The militancy of youth in the late 1960's has occasioned much comment on the reasons for age conflict in political life. This essay suggests that full understanding of such conflict requires a theory about the processes operating to stratify society by age. Application to political life of the emerging theory of age stratification reveals both a socially structured potential for political conflict between young and old and age-related mechanisms for reducing such conflict. These two possibilities, and the political context which may favor one or the other are explored.
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Anne Foner (1974) studied this question.