On average, over many decades, both rich and poor countries have tended to become more democratic; however, the rich countries have tended to democratize faster than the developing countries. But the colonizing countries (Britain, France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Germany, the United States, and Italy) have tended to democratize less rapidly than similarly high-income countries that
... [Show full abstract] never had colonies; and the colonies and former colonies have tended to democratize more rapidly than similarly low-income countries that were never colonies. The net effect of colonial rule is therefore to promote convergence (on average, with exceptions for some empires). V-Dem is the only democracy measurement project that rates colonial periods, making it possible to distinguish, for the first time, the impact of colonial rule on democratization before independence from the impact after independence. As one might expect, the average effects tend to be stronger during the colonial period than after colonies became independent. So far we find no impact of occupation, which neither promotes nor hinders democratization on average, doubtless because there have been many different types of occupation.