Anecdotal evidence on historical suffrage extensions suggests that voters are more reluctant to extend voting rights than politicians. In this paper, we systematically analyze whether and how the extent of direct democracy affects the willingness of the electorate to share political power with...

Broadening democracy by lowering the voting age is on the political agenda in many democratic societies. Previous suffrage extensions suggest that there are systematic differences between what parliaments decide and what voters want with respect to enfranchisement of new groups. This paper...