Universal Suffrage for Real? A Global Index of Suffrage Restrictions and an Explanatory Framework

The right to vote used to be at the heart of the struggle for democracy. According to the dominant view, the struggle was crowned with success in the West by the introduction of equal voting rights for women in Europe and by the introduction of legal guarantees for the voting rights of the black population in the United States. The prevalent view is that nearly all countries ‘have adopted the rule of universal suffrage’ or ‘provided for universal suffrage’ (Coppedge and Reinicke 1991; Vanhanen 2003). Yet, exclusions from the suffrage remain in all democracies. As noted by Dahl and others, ‘no democracy allows all adults to vote’ (Katz 1996; Dahl 1982). In the midst of contemporary democracies, there are consequently a large number of people with no right to participate in national elections and with no formal representation in national parliaments. Noncitizens, non-residents, prisoners and people with cognitive impairments, are excluded from political participation in most democratic countries. Moreover, of course, young people and children are virtually everywhere denied access to the ballots. These exclusions are usually perceived as self-evident and non-problematic. Nevertheless, they are increasingly contested and subject to great variation among democracies. These observations provoke questions about the nature of democratic inclusion: what does the general pattern of legal exclusions from suffrage look like and how can variation in inclusion among democracies be explained? These questions are increasingly relevant as restrictions on universal suffrage are more and more debated and challenged. In many countries lowering the voting rights age to sixteen is under consideration, as Austria did in 2007. The right to vote for non-citizens, though still uncommon, has been introduced in local elections by a number of countries (Earnest 2006). A flow of judgments from international and constitutional courts has recently invalidated laws disenfranchising prisoners (Powers 2006). An increasing number of countries are making provisions for the right and opportunity to vote for people with intellectual disabilities (Schriner et al 1997). Voting from abroad for non-residents is allowed by many if not by all democracies (Gratschew 2007). As these examples indicate, the content of ‘universal suffrage’ remains contested. It is consequently highly relevant to improve our knowledge about the degree of inclusion among contemporary democracies and to explain the causes of its variation. It has been noted that the voting rights age is more often lower in old democracies compared to more recent democracies (Massicotte et al 2004). It can further be observed that universalist welfare states, such as Canada and Sweden, are among the few countries allowing prisoners and people with cognitive im1 Ludvig Beckman ar verksam vid Stockholms universitet. E-post: ludvig.beckman@statsvet.su.se

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