Votes on behalf of children: a legitimate way of giving them a voice in politics?

Stephan Wolf (), Nils Goldschmidt () and Thomas Petersen ()

Constitutional Political Economy, 2015, vol. 26, issue 3, 356-374

Abstract: This article argues that the widely accepted principle of universal suffrage actually implies endowing children with voting power. The fact that children lack political maturity does not necessarily lead us to the conclusion that they should not have the right to vote. Parents, at least in principle, can act as their electoral custodians. The idea of letting parents vote on behalf of their children, however, raises one important question: are parents in fact able to make a genuine voting decision for their children, independently from their own decision, or will children’s suffrage just lead to a multiplication of parental choices? Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Children’s suffrage; Universal suffrage; ‘One person; one vote’; Constitutional economics; D72; J13; K36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10602-015-9190-6

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