The 2016 Electoral Law and the Empowerment of Youth Participation in Greece. A Tool for Democratic Renaissance in a Crisis-Ridden Country?

Engaging young people in politics is critical to the safeguarding and strengthening of democracy worldwide. Two seemingly contradictory trends in youth engagement have currently been observed and highlighted by the academic community. The first is that young people tend to be less engaged than older generations in voting, party membership and generally in participating at social activities. The second trend concerns the active role young people have played in political movements, especially under particularly severe circumstances. Looking at the Greek case, the economic crisis fostered youth participation in the area of social activities, thereby reversing deep-rooted social patterns related to weak associational engagement and political parties’ patronizing relationship with civil society. This transformative impact of the economic crisis affected in Greece also the debate among constitutional law scholars on youth participation in general election. Besides many critical voices, this led to the approval of a radical electoral reform. Greece’s electoral system has undergone various changes since democracy was restored in 1974. In 2016 Greece’s left-led government pushed through a radical change to the country’s electoral system. The new electoral system scrapped the 50-seat bonus in the 300-seat parliament that goes to the party with the majority of votes. Moreover, the electoral law cut also the voting age to 17 from 18, another popular move of Greece’s political left, which benefited strong support among the country’s youth. As the Greek Parliament is discussing since the first days of 2020 another electoral reform, changing the election system again towards majority bonus, this paper tries to assess on the basis of data set referring to the latest parliamentary elections, in a diachronic perspective, whether the empowerment of youth participation may be considered a tool for democratic renaissance in crisis-ridden Greece.