Thomas Malthus wrote his famous work An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798, and it quickly came to have a profound effect on the government policies of Western European countries and the development of several ideas, such as the theory of natural selection. It states that population will naturally increase at a greater rate than the ability of that population to sustain itself—essentially, that unchecked population growth will lead to poverty and a lower standard of living. Malthus based his theory, in part, on his belief that human reproduction operates on an exponential model whereas production operates on an arithmetic model. The British government in particular during the Industrial Revolution took Malthusian theories to heart and attempted to limit the growth of the working class.

The Decembrist Uprising began when Tsar Alexander I died with an unclear succession plan, leading to confusion in the Russian leadership. A group of Russian Army officers, calling themselves "The Union of Salvation," took the chance to try and overthrow the Tsarist regime entirely, promoting serious electoral and governmental reforms. All of the leaders of the revolt, who were called Decembrists for the month in which the revolt took place, were executed by Tsar Nicholas I in early 1826.

The Second French Republic was created in 1848, after the revolution of that same year. The revolution was primarily inspired by an uprising of the working classes against the rule of Louis Philippe; however, the Republic would only last until 1851 when it in turn would be overthrown by Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte. Louis-Napoleon was elected as the first President of the Second French Republic, but staged a coup to have himself declared Emperor Napoleon III, the first emperor of the Second French Empire.

The Edict of Fontainebleu was specifically used by King Louis XIV to drive the minority Protestant population of France out of the country. The Protestant Huguenots had been legally protected in Catholic France by the Edict of Nantes, signed by Henry IV in 1598; however, they faced certain kinds of persecution. The Edict of Fontainebleu took away all privileges, which led to hundreds of thousands of Huguenots leaving the country to move toward Protestant nations.

The Hundred Years’ War, fought between the English and the French, actually lasted for one hundred and sixteen years. Naturally, such a lengthy conflict exhausted the finances of wealthy aristocratic families of France, and as such, in the century that followed, the nobility declined in influence as the bourgeoise were welcomed (somewhat) into government and asked to finance the centralizing mission of the monarchy.

In all of these countries, the emerging middle class was welcomed into government participation, albeit often in a very limited fashion, except in Russia, where the old order of feudalism and rule through the aristocracy persisted for several more generations.

Napoleon is one of the greatest and most brutal conquerors in European history, but he is also one of the most important political reformers. His Code Napoléon became the backbone of legal codes across Europe, he created a meritocratic system in the French government, and he spread the ideals of the French revolution and nationalism around Europe. He also helped to elevate the status and self-sufficiency of the French peasant population. He reduced taxes on the peasantry and redistributed church lands (a large portion of the French countryside) into the hands of peasants and farmers.

The Great Reform Bill of 1832 is often considered to be the true beginning of universal suffrage in Britain, although it would be some time before the working class, minorities, and women were fully included in the electorate. As well as extending suffrage rights to the industrial middle class, it also got rid of the “rotten boroughs” that were so common around Britain. The last time representation in Parliament had been adjusted was the Glorious Revolution in 1688, and in the time that had passed since then, the demographic makeup of the country had changed significantly. Many of the boroughs that elected representatives no longer had more than a handful of people living there, whereas some urban areas had hundreds of thousands of people who had no representation. The Great Reform Bill of 1832 fixed this by reapportioning representation.

All of these were demands made by the Chartist movement except the demand for universal suffrage. The Chartists wanted universal male suffrage; even the radicals in the nineteenth century were rarely so daring as to demand female enfranchisement.

During the Stuart Restoration (1660-1689), the political parties of the Tories and the Whigs emerged in the British Parliament. The Whigs were generally middle-class Puritans who favored the supremacy of parliament over the monarchy and advocated for religious tolerance in Britain.