Federal Parliament Election 1980 (Panel: 1st Wave 1978)

Political attitudes and judgement on parties as well as politicians.

The contents of the three surveys (ZA Study Nos. 1323 - 1325) are each
divided in two, in a block of questions identical at all survey times
and a further block specific to the respective wave.

Topics: 1. The part of the survey identical to all investigations:
judgement on one´s own economic situation and that of the Federal
Republic; political interest; most important political event; party
inclination and party identification; most important political task in
the Federal Republic and most able party; satisfaction with the
government coalition (SPD/FDP) and the opposition (CDU/CSU); party
preference (Sunday question, first vote and second vote) as well as
certainty of one´s voting decision; self-classification and
classification of the parties on a conservative-modern continuum;
strength of the representation of personal political concepts in the
individual parties; satisfaction with the political system in the FRG;
behavior at the polls in the Federal Parliament election 1976;
self-assessment of feeling of belonging to the group of Europeans, of
Liberals, of Conservatives, of the Left, of Free Democrats, of
Christian Democrats and of Social Democrats; approval of the FDP´s
departure from the Federal Parliament and most important reasons for
this; judgement on the freedom of decision for the FDP in the choice of
coalition; party preference of spouse; size of municipality;
characteristics of place of residence; date of interview; length of
interview.

2. Beyond this the following questions were posed in this wave:
judgement on party efforts for selected population groups; the positive
and negative sides of the SPD, CDU/CSU and of the FDP; adequate
consideration of more recent problem areas by the established parties
(protest potential); desire for further parties; attitude to separation
of CDU and CSU as well as to a nation-wide expansion of the CSU;
contacts with authorities and officials; judgement on the last contact
with authorities; judgement on the efforts of the government for
greater populism; expected opportunities for the parties to influence
the government´s populism; the party making the strongest efforts for
populism; personal opinion allegiance and frequency of seeking advice;
party preference of opinion leader; reliable sources and conversation
partner in the search for information on political questions; personal
intent to participate in the election and party preference at the state
level (Sunday question).

Demography: age; sex; marital status; religious denomination;
frequency of church attendance; school education; occupational
position; employment; number of recipients of income; household income;
characteristics of spouse; position in household; household size;
household composition; respondent is head of household; characteristics
of head of household; self-assessment of social class;

Interviewer rating: length of interview; date.