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Book Review: The Sociology of Anthony Giddens

issues remained very high on Sinn Fein supporters' agenda into May 2000 (p. 255). The start of IRA decommissioning, in contrast, did not assuage unionist worries, instead leading them to demand more IRA disbandment. It may be that only some problems are open to the incremental approach advocated by Irwin and exemplified in the surveys; in other cases, the practical issues in dispute may hide deeper concerns and grievances. Irwin's polls tap well into practical attitudes, but we also need insight into deeper antagonisms; Irwin purposively avoided this as unhelpful to the peace process, yet a peace process built on denial of such antagonisms is unlikely to be robust. One of the interesting conclusions which Irwin draws from the early surveys is that the people of Northern Ireland prioritise social issues rather than political issues. He argues in a January 1998 Belfast Telegraph article (pp. 167-9) that the talks process 'got it wrong' in prioritising issues of governance. Yet this argument is lost from view in the chapters dealing with the later polls. Does Irwin continue to hold this view, when the central concerns of the public became centred on decommissioning and policing? His chosen mode of presentation did not allow him to address these questions or to give a more considered analysis of the relative importance of social and political concerns in public attitudes. The polls do not in general allow a time series analysis since the questions asked differ from poll to poll. However some questions are repeated in a number of different polls: support for the agreement (233-4); issues of priority for each community (237). It would be very valuable if these questions were repeated in subsequent polls. In addition, some of the tables suggest very interesting hypotheses: there appears, for example, to be convergence between DUP and UUP supporters' priorities compared to a divergence of priorities between SDLP and SF (267). Yet this coincides with the clear convergence of the nationalist parties on the need for full implementation of the Agreement and the clear disagreement of the unionist parties on precisely that issue. How these two sets of facts are to be interrelated and understood is a puzzle that invites attention. That the book throws up a number of such puzzles makes it a fascinating read.