European Political Parties' Middle-Level Elites

Political career, conception of oneself, political orientation and
attitudes to the EC of party convention delegates in European countries.

Topics: Delegate status; delegate federation; public officialship and
kind of office; year of party-joining; change of party membership;
previous party; party officialship; kind of office, level (city level
or national level) and function; name of the last committee attended;
controversies among participants concerning decisions; way of decision;
time devoted to party activities (party time allocation); intra-party
tendencies.

Preferred chairmanship successor; frequency of political discussions
in respondent’s home and themes of parents political discussions; party
membership of parents; parents support of parties; public officialship
of parents; occupation of parents; economic conditions of respondent’s
family in his childhood; town size; metropolitan residence; local
employment; local party organization: number of members in local party
organization; number of active male and female members; age
distribution of active members; development of membership over the last
five years; frequency of general meetings; meeting place; discussion
topics; interest in local, national, European, international and
intra-party matters; controversies in advance of the party convention;
participation in previous conferences; preparation activities for the
party conference; information sources; importance of conference
functions; preferred conduct with dissent between the majority decision
of the basis in comparison to party leadership; decision behaviour in
case of divergence between standpoint of party conference decision and
standpoint of party group in national parliaments; influence of a
delegate on decisions pre-conference and at the conference itself;
speech at the party conference; sympathy scale for other parties and
for selected associations; attitude towards the party role concerning
principles, votes, pragmatism and ideology; attitude towards selected
common political issues and preferred decision-making level (European,
national or regional level); most important issues; native language;
knowledge of foreign languages; preferred conduct of the EC with the
superpowers; preferred form of European unification; knowledge of
party-federations in the European Parliament; willingness to sacrifice
for the unification of Europe; attitude towards the country´s flag on
ceremonial occasions flown under a European flag; importance of
elections to the European Parliament; importance of election of the
president of the European Commission by the Parliament; attitude
towards the expansion of the European Community; preferred countries
for expansion; support for a common program; preferred concepts
(issues); importance of a common program; most powerful country members
of the EC; attitude towards fraternal party cooperation; sympathy-scale
for selected party groupings in the European Parliament; political
actors in the EP campaign; campaign themes; European Parliament
candidacy; intension to future EP candidacy; reason for EP candidacy
and for non-candidacy; self-classification on a left-right continuum;
sympathy towards nationalities; attitude towards the nation’s
membership in the EC; transnational congress that was attended;
federation, year and place of the transnational congress; attitude
towards public political activities and party-related activities;
attitudes towards leftist victory and to state priorities.

Demography: Age (year of birth); sex; current occupation and last
occupation; occupation of spouse; if farmer: farm and class; income;
class consciousness; subjective social class; age of school-leaving;
level of last school attended; type of last school attended (state or
privately managed); university branch; religious affiliation; intensity
of religious frequency (church-going frequency); trade union
membership; name of trade union; activity level in trade union (simple
member, active member or office holder); office held in trade union
(level and function); membership in employers organization, independent
workers’ organization; activity level, level and function in these
organizations; membership in party associations; office in party
associations; level and function; voluntary organization membership;
name, type, office, level and function; number of political
organizations (partly non-political organizations), professional
organizations, cultural organizations.

Additionally coded: survey year.