Revise and Resubmit, American Political Science Review
Sage Best Paper Prize in Comparative Politics, APSA 2025.
David Brian Robertson Best Paper Prize in Politics and History (co-winner), APSA 2025.

Latest version (25 June 2026)

Abstract:  The abolition of slavery in the British Empire was the product of a parliamentary bargain between abolitionists and defenders of slavery. What role did enslaved people play in this process? This article uses a variety of identification strategies to show that slave revolts in the Caribbean helped secure parliamentary support for emancipation. In particular, members of parliament were more likely to support a plan that freed enslaved people and compensated slave owners when more of their constituents owned enslaved people in colonies that experienced revolts. Evidence from colonial archives supports an economic mechanism: revolts lowered the value of enslaved people, making the compensation-for-emancipation plan more appealing to slave owners. By changing the economic incentives of those with a financial stake in the system, enslaved resistance helped bring British Caribbean slavery to an end. More broadly, these findings illustrate how popular mobilization and within-elite bargaining can interact to produce institutional change.