Why Democracies Fight Dictators

Why Democracies Fight Dictators

Over the course of the last century, there has been an outsized incidence of conflict between democracies and personalist regimes--political systems where a single individual has undisputed executive power and prominence. In most cases, it has been the democratic side that has chosen to employ military force.

Building on research in political science, history, sociology, and psychology and marshalling evidence from statistical analysis of conflict, multi-archival research of American and British perceptions during the Suez Crisis and Gulf War, and non-democracies' understanding of the threat from Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, Madison V. Schramm offers a novel and nuanced explanation for patterns in escalation and hostility between liberal democracies and personalist regimes.

When conflicts of interest arise between the two types of states, Schramm argues, cognitive biases and social narratives predispose leaders in liberal democracies to perceive personalist dictators as particularly threatening and to respond with anger--an emotional response that elicits more risk acceptance and aggressive behavior.

She also locates this tendency in the escalatory dynamics that precede open military conflict: coercion, covert action, and crisis bargaining. At all of these stages, the tendency toward anger and risk acceptance contributes to explosive outcomes between democratic and personalist regimes.