The political meaning of dining out: testing the link between lifestyle and political choice in Italy

Abstract

The debate that has arisen around the weakening of the traditional cleavages’ heuristic power in explaining vote suggests considering the role of lifestyles in designing politically meaningful social aggregates. We investigated the relationship between lifestyle and voting behavior, establishing the degree to which this relationship traces the effect of the socio-structural categories (e.g. social class) or is, at least in part, independent of them. Through a k-means clustering, we individuated a typology of four Italian lifestyles; we showed its relation to socio-demographic features and its ability to discriminate participants’ political attitudes. The subscription to each lifestyle was significantly associated with voting behavior, net of the variance accounted for by the traditional cleavages. The theoretical implication and further direction of research are discussed.