Lifestyle policies as a framework for explaining socio-political issues

Subject Areas : Social Sciences Quarterly

Mohammad Reza Hayati Mehr ^{1 *}

1 -

Received: 2025-09-06 Accepted : 2025-09-23 Published : 2025-10-04

Keywords: Lifestyle politics, social identity, digital space, social issues, institutional activism, non-institutional activism, political consumption,

Abstract :

This article examines the phenomenon of lifestyle politics in the modern and postmodern era, a new approach to political and social activism in which everyday life choices have become an arena for expressing identity, values, and efforts to change social life issues, and has emerged as a new form of political and social activism. The main goal of the article is to provide a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the role of lifestyle politics in various dimensions of activism, social identity, and its relationship to social issues. This article is a type of theoretical and fundamental research that, using a meta-analytic approach, integrates the key perspectives of prominent scholars in this field (such as Giddens, Beck, Bauman, Theocharis, and de Moore) and provides a coherent framework for analyzing this phenomenon. The required data have been collected through a systematic review of the existing scientific literature in the field of lifestyle politics and related fields. The research findings show that firstly, the concept of lifestyle policies is a new concept in the field of sociology and in Iran it provides a new conceptual and theoretical framework for researchers of social and political issues. Secondly, lifestyle policies are a multifaceted phenomenon that includes individual, collective, cultural and political dimensions. These types of policies start from individual choices but have the capacity to become collective actions and social movements. Lifestyle policies provide the possibility to lead to changes at different levels (individual, collective, structural); sometimes they are associated with social issues such as extreme individualism, consumerism and social inequality. The digital space and social media have also become key arenas for this type of activism, providing the grounds for the emergence of new social opportunities and challenges. This artico find and introduce new concepts, components, and topics in the social sciences, especia.

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