Mannheim Elite Study 1968

The professional career of West German elites and their attitudes to
political questions of principle as well as to current and long-term
political and economic problems.

Topics: characterization of particular burdens of the professional
position; occupational satisfaction; competition pressure on one´s own
position; most important factors of personal occupational career;
judgement on the chances for talented young newcomers in one´s area of
occupation; attitude to transfer of executives between areas of
science, industry, politics and the economy; preferred areas for a
personal change; significant special interest groups in one´s area of
occupation; assessment of the importance of selected sources of
information for one´s own orientation; newspapers and magazines read;
personal information deficits in the political area; judgement on the
extent of government order policies in the economic process; judgement
on the economic situation and the economic future of the Federal
Republic as well as of the GDR; consequences of recognition of the GDR;
judgement on the last Adenauer government, the government time of
Erhard and of the grand coalition (scale); judgement on the effects of
the grand coalition on democracy in the FRG; importance of political
goals and issue-ability of the grand coalition; assessment of the
influence and the success of the two coalition partners; assessment of
deficiencies and advantages of the political system of the FRG;
judgement on the emergency legislation; attitude to a majority vote
system; assessment and judgement on the influence as well as desired
power of special interest groups as well as political institutions in
the FRG; attitude to the federalist principle of the FRG; judgement on
the finance reform; preferred government coalition; major problems of
domestic policy; attitude to a two-party system; judgement on
organization form and decision-making of the parties; perceived
differences between the views of the CDU/CSU and the SPD; reasons for
the success of the NPD and expected proportion of votes in the Federal
Parliament election 1969; assessment of the stability of the political
system in the FRG; judgement on the jeopardy to political order through
radicals in case of an economic crisis; assessment of equality of
opportunity in the FRG; party preference and party identification;
assessment of the most influential personalities in the FRG; regional
and social origins; memberships; personal passive and active work in
the NSDAP; military rank at the end of the war; self-assessment of
belonging to the 2000 most influential personalities in the FRG.

Scales: dogmatism, understanding of democracy and attitude to social
change.

Demography: age; sex; marital status; number of children; religious
denomination; religiousness; frequency of church attendance; school
education; occupational position; occupational career; self-assessment
of social class; Hobbys; child-raising in parental home.

Interviewer rating: interest of respondent in interview and interest
in political questions in general; willingness of respondent to
cooperate; designation of the most difficult questions during the
interview; length of interview; presence of other persons; number of
interruptions of the interview.