In each round of the European Social Survey (ESS), questions on two topics are selected for inclusion following a competition open to external academics.
Abstract
In this latest online event, presentations will be delivered on four key topics that have been included in this way: democracy, immigration, welfare and wellbeing.
Mónica Ferrín (University of A Coruña) and Hanspeter Kriesi (European University Institute) will discuss the data from the democracy module, fielded in Round 6 (2012/13) and Round 10 (2020-22) of our survey.
The talk will revise the theoretical and methodological challenges faced throughout the process of measuring populism as an alternative model of democracy.
Anthony Heath (University of Oxford) and Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne) will focus on attitudes to immigration, fielded in Round 1 (2002/03) and Round 7 (2014/15) of the ESS.
Many of these immigration items will be repeated in Round 12 (2025) of our survey, with an additional focus on attitudes towards refugees.
Bart Meuleman (KU Leuven), Staffan Kumlin (University of Oslo) and Tim Reeskens (Tilburg University) will discuss the inclusion of the welfare module in rounds 4 and 8 of our survey (2008/09 and 2016/17).
They will highlight some of the key changes across the eight-year period, and present analysis of welfare items included in every round.
A module seeking responses on personal and social wellbeing module was included in Round 3 (2006/07) and Round 6 (2012/13) of our survey.
It was recently announced that a revised version of this wellbeing module proposed will be included in Round 12 (2025) of the ESS.
Mark Fabian (Warwick University) will present on this revised individual and social wellbeing module, with a specific focus on psychological and social elements of wellbeing, such as feelings of meaning and purposes.
Each presentation will focus on the module application and survey design process, key findings from the data and any policy implications.
Attitudes to immigration
Immigration continues to be one of the most pressing political issues in Europe.
Anthony Heath (University of Oxford) and Eldad Davidov (University of Cologne) will draw on data from the repeated module on attitudes to immigration first conducted in the first round of the ESS 2002 and repeated in Round 7 twelve years later, together with the core items on immigration that have been asked in every round of the survey.
The presentation will explore how attitudes to immigration differ both between and within European countries, which kinds of migrant are most likely to be welcomed, and why, and how public opinion has changed over the course of the 21st century.
It will conclude with a discussion of the new repeat module which will be fielded in round 12 and which will focus on attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers.
About the speakers
Anthony Heath is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Oxford. He led the team which designed the 2014 repeat module on attitudes towards immigration and is now working on the new repeat module for Round 12. He has carried out research both on social and political attitudes towards minority groups and on the experiences of migrants and ethnic minorities themselves in developed countries. His most recent study used field experiments to study racial discrimination. Professor Heath works closely with policy makers and international organizations such as the OECD and UNDP, and is currently completing a project for the UK’s Social Mobility Commission.
Eldad Davidov is Professor at the Institute for Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Cologne, Germany, and the Department of Sociology at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and co-director of the University of Zurich Research Priority Program “Social Networks”. He was president of the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) between 2015 and 2017. His research interests are applications of structural equation modelling to survey data, especially in cross-cultural research. Applications include human values and attitudes toward immigrants and other minorities.
Understandings and evaluations of democracy
Mónica Ferrín (University of A Coruña) and Hanspeter Kriesi (European University Institute) will present analysis of the structure of the basic liberal-democratic model, its relationship to three alternative models of democracy -social, direct and populist democracy - and the question of the preferred model of democracy.
The results confirm the universal character of the liberal-democratic model among Europeans, as well as the hierarchical structure between the basic liberal-democratic and alternative models.
These show the electoral component of the liberal-democratic model is the most preferred model of democracy, while the populist model is the least preferred. Overall, these results confirm that Europeans have a rather pragmatic vision of democracy.
Our Round 10 dataset was updated to include 25 countries and post-stratification weights in December 2022 so this will be an early opportunity to see analysis of the latest democracy data.
About the speakers
Hanspeter Kriesi is a part-time professor for Comparative Politics at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Previously, he held the Stein-Rokkan Chair at EUI and teaches at the universities of Amsterdam, Geneva and Zurich. His wide-ranging research interests include the study of various aspects of democracy, political communication, political mobilization and opinion formation. Kriesi received the Mattei-Dogan Prize in 2017.
Mónica Ferrín is an InTalent and Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Faculty of Sociology, University of A Coruña. Before moving to A Coruña, she worked at Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, and at the University of Zürich. Her research focuses on citizens’ democratic attitudes and gender inequality in public involvement. She is also interested in understanding the gender gap in democratic participation.
Insights from welfare attitudes modules
In the past decades, the European welfare states became substantially challenged due to several major economic, social, and political developments. Longer-term challenges have been exacerbated by the shock of the banking crisis in 2008.
At the same time, worldwide political and military conflicts set off sizeable refugee and migration movements towards Europe, thereby creating concerns about additional strains on existing welfare systems. As a reaction these interconnected crises, some European governments implemented far-reaching fiscal consolidation programmes, including welfare retrenchment, labour market reforms and austerity programs.
In this crisis-ridden context, the necessity and fairness of solidaristic relationships are widely debated across Europe. The ESS welfare attitudes modules - fielded in Round 4 (2008/09) and Round 8 (2016/17) - contain unique information to shed scientific light on these debates.
These modules measure, among others, how European populations see the role of government in providing welfare for different groups in society and how they evaluate the outcomes their national welfare states produce. The questions in the modules address public opinions regarding ‘old solidarity questions’ (such as intergenerational solidarity or solidarity between the working and the unemployed) as well as new trends in social policy, such as the idea of a Universal Basic Income or the Europeanization of social policy.
During this seminar, we present a series of interesting lessons learnt from the two welfare attitudes modules. After explaining the contents and conceptual model of the questionnaire modules, we discuss insights regarding over-time changes in welfare support and criticism, the link between welfare support and political trust, welfare chauvinism and support for a Universal Basic Income and Social Europe.
About the speakers
Bart Meuleman is Full Professor at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), University of Leuven (Belgium). His main research interests are cross-cultural survey methodology and cross-national comparisons of value and attitude patterns.
Staffan Kumlin is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo (UiO, Norway). His research involves comparative political behaviour, public opinion, and democracy in European welfare states.
Christian Staerklé is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the Institute of Psychology, at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland). Using survey, experimental and qualitative methods, his research studies opinion formation in the domains of social welfare, institutional legitimacy and multiculturalism, both from a comparative perspective and within countries.
Personal and social wellbeing
Mark Fabian (Warwick University) will focus specifically on psychological and social elements of wellbeing, such as feelings of meaning and purposes.
It will also consider basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, harmony with self, society, and the world, mindfulness, and prosocial behaviour.
About the speaker
Mark Fabian is assistant professor of public policy at the University of Warwick. He studies wellbeing from an interdisciplinary perspective with a focus on policy issues, including the coproduction of wellbeing with those affected by these policies, the measurement of wellbeing for policy evaluation, and how public management practices can be reformed to promote wellbeing. His latest book, A Theory of Subjective Wellbeing, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022.
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