European Communities Study, 1970

A precursor to the Eurobarometer studies, this survey queried respondents of six European countries on some of what would become standard Eurobarometer measures, such as how satisfied respondents were with their present lives. Other questions focused on respondents' knowledge of and opinions on the European Community (EC), including how well-informed they felt about the EC, what sources of information about the EC they used, whether their country had benefited from being an EC member, and the extent of their personal interest in EC matters. Another major focus of the survey was on the respondents' attitudes toward the unification of Europe, probing opinions concerning the economic, political, and administrative aspects of unification. Information was gathered concerning national pride and willingness to replace individual symbols of nationalism with "United States of Europe" symbols. In addition, the study investigated the respondents' attitudes toward world society and politics. The emphasis was on the respondents' opinion of appropriate governmental priorities, both domestic and international. The degree of political participation of the respondents and their trust of foreigners was also ascertained. The data include two constructed indices that were used in analyses conducted by Ronald Inglehart and reported in THE SILENT REVOLUTION: CHANGING VALUES AND POLITICAL STYLES AMONG WESTERN PUBLICS (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977). One of these indices places the respondent along a materialist-postmaterialist values continuum and the other categorizes the respondent's political ideology according to his or her party preference. Demographic data include sex, age, education, occupation, size of town, and region. This study contains data for 1,296 respondents from Belgium, 2,046 from France, 2,014 from Germany, 1,806 from Italy, and 1,405 from the Netherlands in Part 1. Part 2 supplies data for 1,975 respondents from Great Britain. A shorter version of the questionnaire was used in Great Britain.