This book explores the dynamics of electoral system choice and raises questions about the democratic credentials of the early processes of democratization.

Amel Ahmed brings new historical evidence and a novel theoretical framework to bear on the study of democratization. Looking at the politics of electoral system choice at the time of suffrage expansion among early democratizers, she shows that the electoral systems used in advanced democracies today were initially devised as exclusionary safeguards to protect pre-democratic elites from the impact of democratization and, particularly, the existential threat posed by working-class mobilization. The ubiquitous use and enduring nature of these safeguards calls into question the familiar picture of democracy moving along a path of increasing inclusiveness. Instead, what emerges is a picture that is riddled with ambiguity, where inclusionary democratic reforms combine with exclusionary electoral safeguards to form a permanent part of the new democratic order. This book has important implications for our understanding of the dynamics of democratic development both in early democracies and in emerging democracies today.

'In this comparative analysis of the evolution of electoral institutions in Belgium, Britain, France, and the United States, Amel Ahmed pushes forward the agenda of 'historicizing' the study of democratization. The result is an argument that rethinks these crucial cases but also has a broader lesson: methods of exclusion and containment rather than being antithetical to democracy may, historically, have been at the heart of democracy itself. This provocative and important insight should be taken seriously by scholars of contemporary authoritarianism and democracy as well as by students of political institutions more generally.' Daniel Ziblatt, Harvard University