Podcast Summary: New Books Network Episode: Madison Schramm, "Why Democracies Fight Dictators" (Oxford UP, 2025) Date: October 3, 2025 Host: Morteza Hajizadeh
Guest: Dr. Madison Schramm

Overview

This episode offers a deep dive into Dr. Madison Schramm's latest work, Why Democracies Fight Dictators (Oxford University Press, 2025). The discussion explores why, over the past 75 years, liberal democracies have shown a pronounced tendency to initiate conflicts with "personalist" dictatorships, regimes where one leader wields unrestrained power. Drawing from political science, history, sociology, and psychology, Schramm argues that this pattern is deeply rooted in the cognitive biases, social identities, and emotional responses intrinsic to liberal democratic elites. The conversation addresses both theoretical and contemporary policy implications, touching on topics like civilizational framing, historical narratives, the personalization of threats, and the practical challenges of foreign policy decision-making.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dr. Schramm’s Background and Inspiration

• Interdisciplinary Approach: Schramm’s background in political theory, history, and political psychology informs her cross-disciplinary analysis. (05:03)
• Origins of the Project: The idea sparked from reconciling Enlightenment theories of perpetual peace with critiques of democratic peace theory—a paradox where democracies, while rarely fighting one another, are as conflict-prone as autocracies, especially toward personalist regimes. (02:01)

The Book’s Central Argument

• Main Finding: Democracies disproportionately target personalist dictatorships in armed conflicts, more so than other regime types. (02:01)
• Core Explanation:
  • Cognitive Biases: Attribution bias (focus on individuals over structures) and vividness effect (give more weight to concrete, salient individuals). (07:25)
  • Social Identity: Liberal democracies' self-image as fundamentally opposed to tyranny and dictatorship, rooted in historical experience and cultivated over decades. (07:25)
  • Emotional Drivers: Anger, particularly as a response to norm violations by out-group dictators, increases risk acceptance and willingness for aggressive action. (07:25)
    • Quote: "This interaction tends to produce anger... anger, unlike fear, tends to produce more risk acceptance and a preference for aggressive action." – Schramm (11:26)

Contemporary Relevance and Manifestation

• Current Examples: Putin and Kim Jong Un viewed as canonical foes; democratic backsliding threatens to erode the very social identity that frames these conflicts. (11:26)
  • Quote: "Democratic backsliding... is the erosion of the social identity described in the book." – Schramm (12:41)

Historical Evolution of Liberal Democratic Identity

• Not a Static Phenomenon: The opposition to dictators is neither intrinsic nor timeless—it was codified in part by WWII and evolving norms about human rights and humanitarian intervention. (14:20)
  • Quote: "World War II played a really large role in codifying this [democratic identity]... dictators become the primary focal point rather than the country writ large or the population or people." – Schramm (15:31)
• Changing Narratives: Earlier eras saw different attitudes—for example, admiration for Mussolini in interwar America, later replaced by strong opposition to personalist rulers. (14:20)

The Pitfalls of Personalization

• Case Studies:
  • Syria: Media and policymakers focus on Assad as the sole problem; interest fades post-removal despite ongoing issues. (18:00)
    • Quote: "Getting rid of these individual dictators is seen as the goal. And that’s not sufficient... but because we attach so much to these individual leaders... once they're gone, even though it hasn't solved a lot of problems, we tend to lose interest." – Schramm (19:15)
  • Iran: Western focus on the president (e.g., Ahmadinejad) over the Supreme Leader, despite the real power lying elsewhere, demonstrating the impact of perception over actual institutional dynamics. (21:05)
    • Quote: "This is about perception... Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was mentioned about three or four times as often as the supreme leader... and this drove me to the book." – Schramm (22:01)

Perceived Threat vs. Actual Threat

• Material vs. Perceived Interests: Conflicts are often justified by material interests, but social identity and perceptions greatly inflate otherwise limited threats (e.g., Nasser and Suez Crisis, Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War). (24:52)
  • Quote: "We can't just look to these material issues... leaders make trade-offs, oftentimes sacrificing something we would assume to be a higher material interest in order to pursue the ousting of these leaders." – Schramm (27:09)

Civilizational Framing and Moral Justification (30:48)

• Civilizational Discourse: Liberalism, since the Enlightenment, developed a moral narrative around 'civilizing' interventions against the 'barbarian' dictator—reinforced in current policy and media language. (30:48)
  • Quote: "We can really read the civilizing process or these civilizational discourses within the history of liberal thought... it contributes and reinforces... this social identity of this barbarous other." – Schramm (32:29)
• Policy Impact: Democratic identity provides a universalizing, moral rationale for intervention.
  • Quote: "It's not just any component of social identity, but a deeply moral one... this is sincerely believed by generations of policymakers, that this is a duty, this is something good we are doing for the world." – Schramm (35:00)

Perspectives from Non-Democracies

• Divergent Framing: Non-democracies and actors in the Global South rarely personalize conflict to individual foes as existential threats; motivations are more diverse and less emotionally charged. (37:17)
  • Quote: "[They] shared in what they lacked, which was this focus on Saddam Hussein as an existential threat... rarely did they focus...on Saddam Hussein as the single existential threat animating the conflict." – Schramm (39:14)

Rethinking Democratic Foreign Policy (42:40)

• Internal Threats Ignored: Primary democratic threats now emerge internally (populism, backsliding), yet the democratic identity is still externally focused.
  • Quote: "There has been a drift in focus from the potential for these things to emerge domestically. I think authoritarianism remains a very real threat, but I think today a lot of that threat... is emerging within their own countries." – Schramm (43:13)
• Consequences of Regime Change Focus: Regime change as a policy is often ineffective, destabilizing, and rarely serves even the self-declared interests of intervening states.
  • Quote: "These rarely produce any improvement in bilateral relation... these often aren't even doing anything for the individual interests of these states." – Schramm (46:25)
• Need for Expertise and Diversity in Decision-Making: Inclusion of area experts and diverse viewpoints can help correct for cognitive rigidity and simplistic framing (e.g., the Iran power structure case).
  • Quote: "I think relying on area experts... would play an important role here." – Schramm (47:55)

Looking Ahead: Future Research

• Upcoming Works:
  • A short book on US-imposed regime changes in the Cold War.
  • Projects examining:
    • The lack of 'enemy images' in facing impersonal threats (climate, pandemics)
    • How personalizing can increase empathy and trust, not just threat perception. (49:01)
  • Quote: "...there's more research looking at how this can function on the other side... lead to improved relations... I'm interested in looking at the whole spectrum of this..." – Schramm (50:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "When conflicts of interest emerge with personalist regimes, [liberal democracies'] cognitive framework tends to produce particularly explosive outcomes." – Schramm (03:40)
• "Liberal democracy and identifying these individual dictators as liberal democracy's primary opponents strengthen the tendency of the vividness effect and attribution bias..." – Schramm (10:19)
• "Being a symbol domestically... you want to be a popular authority domestically, but you want to avoid being a symbol or a target potentially internationally." – Schramm on Iran's Supreme Leader (23:48)
• "Often the logical prescription... is regime change, is policies that are designed to overthrow them or oust them...and as we’ve seen...this has had disastrous consequences." – Schramm (44:41)
• "[Regime change policies] rarely produce any improvement in bilateral relation...often aren’t even doing anything for the individual interests of these states." – Schramm (46:25)
• "Experts, especially area experts, have a sophisticated understanding of what happens if you oust the sitting leader or if you pursue conflict, and also different tactics short of conflict that might work." – Schramm (47:55)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–01:06 – Intro (skip, per instructions)
• 01:07–05:03 – Dr. Schramm's background & interdisciplinary research
• 06:37–13:13 – Book’s main argument: Why democracies target personalist dictators
• 14:20–17:54 – Historical narratives: Evolution of liberal democratic identity
• 18:00–24:52 – Dangers of personalizing: Syria, Iran, Iraq; Threat perception versus reality
• 30:48–36:11 – Civilizational framing and moral justification of interventions
• 37:17–40:48 – Non-democratic perspectives on conflict and “canonical” foes
• 42:40–48:24 – Rethinking democratic foreign policy: Internal threats, regime change, and the role of expertise
• 49:01–51:38 – Schramm’s next research projects and closing

Tone & Style:
The conversation is highly analytical, thoughtful, and self-reflective. Schramm is careful to distinguish analysis from advocacy, repeatedly clarifying she is not defending dictators but examining the cognitive and social dynamics that drive policy decisions. The host echoes these concerns, anchoring the discussion in real-world contemporary relevance (examples from Syria, Iran, and Iraq) and highlighting the global implications of the research.

This episode provides an in-depth, critical look at how liberal democracies’ foreign policy is shaped not just by cold calculation, but by historically conditioned identities, cognitive biases, and deeply felt emotions—offering listeners a new lens on the much-discussed paradox of democratic conflict.