Although democracies are currently faced with growing popular distrust, whereby citizens wonder whether they can entrust politicians with the responsibility to represent their interests, this paper deals with an opposite dynamic, namely the distrust of governments toward their citizens. More specifically, this paper seeks to examine to what extent concepts like ‘trust’ and ‘distrust’ in the institution of citizenship have shaped the democratization of the parliamentary system in the Netherlands, focusing on the democratization of the parliamentary system in the Netherlands by looking at parliamentary debates on the expansion of suffrage in the period between 1869 and 1983. It is only since the constitutional revision of 1983 that the Constitution of the Netherlands explicitly acknowledges suffrage as a civil right. Even after the introduction of universal suffrage, this consideration continued to serve as an argument for or against lowering the voting age of citizens.
Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ICON·S Executive Committee has decided to postpone our 2020 Conference to 2021. Our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021, in Wrocław, Poland.
Procedural details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow in the months ahead.
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