In the last decades Italian party system have undergone an important
process of transition, that led it into Second Republic. The presence of new
parties, together with their different connection with social cleavages have
been regarded as main characteristics of this transition. The purpose of this
paper is to investigate how religion & class stratification influence voting
choices before and during this period. In particular, we deal with the interplay
between these two social divisions. Comparing survey data about Italian
First & Second Republic, we find meaningful differences. In the last
elections, religion based voting seems to be affected by the collapse of
Christian Democrats (Dc) as well as by the change between Catholic
Church & its believers. On the other hand, the working class show to vote
similarly for different parties, while political organisations such as unions
lose their relevance in structuring political identities. However, despite
these findings, we notice differences also within Second Republic\u2019s elections