Enfranchising the German Youth : Examining the ramifications of lowering the Voting Age on support for right-wing populism in Germany

This study will examine whether lowering the voting age in German state elections will affect the likelihood of voting for the right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland(AfD) between the ages 18-24 using German cross-sectional federal state election data between 2013 and 2023. The paper is theoretically based on previous research on youth-enfranchisement, which has found a relationship between earlier enfranchisement and increased satisfaction with the democratic process. From these findings, it has been theorized that increased satisfaction with democracy in the younger generation will lead to less support for the AfD, a party shown to be benefiting electorally from higher dissatisfaction with democracy in Germany. Utilizing a quasi-experimental design with logistic regression to test if young people aged 18-24 with and without youth-enfranchisement are voting marginally differently than each other. The idea was to analyze if there was a relationship between youth-enfranchisement and a higher or lower likelihood of voting for the AfD in this age cohort. When controlling for other variables, the findings show a negative relationship between youth-enfranchisement and voting for the AfD. However, due to the limitations of the data, any conclusion from the findings was difficult to make. Still, the data would indicate a lower likelihood of voting for the AfD when being enfranchised at an earlier age. The ramifications of youth-enfranchisement will continue to be an interesting and pressing topic, both in the political and academic spheres, warranting further research.