Issue Panel 1972 (1st Wave)

Judgement on parties and political controversies. Personal
political and social orientation. Tests of political knowledge.
Topics:
judgement on economic situation and expected economic situation;
assessment of personal economic situation;
priorities in equipping education institutions such as the
construction of universities, colleges, vocational schools,
elementary schools or kindergartens (rank order procedure);
issue relevance and issue ability of the parties with the topics:
socialism;
party principles;
Christian principles;
strong political leadership;
dispute culture between the parties;
national defense;
divorce;
extended family;
unwillingness to work;
elimination of religious instruction;
property distribution in the FRG;
price stability;
combating crime;
occupational equal opportunities for the sexes;
independence from the USA;
job protection;
East-West reduction of tension;
expansion of public transportation;
equality in the public health system;
keeping rent low;
general use of firearms for the police;
preserving free entrepreneurs in the Federal Republic;
democratization of society;
selection of politicians according to abilities and not according to popularity;
reforms or maintaining the status quo;
income independent of performance;
governmental protection of medium-sized companies;
introduction of co-determination in all companies;
support of German agriculture;
support of political unification of Europe;
containing air pollution and water pollution;
FRG as mediator between East and West;
creation of residential area just for guest workers;
legalization of abortion;
elimination of general compulsory military service.
Interest in politics and frequency of political conversations;
assumed effort of selected parties for specific
occupational groups or social groups (party lobby);
knowledge test of the date of the next Federal Parliament election and
EEC member countries;
preference for federal chancellor (rank order procedure);
party preference (ballot procedure, rank order procedure and
specifying parties that are similar to each other);
sympathy scale for the parties;
election participation and
memory of voting behavior in the Federal Parliament election 1969;
personal understanding of terms extreme, middle, right and left;
party inclination and party identification;
party supporter;
knowledge test of the successor to Walter Ulbricht in the GDR;
knowledge about the intended trip of Nixon to China;
attitude to an improvement in relations with the People's Republic of China;
consideration of the Soviet Union in change of relations with China;
China as danger to world peace.
Urban or rural character of place of residence;
length of residence at location;
moving frequency since 1950;
residential status;
ethnic distance and acceptance of selected groups:
classification of
bums, Americans, guest workers, policemen, NPD supporters,
communists, Negros and industrialists as persons,
whom one would gladly have in Germany as work colleague, as
neighbor, as friend, as family member;
test of knowledge of the prime minister or
senate president or first mayor of the state of residence;
knowledge test about the party composition of the
state government as well as government and opposition in Bonn.
Working at place of residence;
date of birth;
religiousness;
participation in occupational measures for further education
at work or in leisure time;
satisfaction with school training and possibly
desired changes in one's own training;
occupation of father and mother (social origins);
occupation of spouse;
regional mobility in kilometers;
children in training;
possession of durable economic goods such as radio, telephone, television set,
dish-washer, film camera, car (ordered according to cubic centimeters),
theater or concert season ticket,
building loan contract, stocks and shares.
In form of a written survey under supervision the respondent filled out:
information on up to four moves including year of moving as well as
characterization of new place of residence and moving distance;
classification of the parties on a left-right continuum as well as
on an extremism scale.
Scales:
authoritarianism, internal/external control,
dogmatism, fatalism and statements about occupational
further development and economic security.
Written judgement on these items both from the point of view of the
respondent as well as assessment of the assumed attitudes of one's own
father, friends, neighbors, the majority of the Germans and
possibly one's own children over 12 years.
Interviewer rating:
willingness of respondent to cooperate.