Amid imperial expansion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, white settlers were a tiny minority in most newer colonies, and in some cases, a non-white middle class arose that was educated in the colonizer's language and political system. This produced three main outcomes. (1) White settlers became a sizable minority in certain parts of Africa, which yielded electoral representation. Settler-minority regimes strongly opposed political rights for non-whites. (2) Settlers reversed their support for electoral institutions when their dominance was threatened. In the British West Indies in the mid-nineteenth century, white planters responded to the prospect of political control by Black politicians by disbanding their elected legislatures and accepting direct British Crown rule. (3) In some colonies with few settlers, a non-white middle class educated in the colonizer's language emerged. These elites were especially strong in the major port cities in South Asia and West Africa, and in colonies with emancipated slaves. Non-white elites in these areas gained representation by the 1920s, although with limited autonomy and a narrow franchise.

This chapter develops a theoretical framework centered on three actors: metropolitan officials, white settlers, and non-Europeans. Colonists could pressure the colonial state through lobbying/agitation, nonparticipation, and revolt; and metropolitan officials could respond by offering electoral concessions. What mattered? (1) Metropoles with pluralistic institutions should be more responsive to demands for electoral representation. (2) Sizable white settlements should trigger early electoral institutions (prodemocratic effect), but resistance by smaller settler minorities to franchise expansion could undermine the democratic foundations created by early elections (antidemocratic effect). (3) Where local elites were weak, non-Europeans should not gain early elections. Instead, they would move rapidly to mass-franchise elections with high autonomy after World War II, when the threat of revolt spiked. In cases with a large non-white middle class, we expect early elections with small franchises and low autonomy, which should broaden peacefully over time. Finally, cases with a national monarch should correspond with high autonomy but without meaningful electoral bodies.

Colonial electoral institutions influenced postindependence democracy levels. (1) Lengthy democratic exposure under colonialism usually produced stable postcolonial democracies. Often, a non-white middle class pushed for and participated in elections for multiple decades prior to independence. Early colonial elections involved a tiny segment of the population, but electoral reforms deepened over time and yielded institutionalized parties. After independence, institutionalized parties and democratically socialized elites acted as a buffer against military coups and executive power grabs. Some settler colonies followed this path as well. (2) Many colonies inherited democratic-looking institutions at independence, but these institutions reflected relatively shallow, post-WWII concessions. Few colonies with short colonial pluralism were democratic within a decade of independence, although some experienced post-Cold War democratization episodes. (3) Other colonies gained no meaningful electoral experience. Regimes established by successful anticolonial rebels and monarchies monopolized military power and constructed durable authoritarian regimes after independence.

This chapter summarizes the main findings thematically, including the theory (actors, goals, and strategic options), the pluralism of metropolitan institutions, the dual effects of white settlers, pressure from non-Europeans, and postcolonial persistence. We also develop broader implications for numerous segments of the democratization literature, including top-down democratic transitions, social classes and democratization, democratic sequencing, dominant-party democracies, non-Western institutions and democracy, and international democracy promotion.

Prospects for successful mass revolts increased dramatically after 1945, but the pace of reform and approaches to decolonization varied. Some colonizers moved to mass-franchise elections and high autonomy, ending with formal independence – whereas others sought to cling to power. This yielded three main outcomes. (1) Franchise size and legislative autonomy expanded rapidly in most colonies ruled by democratic powers. These processes tended to occur earlier when left-wing governments were in power, who were less tied to the colonial project. (2) White settler elites and the governing class in authoritarian metropoles opposed empowerment for non-whites, who they perceived as an existential threat to their social status and economic rents. This prompted anticolonial revolts by disenfranchised Africans and Arabs. (3) Colonial officials sometimes granted autonomy to nonelectoral institutions if doing so would avoid revolt and be acceptable to metropolitan opinion. This desire led to a distinct type of authoritarian decolonization, prevalent among British colonies, in which the colonizer handed off power to a national monarch.

Why are some countries more democratic than others? For most non-European countries, elections began under Western colonial rule. However, existing research largely overlooks these democratic origins. This book analyzes a global sample of colonies across four centuries to explain the emergence of colonial electoral institutions and their lasting impact. The degree of democracy in the metropole, the size of the white settler population, and pressure from non-Europeans shaped the timing and form of colonial elections. White settlers and non-white middle classes educated in the colonizer’s language usually gained early elections, but settler minorities resisted subsequent franchise expansion. Authoritarian metropoles blocked elections entirely. Countries with lengthy exposure to competitive colonial institutions tended to consolidate democracies after independence. By contrast, countries with shorter electoral episodes usually shed democratic institutions, and countries that were denied colonial elections consolidated stable dictatorships. Regime trajectories shaped by colonial rule persist to the present day.

Before the nineteenth century, most European colonies were located in the New World. British colonies experienced more electoral competition because of parliamentary institutions at home. British-settled colonies in North America, the West Indies, and Oceania routinely gained fully elected assemblies shortly after settlement. However, the early British empire was far from democratic: voting rights were confined to white property-owning men, London occasionally pushed back on settlers’ policymaking autonomy (prompting the American Revolution), and colonies with Catholic or convict populations experienced long delays before gaining electoral representation. Prior to the French Revolution, colonists in the French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires lacked electoral representation beyond the municipal level. Afterward, political transformations in authoritarian metropoles triggered reforms to colonial institutions. France fluctuated between democratic and authoritarian institutions after the French Revolution, and colonial institutions closely tracked metropolitan patterns. Spain and Portugal engaged in abortive electoral reforms in their colonies, which preceded the dissolution of their American empires.