German Internet Panel, Wave 46 (March 2020)

The German Internet Panel (GIP) is an infrastructure project. The GIP serves to collect data about individual attitudes and preferences which are relevant for political and economic decision-making processes.

The questionnaire contains numerous experimental variations in the survey instruments. For more information, see the study documentation.

Topics: Opinion on European unification (has gone too far already vs. should go further); populism (scale); external political efficacy in relation to the EU;

Conjoint experiment: preference for two of each of four fictitious parties in the next European election based on fictitious party programmes with different attributes on the topics of European integration, market regulation and competition, asylum and immigration, environment and energy, security and defence, agriculture and trade policy; overall rating of the respective party;

Left-right rating of the parties CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, Bündnis90/Die Grünen, Die Linke, AfD; left-right self-rating; left-right rating of the Federal Constitutional Court; left-right rating of an opinion on the purchase of government bonds by the European Central Bank;

Experiment on agreeing or disagreeing with various statements, with half of the respondents receiving an additional reference to the Federal Constitutional Court (invalidity of a contract concluded between parents according to which the father does not have to pay child support upon divorce; general punishment of unauthorised use of cannabis, however, proceedings can be discontinued if only a small amount is consumed; admissibility of secret access by authorities to all data on a computer or mobile phone only if a person poses a concrete danger to the lives of others and the access has been authorised by a court; if normal employees of the German Post Office lawfully go on strike, then civil servants of the German Post Office must work more to take over the work of normal employees; the reduction of a supplementary pension of former ministers of the GDR, which was also given to them for their loyalty to the system of the time, is justified; every person can take voluntary help from others to die in a self-determined way);

Opinion on statements about the current Federal Constitutional Court (if the Federal Constitutional Court started making a lot of decisions that most people disagree with, it would be better to abolish the Federal Constitutional Court altogether; the Federal Constitutional Court is too political; in its decisions the Federal Constitutional Court favours some groups more than others); institutional trust (federal government, Federal Constitutional Court);

Debt brake: preferred date for debt brake (from 2020, from 2021, from 2025, from 2030, after 2030 or not at all); assessment of debt brake; probability of compliance with debt brake from 2020 by the federal state of main residence; assessment of compliance with debt brake by own federal state if not all federal states manage without new debt;

Income tax: factors that make income tax complicated (extent of documentation requirements, fear of forgetting something important or filling it in incorrectly when filing a tax return, different tax rates in the income tax scale, other, none); ranking of important deductions and allowances in descending order with regard to a fairer tax system (commuter allowance, donations for charitable purposes or political parties, pension expenses for retirement and/or statutory pension insurance, costs for caring for relatives, child allowances and/or childcare costs);

Experiment on the taxation of commuters versus non-commuters with regard to distance to the workplace and choice of workplace;

Deductions and/or allowances claimed in the context of income tax (double budgeting, work room, commuter allowance, other work-related expenses (income-related expenses), pension provision payments, education costs, care for dependents, child allowances and/or childcare costs, donations to charitable causes or political parties, other, claim only the basic allowance and standard deductions);

Attitudes towards taxation of sugary drinks: personal preference for sugary drinks compared to other adults in Germany; paying attention to one´s own health compared to other adults in Germany; knowledge about healthy eating compared to other adults in Germany; I drink sugary drinks more often than I actually want to (self-control); the average adult living in Germany drinks sugary drinks more often than he/she actually wants to; estimated amount of additional expenditure due to a tax on sugary drinks compared to other adults in Germany; decisive aspects for the personal voting decision on a tax on sugary drinks (whether I would have additional expenditure as a result of the tax, whether additional tax revenue would be put to good use, whether I would reduce my consumption and feel positive effects on my health, whether others would reduce their consumption and feel positive effects on their health, whether expenditure on the health system would fall, the state should not interfere in such things, other, none);

Preference for Friedrich Merz, Armin Laschet, Norbert Röttgen or someone else as the new CDU party leader; agreement with the following statements: for lasting success, the CDU must become more conservative, even if this means losing votes from moderate voters, the CDU should generally rule out cooperation with the AfD, the CDU should generally rule out cooperation with the Die Linke party; problematic nature of the election of Thomas Kemmerich as Minister President of Thuringia also due to AfD votes.

Demography: sex; age (year of birth, categorised); education: highest school-leaving certificate; highest professional qualification; marital status; household size; employment status; German citizenship; frequency of private internet use; federal state.

Additionally coded were: Respondent ID; household ID, GIP; person ID (within household); year of recruitment (2012, 2014, 2018); interview date; current online status; assignment to experimental groups; randomisations.

Questionnaire evaluation (interesting, varied, relevant, long, difficult, too personal); overall assessment of the survey; respondent made further comments on the questionnaire.