Going green or making green? The effects of partisanship and inflation on environmental executive orders, 1945−2020

Abstract

AbstractWhile a growing body of scholarship examines US presidential unilateralism, there remains less focus on policy‐specific areas of unilateral action. Given environmental politics is a particularly constrained and contentious issue area, understanding the conditions that affect the frequency of presidents' environment‐related unilateral activity requires a more nuanced examination. As such, this study draws upon existing theories of unilateralism to explore the relationship between environmental executive orders, Congress, the economy, and environmental disasters in the United States between 1945 and 2020. A broad examination of environmental executive orders provides evidence to suggest that while Democratic presidents are more likely to issue environmental executive orders compared to Republican presidents, presidents are generally more likely to issue environmental executive orders in response to higher inflation. A second analysis using a subset of these data further indicates Democratic presidents are more likely to issue environmental executive orders following technological disasters and that the frequency of these orders increases when their partisanship changes from that of the previous president. Collectively, these findings serve to broaden our current understanding of US presidential unilateralism by providing important linkages between executive power, the environment, and the economy.