Politbarometer 1983 (Cumulated Data Set)

The Politbarometer has been conducted since 1977 on an almost monthly basis by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen on behalf of the Second German Television (ZDF). Since 1990, this database has also been available for the new German states. The survey focuses on the opinions and attitudes of the voting-age population in the Federal Republic on current political issues, parties, politicians, and voting behavior. From 1990 to 1995 and from 1999 onward, the Politbarometer surveys were conducted separately both in the newly formed eastern and in the western German states (Politbarometer East and Politbarometer West). The separate monthly surveys of a year are integrated into a cumulative data set that includes all surveys of a year and all variables of the respective year. Starting in 2003, the Politbarometer short surveys, collected with varying frequency throughout the year, are integrated into the annual cumulation.<br>At all ten survey times the following questions were posed:
party preference (list procedure and rank order procedure); sympathy
scale for the parties, government, opposition and selected politicians;
union membership; religiousness; party inclination and party
identification; description of residential surroundings. In at least
one of the monthly surveys the following questions were posed: right
people in political leadership; satisfaction with democracy; interest
in politics; behavior at the polls in the last Federal Parliament
election; personal change in party voted for; knowledge of survey
results and expected influence of these results on one´s own voting
decision; party one cannot vote for; significance of first vote and
second vote; attitude to absolute majority for one party; coalition
preference; expected election winner; assessment of the chances for the
FDP and the Greens to take seats in Federal Parliament; judgement on
the manner of change of government; assumed change of political goals
of the FDP in the new coalition; assessment of the achievement ability
of the FDP in the new coalition; the FDP as progressive party; party
most able to solve the most important political problems;
self-classification on a left-right continuum; assumed reasons for the
loss of votes by the SPD; attitude to a government office for
Franz-Josef Strauss; attitude to a red-green coalition in Hesse;
judgement on current general as well as personal economic situation and
expected further development; expected development of unemployment in
general; significance of the composition of the government for one´s
own economic situation; satisfaction with government; attitude to
expansion of nuclear power plants and reduction in governmental
services in the social area as well as stationing of missiles in the
Federal Republic; judgement on changes in unemployment, reduction in
government debt, environmental protection and securing of pensions as
well as perceived reasons for the changes determined; assessment of
youth unemployment; personal willingness to make sacrifices to reduce
unemployment; readiness to work less or go on pension early and
assessment of the effectiveness such measures; attitude to the 35-hour
work week; compatibility of nuclear armament and Christianity;
perceived threat from nuclear armament; judgement on the security of
peace in Europe; necessity of a peace movement and willingness to
participate in non-violent or violent demonstrations; attitude to
armament in the case of failure of disarmament negotiations; expected
installation of missiles in the Federal Republic; personal forms of
protest against the stationing; general attitude to public opinion
polls and especially regarding stationing of new missiles; comparison
of the military strength of East and West; perceived threat; necessity
of NATO for peace; attitude to NATO membership; judgement on the
standard of living of pensioners and assessment of the pension
development; assessment of the security of pensions in 20 years;
attitude to the health insurance fee of pensioners; judgement on
reduction in governmental social services such as unemployment benefit,
child allowance, education aid, welfare, compulsory retirement program,
compulsory health insurance and housing benefit; attitude to making
demonstration laws stricter; attitude to the census and intent to
participate; concern for misuse of data of the census responses;
expectation and judgement on a temporary halt of the census by the
Federal Constitutional Court; knowledge about the Federal
Constitutional Court and interest in the work of the highest court;
knowledge about introduction of a new identity card; knowledge about
security against forgery and concern for greater surveillance of
citizens through machine-readable identification; general attitude to
the new identification and attitude to stronger surveillance of the
citizens by the state; preferred Federal President; frequency of
watching television; judgement on the development of forest death;
preferred pants length for men in the summer (short pants, Bermuda
shorts, long pants); attitude to topless swimming in outdoor pools.