Children and the right to vote

In: Gheaus, Anca, Calder, Gideon, and De Wispelaere, Jurgen, eds. The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children. Milton: Routledge. Introduction The history of democracy is stronglySixty years ago, no European democracy allowed 18-year-olds to vote; today, no European nation denies people aged 18 the vote. The tendency is to lower the age of voting further. Voting from the age of 16 is now allowed in several countries, including Austria, Argentina and Brazil. The general question raised by these developments concerns what the final destination should be: what is the appropriate voting-rights age in a democracy?

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