Contemporary democracies and the inclusion of young people. Interdisciplinary insights from youth studies on electoral reforms and minimum voting age.

The political inclusion of young people is one of the main challenges of contemporary democracies worldwide. Particularly, in regions that experienced transitions to democratic regimes in their recent history, such as Latin America and the Caribbean, this is a central subject. One of the ideas to address this issue in several countries in different regions of the world, is lowering the minimum voting age. Some countries such as Austria lowered to 16 years in 2007, Brazil in 1988, Ecuador in 2008 or Argentina in 2012. In other countries, proposals of reform have been or are discussed by political leaders. The subject is also part of recent social science research, particularly in Europe, with scholarship more centered on national case studies or wider global comparisons, particularly on the effects of these reforms. In my research I am studying the drivers of voting age electoral reforms in LAC since the democratization processes to the present from a broad comparative perspective. In this paper I will discuss the challenges and limitations for developing an interdisciplinary framework at the crossroads of youth studies, sociology, political science and history to advance on the study of contemporary democracies. I will analyze the potentialities of intersecting concepts from the field of comparative politics such as electoral reforms, with notions from the sociology and history of youth, such as age and generation. Considering the idea that the positions of political actors are oriented both by strategic considerations regarding their political survival and narratives and agendas on the role of young people, I will advance first by discussing how electoral reforms are proposed in contemporary democracies. Second, on age as a political, historical, and sociological key category and dimension for the study of politics. Finally, the paper will bring insights into democracy studies from the interdisciplinary field of youth studies.