Dominion status and the Commonwealth transition

Dominion status appears here as a form of gradual decolonisation and the Commonwealth as the institutional successor Britain had been developing for decades. Colonial rule had left many societies politically imbalanced, so representative government and peaceful transfers of power required time to become habits. The Commonwealth offered a structure through which formal control could recede without ending every political and economic connection. Its later admission of countries without a British colonial past suggests that the association acquired value beyond its imperial origins.