Lowering the Voting Age to 16: Causes and Consequences

Abstract

The question of what the voting age should be in democratic societies has resurfaced across the world in recent years. In the 1960s and 1970s there was a debate concerning a possible change in the voting age from 20 or 21 to 18, and most countries concluded that debate by lowering the voting age. In the past decade-and-a-half, a number of countries have discussed a further reform that would give voting rights to 16-year-olds. A few countries, such as Austria, have decided to lower the voting age to 16, and others, such as Estonia, are in the process of implementing a similar change. In some instances, a lower voting age has been used for specific elections (e.g. the independence referendum in Scotland), or tried out in selected municipalities (e.g. Norway). However, most democracies in Europe and elsewhere have not made any changes to voting age rules. We have yet to see a wave of voting age changes like the ones we saw in the 1960s and 1970s. Recent developments have spurred a debate in civil society, among (and within) political parties, as well as in academia about the voting age issue. Initial research in this area often had a normative purpose (see e.g. Chan & Clayton 2006; Electoral Commission 2004; Hart & Atkins 2011), but over time attention has shifted to a greater prevalence of empirical studies. The latter category of research tends to focus of the political behavior of young voters and on the readiness of young people to be participants in the political process (see e.g. Bergh 2013; Zeglovits & Aichholzer 2014; Wagner et. al. 2012). However, this is an expanding area of research. The purpose of this panel is to present fresh empirical research on changes in voting age restrictions, and on the political behavior of the potential new group of young voters. We aim to bring together research from different countries that have introduced or discussed lowering the voting age to 16. The panel will include papers that address different aspects of a lowered voting age: 1) the policy process that leads to a change in voting age restrictions; 2) the participation and voting behavior of young voters; and 3) the effects of a lower voting age on the political representation of youth.

Title	Details
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Who benefits from lowering the voting age to 16? Exploring stratification amongst young Scots	View Paper Details