Significance and Prerequisite for the Feeling of Political Effectiveness

Political attitudes and feeling of political effectiveness among
members of the Federal German Armed Forces, those performing community
service in lieu of the military and student nurses.

Topics: attitude to legitimacy of the social system and satisfaction
with democracy in the Federal Republic; most important reason for
national pride; feeling of political effectiveness or powerlessness
(scales); issue relevance and desired extent of government activities,
related to these issues; efficiency of political system in these areas
(Kaase index); frequency and time expended for information about
political events as well as for political conversations; preferred
sources of information; eligibility to vote at the last Federal
Parliament election and regularity of election participation; feeling
of obligation to participate in elections (scale); postmaterialism
index (short and long version of the scale); preferred protest form and
personal readiness for political participation (scale); fatalism;
detailed determination of participation success in school, family, the
job area, in political organizations as well as on various political
levels; representative participation success through friends or
relatives as well as political reference groups; social origins.

The following questions were also posed to members of the Federal
German Armed Forces: length of belonging to the Federal German Armed
Forces; type of service relationship and service grade.

Demography: age; sex; place of birth; local residency; religious
denomination; frequency of church attendance; school education;
vocational training; further education; size of place of residence and
length of residence; occupation of father or mother; self-assessment of
social class (categories provided).

Also encoded was: judgement on questionnaire by respondent.