Madison Schramm

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. I am also a Non-resident Senior Fellow in the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center. Previously, I was an Assistant Professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College (2021-2022), a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University (2020-2021), the Postdoctoral Fellow in Innovative Approaches to Grand Strategy at the International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame (2019-2020) and the Hillary Rodham Clinton Research Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security (2018-2019). I received my PhD from Georgetown University in Government (2019) and my dissertation, entitled “Making Meaning and Making Monsters: Democracies, Personalist Regimes, and International Conflict,” was the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth N. Waltz Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association’s International Security Section.

My research focuses on international security, the domestic politics of foreign policy, political psychology, and gender and foreign policy. My current book project explores the dynamics that intensify conflict between democracies and personalist regimes. Much of the recent political science scholarship has been devoted to explaining why democracies don’t go to war with one another, but there is still relatively little work on the particular dynamics that mark the relationship between democratic governments and autocratic regimes. My project illustrates that while countries ruled by personalist dictators are two to three times more likely to be targeted by democracies, they are no more likely to be targeted by other autocratic regimes. This suggests that there is something that predisposes democracies to oppose personalism more actively than other forms of authoritarian rule. The manuscript builds on work in political science, psychology, and sociology using archival research and statistical analysis. The proposed explanation emphasizes the role of social identity theory and cognitive biases in shaping democratic elites’ threat perception.

I have published peer-reviewed research exploring gender and conflict initiation (Security Studies), democratic constitutional systems and conflict (Political Science Quarterly and the Journal of Global Security Studies), and diversity and inclusion in post-conflict states (in Untapped Power, Oxford University Press 2022). I have working papers in progress and articles under review exploring the relationship between gender and corruption; variations in democratic threat perception; instability and the election of women heads of government; and the temporal variation in US covert action. You can find more information about these and other ongoing research projects on the "Research" page.

My commentary and reviews have been published in Foreign Affairs, Perspectives on Politics, the Texas National Security Review, the Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, Inkstick, the Duck of Minerva, and CFR.org and my research and analyses have been cited in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Jerusalem Post. I have previously worked with the Council on Foreign Relations; the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; Yale University's Political Violence FieldLab; and the RAND Corporation. My research has been generously supported by the University of Notre Dame International Security Center, the Cosmos Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Georgetown Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Government at Georgetown University.