Exploring Children's Suffrage: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ageless Voting

This edited volume critically examines arguments for eliminating the minimum democratic voting age, exploring the diverse assumptions behind excluding children from voting rights and why these are open to question. It defines and establishes a new field of academic study and public debate around children's suffrage.

Format: Hardback
Length: 225 pages
Publication date: 02 January 2023
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG

This edited volume presents a comprehensive, critical, and interdisciplinary exploration of arguments for lowering the minimum democratic voting age. In the wake of children and youth increasingly asserting their political perspectives on crucial issues such as climate change, gun legislation, Black Lives Matter, and education reform, there is growing recognition of the need to engage in academic discourse regarding youth enfranchisement. Leading scholars from diverse fields, including childhood studies, political science, philosophy, history, law, medicine, and economics, come together in this collection to examine the various assumptions underlying the exclusion of children from voting rights and to challenge these assumptions. While the chapters may arrive at different and sometimes conflicting conclusions, they collectively dismantle the notion that voting is inherently tied to age and reconstruct a more democratic imagination capable of enfranchising the third of humanity, which consists of children and youth. As a result, this book establishes a new field of academic study and public debate surrounding children's suffrage.

Chapter "The Reform that never happened: a history of children's suffrage restrictions" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Weight: 432g
Dimension: 217 x 154 x 20 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783031145407
Edition number: 1st ed. 2022