International Social Survey Programme: Role of Government I-V - ISSP 1985-1990-1996-2006-2016

The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a continuous programme of cross-national collaboration running annual surveys on topics important for the social sciences. The programme started in 1984 with four founding members - Australia, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States – and has now grown to almost 50 member countries from all over the world. As the surveys are designed for replication, they can be used for both, cross-national and cross-time comparisons. Each ISSP module focuses on a specific topic, which is repeated in regular time intervals. Please, consult the documentation for details on how the national ISSP surveys are fielded. The present study focuses on questions about political attitudes and the role of government.<br>The release of the cumulated ISSP ´Role of Government´ modules for the years 1985, 1990, 1996, 2006 and 2016 consists of two separate datasets: ZA4747 and ZA4748.

ZA4747 contains all the cumulated variables, while the supplementary data file ZA4748 ´ISSP Cumulation ROG Add On´ contains all those variables that could not be cumulated for various reasons. However, they can be matched easily to the cumulated file if necessary. A comprehensive overview on the contents, the structure and basic coding rules of both data files are provided in the Variable Reports.

Role of government I-V:

Attitudes to compliance with law; attitudes to various forms of protest against the government; views regarding freedom of speech for extremists; attitudes to police intervention in the private sphere to prevent crimes; attitudes to justice error; perceived threat to the private sphere from governmental data collection and computer networks (privacy protection); tax fairness, attitudes to government measures regarding control of wages, redistribution of wealth, salaries and prices; attitudes towards state intervention in the economy; attitudes
to increased government spending for environmental protection, public health system, the police, education system, defence, pensions, unemployment benefits, culture and arts; priority for fighting inflation or fighting unemployment; evaluation of the influence of trade unions, industry and government; evaluation of the government´s position in electricity supply, the steel industry as well as banking and insurance; attitudes to welfare state and responsibility for jobs, price control, health care, decent standard of living, economic growth,
reduction of income differences, support for students, housing supply and protection of environment; political interest; political efficacy; trust in politicians and civil servants; assessment of tax equity with various income groups; in the case of terror suspect the government should have the right to detain people, to tap people’s telephone conversations, to stop and search people in the street at random; assessment about how many politicians in the country are involved in corruption; rating about how many public officials in the country are involved in corruption; how often public officials wanted a bribe in last 5 years; success of the country’s government in the following areas: providing health care for the sick, providing a decent standard of living for the old, dealing with threats to the country’s security.

Demography: Sex; age; marital status; steady life partner; education: years of schooling; highest education level; current employment status (respondent and partner); hours worked weekly; type of organization, public/ private; trade union membership; respondent and partner: supervise other employees; number of employees supervised; self-employed; number of employees if self-employed; occupation (ISCO/ ILO 1988 occupation code, ISCO/ ILO 2008 occupation code for respondent and spouse); size of household; household composition (children and adults); children in the household; type of housing; party affiliation left-right (derived/ derived from last vote); participation in last election; attendance of religious services; religious main groups (derived); Top-Bottom self-placement; subjective social class; place of living: urban – rural.

Additionally coded: Unique cumulation respondent ID Number; Country/ Sample Prefix ISO 3166 Code – alphanumeric; region (country-specific); weighting factor; administrative mode of data-collection.