ABSTRACT
England and the American colonies had other advantages, however, advantages that allowed them to nurture and finally develop sustainable democratic systems. Both time and geography were important: time enough to develop procedures and behavioral norms within constitutional structures, and geographic locations that insulated them from outside, nondemocratic threats. Germany and Japan had a measure of time, but their transitions were accelerated by the devastation of the war and the totality of the occupations. A century later, the military burdens and rivalries of the British Empire contributed to friction between London and the American colonies, and Britain soon found the costs of military occupation too great to emerge victorious; the Americans won the war for independence and established a new political system. In Germany as well, political institutions were built on earlier foundations and shaped to avoid the mistakes of Imperial Germany and the Weimar Republic.
