait is viewed as a desirable characteristic of women leaders, so they offer responses that are socially desirable but do not act according to these expressed preferences.

One of the most plausible explanations for these findings is that both men and women leaders are strategic in their decisions to increase citizen participation in particular policy areas. It appears that mayors are being strategic in how they present themselves to their constituents and in which areas they open up to participation. Women are not more inclusive across all policy areas. Rather, women are likely to increase participation in an area that is not traditionally considered feminine—sports. Men also appear to be acting strategically by opening up avenues for participation in areas that are not traditionally masculine—women’s rights, children’s rights, and health care.¹³ These findings suggest that mayors are likely to increase participation in areas that appeal to constituents of the opposite gender and distance the mayor from stereotypes that are tied to his or her gender. Increasing participation in a masculine (feminine) policy area may allow women (men) to present themselves as well-rounded, as prioritizing not only feminine policy areas but also masculine ones.

Further indication that the decision to increase participation is a strategic choice is provided by the finding that mayors who are ineligible to run for re-election are less likely to adopt participatory institutions, while mayors from leftists parties, highly educated mayors, and mayors of large, urban, and wealthy municipalities with a large number of NGOs are more likely to adopt these institutions. If the mayor cannot compete for re-election, then there is little need for him or her to increase participation as a way of appealing to voters. But, if there are high demands for participation, it may be strategic for mayors to create formal channels for citizen inclusion. It appears that factors other than the mayor’s gender largely determine whether the mayor will adopt participatory institutions in most policy areas.

To illustrate this interpretation of the results, consider the case of Osasco, São Paulo—a city with an urban population of about seven hundred thousand. A man, Emídio Pereira de Souza, was elected as mayor of Osasco in 2004. Mayor de Souza is from the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), is college educated, and served his first term as mayor in 2005–2008. During his first year in office, de Souza authorized the creation of a participatory council for women’s rights (Ordinance No. 3980 of December 27, 2005). A speaker at the public forum announcing the creation of the council attributed much credit to the mayor, stating, “Thanks to the support of the municipal government and to the interests of the mayor in racial and gender equality, we continue to advance. It was not easy, but we’ve obtained many achievements.”¹⁴ The mayor himself was quick to boast his achievements in the area of women’s equality, highlighting that he had recently hired one hundred women to the municipal guard and that one of his first measures as mayor was to create the Coordination Office of Gender and Race and the Women’s Resource Center.

In the case of Osasco, it appears that the adoption of a women’s rights council was a function of the mayor’s leftist ideology and concerns for the advancement of women’s equality. Yet, in his boastful rhetoric regarding his record on advancing women’s equality, it appears that de Souza was making attempts to appeal to women constituents to garner political support. Mayor de Souza would go on to adopt several other participatory institutions during his first term in office and would successfully secure re-election in 2008 to serve another term as mayor of Osasco. The quantitative evidence presented above, along with the anecdote offered here, suggests that the creation of participatory institutions is driven by electoral concerns and that these institutions may be viewed as a tool for building political support.

Conclusion

As the number of women leaders increases, it is important to know whether women have different styles of leading and whether these styles will ultimately result in different outcomes. Knowing whether men and women have different approaches to governing is important because these differences could ultimately impact policy outcomes, public opinion, representation, and the functioning of democratic institutions. Do women lead in a way that is more participatory? This question was explored within the context of Brazilian municipalities by examining whether women mayors were more likely than men to adopt different types of participatory institutions. The results of the study suggest that the answer to this question is no—at least in the context considered here. Women’s styles of leadership are not inherently more participatory than men’s. Rather, the decision to increase participation in a certain area is likely a strategic choice made by the mayor.

Mayors behave strategically by attempting to appeal to constituents of the opposite gender and acting in ways that defy gender stereotypes. For men, this means presenting themselves as participatory and concerned with traditionally feminine issues related to women, children, and health. For women, this means drawing attention away from stereotypes about women’s leadership behaviors and increasing participation in masculine areas, like sports. However, the gender of the executive was not statistically significant for most models, suggesting that the decision to increase participation is largely a function of other factors, including ideology, public demands for participation, and political concerns. The finding that mayors who are ineligible for re-election are significantly less likely to adopt participatory institutions implies that these institutions may be viewed as potential sources of political support and may be created as part of an election ploy. Future research should explore the generalizability of these results. Women might adopt different styles of leading after they reach a numerical critical mass and their gender is not considered so exceptional.¹⁵

There are several ways that future research on this topic can improve the existing literature. The first is by examining whether women’s stated preferences about leadership styles align with their observed behaviors. Research on women legislators in Latin America suggests that women’s policy preferences might not always match their behaviors (Schwindt-Bayer 2006, 2010), so this seems to be a fruitful area for future research. The second avenue is to analyze whether having a woman leader produces different policy outcomes than having a male leader, and whether this is due to differences in leadership styles or to some other difference. The third is exploring the contexts under which men and women are likely to behave similarly or differently. Group dynamics, institutional rules and norms, or other contextual factors might impact the behaviors of men and women, and this area should be explored further. Finally, future research should use multiple methods and measures to assess whether the preferences and behaviors of men and women leaders differ on a number of dimensions.

Footnotes

Appendix

Table A4.

Are Women More Likely to Adopt Participatory Councils? (Models 12–16).

	(12) Sports	(13) Urban policy	(14) Housing	(15) Transportation	(16) Public safety
Woman mayor	0.484^†	0.194	0.072	−0.069	0.228
	(0.273)	(0.169)	(0.119)	(0.391)	(0.249)
Age of mayor	0.007	0.008	−0.001	0.011	−0.008
	(0.009)	(0.005)	(0.004)	(0.011)	(0.008)
Mayor’s education	0.068	−0.003	0.018	0.039	0.042
	(0.056)	(0.030)	(0.020)	(0.069)	(0.049)
Ineligible for re-election	−0.716***	−0.282*	−0.256***	−0.657**	−0.319^†
	(0.217)	(0.112)	(0.075)	(0.255)	(0.179)
Mayor party left	0.137	0.154	0.233**	0.089	0.302
	(0.212)	(0.126)	(0.089)	(0.262)	(0.190)
Mayor party right	−0.267	−0.047	−0.021	0.024	−0.038
	(0.207)	(0.116)	(0.077)	(0.250)	(0.185)
Mayor party unclassified	−0.033	−0.085	−0.211	−0.645	0.312
	(0.485)	(0.260)	(0.178)	(0.753)	(0.362)
Size of municipality legislature	−0.009	−0.083**	−0.036	−0.067^†	−0.018
	(0.029)	(0.027)	(0.022)	(0.037)	(0.029)
% women municipal legislature	−0.006	−0.001	−0.000	−0.016^†	−0.002
	(0.007)	(0.004)	(0.003)	(0.009)	(0.006)
% legislature of mayor’s party	0.008	0.000	0.004^†	0.008	−0.007
	(0.006)	(0.003)	(0.002)	(0.007)	(0.005)
Population (logged)	0.282**	0.836***	0.282***	0.904***	0.270***
	(0.093)	(0.056)	(0.036)	(0.123)	(0.079)
% urban population	0.003	0.004	0.005**	0.016*	0.012*
	(0.005)	(0.003)	(0.002)	(0.008)	(0.005)
Average income of residents	0.002***	0.002***	0.000	−0.000	0.001
	(0.001)	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.001)	(0.001)
NGOs per 1,000 people	0.070^†	0.097***	0.133***	0.176***	0.009
	(0.036)	(0.023)	(0.016)	(0.043)	(0.042)
No. of councils before 2005	0.175***	0.078**	0.218***	0.046	0.102*
	(0.052)	(0.030)	(0.023)	(0.060)	(0.044)
Constant	−9.239***	−12.010***	−4.834***	−14.681***	−7.185***
	(0.916)	(0.597)	(0.407)	(1.240)	(0.807)

Pseudo R²	.108	.193	.075	.174	.075
Observations	5,123	5,270	4,985	5,342	5,204

Results from logistic regressions. The dependent variable equals 1 if the council was adopted between 2005 and 2008 and 0 if the council was not adopted. Municipalities in which the council existed prior to 2005 were not included in the analyses. NGO = nongovernmental organization.

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to Maria Escobar-Lemmon, Kenneth Meier, Manuel Teodoro, Claudia Avellaneda, and Ricardo Gomes for providing useful comments on earlier versions of this project. I thank anonymous reviewers and the editors for their comments, which have improved this article significantly. All remaining errors are my own.

Author’s Note

The data used for this study and replication code are available from the author upon request or are available at .

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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