International Social Survey Programme: Role of Government II - ISSP 1990

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>Citizen rights: attitude to law-abidingness and to selected
forms of protest against the government; attitude to freedom of speech
and freedom of the press even for revolutionaries and racists; attitude
to police intervention in the private sphere to prevent crimes;
attitude to the principle of rule by law, in doubt for the accused;
attitude to participants in demonstrations, racists and
revolutionaries.

Government intervention: attitude to tax progression and to income
re-distribution by the government; attitude to government measures
regarding control of wages, salaries and prices as well as the
reduction of government expenditures; attitude to government job
creation measures, measures to stimulate the economy and subsidies;
preference for reduced government economic control; attitude to
reduction in working hours for the purpose of creating new jobs;
preference for an increase or reduction in government expenditures,
applied to selected political areas; priority for fighting inflation or
fighting unemployment; evaluation of the influence of trade unions,
industry and government; evaluation of the position of the government
in electricity supply, the steel industry as well as banking and
insurance; attitude to a government job guarantee, to price control, to
national health care, to maintenance of an appropriate standard of
living for old people and the unemployed, to reduction in income
differences, to support of students from poorer families and to
providing housing opportunities for the poor; interest in politics.

Demography: time worked each week; employment in the civil service;
span of control; company size; union membership; times of unemployment;
self-classification on a left-right continuum; party inclination and
party preference; behavior at the polls in the last national election;
religiousness; self-assessment of social class; number of children;
residential status.

Additionally encoded were: city size; willingness of respondent to
cooperate or response time of the questionnaire; ethnic, cultural or
national affiliation or origins.