What Drives Voting Age Reforms? Evidence from Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador.

Following the third wave of democratization in Latin America and the Caribbean, young people have been increasingly framed as key actors for the renewal and long-term resilience of democratic regimes. Lowering the voting age to 16 has gained traction worldwide as a policy response to the challenge of the political engagement of young citizens. Within the broader electoral reforms’ literature, changes to minimum voting age rules are generally treated as minor adjustments relative to major institutional redesigns, and existing scholarship has tended to focus on the effects of youth enfranchisement—such as political socialization and turnout—rather than on the drivers behind these reforms. As a result, the processes that enable the lowering of the voting age remain insufficiently explored, particularly in the LAC region. The paper will address this by presenting a comparative analysis of three countries that experienced transitions to democracy during this third wave, lowered the voting age to 16 with optional vote until 18, and sustained this reform over time. Brazil, in 1988’s new constitution, Ecuador, during the 2008’s constitutional reform, and Argentina, with a legislative reform in 2012. Using qualitative methods based on interviews and documentary sources, I will analyze on one hand the political context and the institutional dimensions of these reforms, taking into consideration the characteristics of the reform and for the role of the legal international framework of childhood and youth rights in the region. On the other hand, the history of these reform processes by identifying actors promoting and opposing the reform, their agendas, their representations on the relationship between age, youth and politics, their role as officialism or opposition, their ideological orientations. The paper will address key issues about the drivers of these reforms: What drives the support for these electoral reforms between adult politicians and mobilized young people? How did political actors frame the support for these reforms taking into consideration their narratives on the role of young people in democratic societies? Where these reforms supported or contested at the subnational level in federal countries such as Argentina and Brazil compared to Ecuador? Which role played the progressive turn in Latin-America during the first part of the 21st century regarding the lowering of the voting Age in Argentina and Ecuador? Which role plays the appeal to the youth in politicians’ strategies to attract voters, supporters, and activists? By examining these dimensions, the paper expects to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how and why youth enfranchisement emerges, and the evolving relationship between age, citizenship, and democratic politics in the region.