IRELAND

It’s hard to believe that the European Social Survey (ESS) only began in
the early years of this century. So widely is it referenced in academic
literature and so frequently does it feed into mainstream media, the
inclination is to consider that it has always been an integral feature of the
Ireland’s engagement with European institutions. It hasn’t of course, yet
the impact of the ESS on the whole discipline of social sciences has been
little short of transformational – and in ways that could not have been
envisaged when the enterprise began. The ESS has proved an exercise
in basic research that has yielded a bedrock of information that scholars
working across a range of subject areas - from environmental studies to
those concerned with social policy as it relates to issues of health, age,
gender and geography - have been able to creatively build upon and
develop, to reveal new, and sometimes surprising, insights. In other
words, the ESS has facilitated research and stimulated inquiries that might
otherwise not have happened, or, indeed, could not have happened.
As to the original and intended value of the surveys, Dr. Finbarr Brereton
of University College Dublin (UCD) who, alongside his colleague
Professor Peter Clinch, serves as Ireland’s National Coordinator for Round
7 of the ESS, stresses the importance of its international comparability.
‘That was missing in the social sciences’, he says. ‘There were lots of
individual country datasets, but in terms of being able to compare sets
of people within countries and across time, that was missing. This was one
of the big gaps in the infrastructure. ‘
The driving force behind Ireland’s involvement in the ESS was Professor
Richard Sinnott, the now retired UCD political scientist whose fingerprints
are to be found upon many of the major initiatives that have helped
progress Irish political and behavioural social sciences, not least the ongoing,
twice-yearly documenting of Irish people’s attitudes to European
Integration. Given this background, it’s easy to see why the idea of a
European social survey appealed to Sinnott.
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‘There were lots of individual country
datasets, but in terms of being able to
compare sets of people within countries and
across time, that was missing. This was one of
the big gaps in the infrastructure.’
What it set out to do – and what it has undoubtedly delivered – is the
production of important new, fundamental knowledge that allows for
proper comparisons between countries across a Europe that is
remarkable for its diversity - of people, languages, attitudes, beliefs,
opinions and experiences.
At the core of the ESS since its inception are a series of questionnaires
pertaining to major themes such as politics, subjective well-being, media,
social trust and human values. For the most part, the questions used in
each round of the survey, beginning in 2001 and carried out at