Modern State (November 2024)

The study on the modern state was conducted by dimap on behalf of the Press and Information Office of the Federal Government. In the survey period 04.11.2024 - 16.11.2024, the population aged 16 and over in Germany was surveyed in telephone interviews (CATI) on the following topics: citizens´ expectations of a modern state, democracy and understanding of the state, responsibility of the state, economy and population, evaluation of administration, offices and authorities and own experiences, trust in state institutions and actors. Respondents were selected using a multi-stage random sample based on the RDD method, including landline and mobile phone numbers (dual-frame sample). The findings are supplemented by the results of 24 qualitative individual interviews that GIM conducted with people in Essen, Berlin, Munich and Dresden from November 11 to 19, 2024. The report on the results of this qualitative study is available to the archive, but not the corresponding data. 1. Democracy and understanding of the state: satisfaction with democracy; democracy as the best form of government for Germany; preferred level of decision-making for important political decisions: by citizens, e.g. in referendums or by elected politicians in referendums or by elected politicians; agreement with various statements on the subject of the state and citizens (the state interferes too much in our lives, the opinion of the population is not taken into account enough in important political decisions, citizens are well informed in the run-up to important political decisions, people should not rely so much on the state but should tackle their problems themselves more); areas with too much state regulation (open-ended response); areas where there should be more state regulation (open-ended response). 2. Responsibility of the state, economy and population: assessment of the commitment of the German state and federal government to tackle the problems in the following areas: Climate change and its consequences, reception and integration of refugees, Germany´s economic development, right-wing extremism, inflation and price increases, state of social cohesion); assessment of citizens´ commitment to tackling the problems in the aforementioned areas; agreement with various statements (There are too many federal ministries, so some should be abolished, the federal government is dealing with too many issues at the same time, the federal government is dealing with the most important issues at the moment, I have a good overview of what measures the federal government has adopted in the last year); better results by the state vs. private companies in the provision of services in various areas (health care, nursing care, local public transport, road construction, waste disposal and housing); state responsibility or personal responsibility in various areas (protection against crime, protection against the spread of epidemics and epidemics, environmental and climate protection, protection against impoverishment, protection in the event of illness, financial security in old age); personal benefits from the welfare state. 3. Administration, offices and authorities: evaluation of the services provided by public offices and authorities in recent years (rather improved, rather worsened, has not changed that much); characterization of the actions of public offices and authorities using pairs of opposites (bureaucratic - unbureaucratic, supportive - patronizing, fair - unfair, slow - fast, efficient -inefficient, comprehensible - incomprehensible, corruptible - incorruptible); Satisfaction with the last contact with a public authority or administration; assessment of the effort involved in dealing with public authorities; change in the effort involved in dealing with public authorities in recent years; public authorities should exchange more data in order to reduce the effort vs. avoid more exchange for data protection reasons; importance of being able to deal with public authority matters online or on the Internet. 4. Trust in state institutions and actors: trust in the federal government, in offices and authorities, in the state government and in the mayor of the municipality; in Germany, the right people are in the leading positions. Demography: sex; age; federal state; East or West Berlin; size of location; highest level of education; party preference. Additionally coded: consecutive respondent number; weight.