German Election Panel Study, 1984

<p>Political attitudes and satisfaction. Behavior at the polls and party inclination. Political self-classification. Topics: first wave: judgement on the current and future situation in the country; development of one's own financial situation; interest in politics; memory of political events in the last year; behavior at the polls in the Federal Parliament election 1976; attitude to politicians, state and democracy; party preference (ballot procedure, first and second votes); certainty of one's voting decision; orientation of voting decision on politicians or a party; issue relevance and issue competence of the parties; party inclination and party identification; inclination to a party temporarily or in principle; reasons for or against solidarity with a party (scales); sources of information for forming a political opinion; frequency of watching television news broadcasts; attitudes to NATO, nuclear energy, the environment, government achievements, prosperity, leisure time and work (scale); agreement of one's own opinion with the goals of selected parties and politicians (scale); confidence in the future; social concepts and ideals; satisfaction with democracy; preference for federal chancellor (Strauss or Schmidt); self-classification on a left-right continuum; expected governing party or government coalition in the future; trust in governmental and political institutions; preferred forms of political participation; personal position in political controversies (questions on foreigners, job security, government indebtedness, foreign policy and price stability) and assumed positions of the CDU/CSU as well as of the SPD; assessment of the general significance of these controversies; interest in the election campaign and significance of the election campaign for one's own voting decision; religiousness; self-assessment of social class; party inclination of spouse as well as of father; union membership; occupation of father; significance of religiousness in one's own education. Also encoded was: length of interview; size of place of residence. Second wave: in the second wave the questions from the first wave were largely repeated; beyond this the following additional questions were posed: importance of areas of life; profile of characteristics for the SPD, CDU/CSU, FDP and the Greens (semantic differential); satisfaction with SPD/FDP coalition and the CDU/CSU opposition; behavior at the polls in the Federal Parliament election 1980; personal time planning, planning for the future and fatalistic basic position; evaluation of the NATO two-track decision; preferred direction of development for the economy, the environment, society and peace; preference for federal chancellor (Kohl or Schmidt); classification of the parties on a left-right continuum; attitude to nuclear energy; preference for a neutral Germany, in order to make reunification possible; ties to church; membership in clubs, organizations and citizen initiatives; solidarity with the trade unions; expected personal further development; characterization of occupational groups in one's own residential area; dominance of SPD or CDU constituency in one's residential area.</p>