Challenging the boundaries of democratic inclusion? Young people's attitudes about the distribution of voting rights

Abstract

In theoretical debates about the quality of democratic rule, the core question concerns membership, and the adequate constitution of the demos: who is entitled to participate in choosing political representatives? This article enhances the predominantly normative debates on democratic inclusion and boundary making by taking an empirical perspective and analysing attitudes of 16–18-year-old teenagers regarding preconditions for the distribution of voting rights. Based on data stemming from 13 focus groups conducted in three Austrian cities in spring 2010, our findings show that principles related to both competence (autonomy, knowledge) and community (showing concern, being subjected to the law) matter when it comes to democratic boundary making. Furthermore, the study reveals that, in trying to explain the formation of juvenile attitudes about boundary issues, institutions are relevant when related to the conjunctive experiences manifested in the group-specific habitus: while young immigrants argue more inclusionarily than natives in terms of community-related preconditions, especially as far as the roles of language and citizenship are concerned, students argue more exclusionarily than apprentices when it comes to competence-related preconditions, especially civic education. Boundary making affects social groups independent of national origin or citizenship and can therefore be considered a permanent process beyond international migration.

Keywords::

• democratic inclusion
• boundary problem
• young people
• attitudes
• voting rights

Acknowledgements

The project benefited from the collaboration and advice of Boris Schuld and Gilg U.H. Seeber, who we owe special gratitude. We also want to thank Brigitte Scott for proofreading, all focus group discussants for their participation as well as two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments.

Notes

^1. The research underlying this article was carried out within the research programme Sparkling Science funded by the Austrian Ministry for Science and Research (BMWF) as part of the project ‘GLO-PART. Young Participation in Glo-cal Politics’ (SPA/02-102-GLO-PART) between September 2009 and September 2011. Sparkling Science aims at the promotion of science among young people and thus makes it possible for scientists to include young people as scientists in research projects.

^2. Although the boundary problem has not yet been empirically scrutinized from the perspective of opinions, there are several studies of how citizens understand citizenship. Seminal studies among adolescents have been carried out by Lister (2003), Hart (2009), and Abbott et al. (2010).

^3. As this article is based on a study about the political attitudes of teenagers, income is of little importance in our final analyses, because economic capital is not yet a central factor of distinction among young people. Instead, educational and occupational status, especially the fact whether a person attends school, vocational training, or is unemployed, seems to be more important in this case.

^4. Vienna represents urban surroundings, Wels (Upper Austria) stands for a medium-sized town, and Telfs in Tyrol exemplifies a village in a mostly rural environment.

^5. The participants were recruited at various sites, such as schools – the sample included secondary as well as vocational schools of different types – and youth centres, where young people outside of the educational system were also present. With the help of a street worker, it was possible to conduct a focus group with mostly unemployed young people who were not organized in any form of club or centre.

^6. For the use of vignettes in focus groups, cf. O'Toole et al. (2003) and Marsh et al. (2007) or, more generally, Bauer and Gaskell (2000) and Wilks (2004).

^7. In this sense, the characters varied in age, gender, citizenship, country of residence, language skills, political attitudes, or cognitive skills.

^8. Reliability was guaranteed by applying ‘consensual coding’, in which discussions within the research team about the codes used and an iterative process of re-analysing the data according to the ‘code manual’ developed in the course of these discussions ensure the quality of analysis (for details cf. Hopf et al.1995).

^9. Respondents mentioned between 1 and 10 years.

^10. Although the vignette did not cover any information about Ayse's previous duration of stay, the participants assumed that she had been living in Austria for a longer period of time because she owns/manages a company with 75 employees.

^11. For details cf. Nationalrats-Wahlordnung 1992 (NRWO 1992) BGBl. Nr. 471/1992 idF BGBl. I Nr. 43/2011.

^12. The emphasis on the residence criterion also relates to the principle of experience-based knowledge and thereby slightly affects competence. However, the aspect of having to bear the consequences of one's own voting decision seemed to be considerably more important to the young discussants than the aspect of experience-based knowledge.