Replication Data for: Do Women Make More Credible Threats? Gender Stereotypes, Audience Costs, and Crisis Bargaining

As more women attain executive office, it is important to understand how gender dynamics affect international politics. Toward this end, we present the first evidence that gender stereotypes affect leaders’ abilities to generate audience costs. Using survey experiments, we find evidence of a common gender stereotype: that men are better able to handle military crises than women. Most prominently, we find that female leaders, and male leaders facing female leaders, pay greater inconsistency costs for backing down from threats than male leaders do against fellow men. These findings point to particular advantages and disadvantages women have in international crises. Namely, female leaders are better able to tie-hands, an efficient mechanism for establishing credibility in crises. However, this bargaining advantage means female leaders will also have a harder time backing down from threats. Findings hold critical implications for debates over the effects of greater gender equality in executive offices worldwide.