In this pathbreaking empirical study, Lee and Paine illuminate the complex ways in which colonialism shaped the prospects for democracy in countries emerging from imperial rule.

Though colonial assemblies chose their speakers, the royally appointed governors sought to control the result. As trouble grew between America and Britain, the Speaker became a spokesman of the ...

(London didn't give Newfoundland the privilege of electing a House of Assembly in 1832). These colonial Houses of Assembly adopted laws but had no real power. Joseph Howe, editor of the ...