The Effects of Voting Rights on Political Competence : A Regression Discontinuity Approach

Sammanfattning: At what age people ought to be given the right to vote has become a salient issue in both contemporary Western politics and political science. A prevalent argument opposing lowering the voting age to 16 asserts that 16- and 17-year-olds lack the necessary political competence required of voters. However, the validity of this argument rests upon the assumption that adolescents do not attain the required competence upon enfranchisement. While the idea that political competence improves when given the vote can be traced back to 19th century political theory, empirical investigations of this claim remain scarce. In this thesis, I address this gap in the literature by applying a regression discontinuity (RD) design using eligibility to vote as the cut-off. By surveying the political theory regarding requirements for voting rights, I identify political knowledge and communicative skills as the most relevant competencies. No effect of being eligible to vote can be found on the former, while the results concerning communicative skills are inconclusive and sensitive to model specifications. These findings are consistent with previous RD-studies within this field: gaining the right to vote does not seem to have a significant effect on political knowledge. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the age of enfranchisement.