Most imperial powers in the 19th and early 20th century employed several levels of of colonial administration, and the benchmark tended to be the numbers and the level of involvement of the settler communities. In the British context, colonies like Australia, New Zealand, and Canada experienced limited indigenous involvement in government, but at the same time they hosted large and growing European settler populations. Self-government, or responsible government, was a status that most of these colonies agitated for and were eventually given. This status offered limited local autonomy under the superintendentship of a colonial governor, although typically the imperial authorities were content to let local government proceed with a minimum of interference.

Therefore, colonial governments in this context were representative of colonial society but only in regards to settler communities—not quite so much to indigenous communities.

This, however, was not universally the case. The French, for example, as early as 1914, offered representative seats in the French Chamber of Deputies to black members from the various colonies, in particular Senegal and Ivory Coast as well as certain Caribbean and South American territories.

The British, in 1892, elected an Indian member to the House of Commons, but this member represented a British constituency, not an Indian one. India did not enjoy responsible government, and so Indians in general were not given the vote. Therefore, colonial government definitely was not representative. The reason why India was not afforded the same privilege of self government as, say, Australia or Canada, is because Indians would probably have voted to leave the British Empire if they had been granted the opportunity to do so.

Again, in the British context, and similarly in the French, numerous colonies and protectorates did not host white populations any greater than that required for administration. These were governed either as protectorates or colonies, and in general it was understood that they were being groomed for independence at some point. An example of this would be Nigeria. The British had no intention of settling Nigeria in any meaningful or permanent way, and the territory was claimed only really to ensure that it did not fall to the French. The administration, therefore, was advisory, and when the time came for a handover, the handover was generally peaceful.

Kenya, Rhodesia, and of course South Africa were heavily settled by Europeans, and the history of Africa leaves no doubt that the interests of white and black on the continent did not coincide. Colonial governments in those instances were highly representative of the local electorate, almost exclusively white, and extremely non-representative of the growing political aspirations of the black majority.