Political Age Limits
摘要
This concluding chapter discusses the social and cultural meanings of age limit and the intersection between age, gender, and class in cultural and political conflicts, as well as the importance of geography and the conflicts between town and country. Family and youth as sources of political conflict and influence on the politics of voting rights. Long-term and short-term change processes are also weighed against each other as determining factors in the democratisation of Swedish society. Class, gender, town, and country were basic concepts coded with age-related meanings, some explicitly voiced in the discussion and some implicit. Age was coded by place and social relations, the meanings of which were transformed around the turn of the century. It is a genuinely intersectional phenomenon. Previous historians have not paid much attention to the voting age. It has been argued that the raising of the voting age was socially and politically neutral. It did not leave any particular social class or gender or any part of Sweden at a disadvantage. Arguments like this were also heard in the contemporary conservative and liberal rhetoric. This study questions the neutrality of the voting age in the political turmoil. The study also shows that age limits had a central importance in shaping democratic reforms.