Does lowering the voting age spark meaningful political participation among young people? Using a quasi-experiment from Ghent, Belgium where youth could vote starting at 16, this research compares adolescents granted voting rights with those just below the age cutoff. Data & Methods
Political parties are central mediators between citizens and the state, but scholars rarely investigate how party internal processes shape citizens’ evaluations of democracy. Yael Shomer, Gert-Jan Put, and Einat Gedalya-Lavy ask whether the way parties choose their candidates—how democratic or closed those procedures are—affects voters’ satisfaction with how democracy works in their country.