Political Attitudes, Political Participation and Voting Behavior in Reunified Germany 1998

Political attitudes and political participation in reunified Germany.
Cumulated data set from the data sets of four largely identical cross-section surveys at two different survey times in West and East Germany.

Topics: judgement on current general economic situation as well as economic situation in the previous year; expected economic situation; knowledge about the importance of first vote and second vote; satisfaction with democracy; interest in politics; certainty of one´s own intent to participate in the election and one´s own voting decision (pre); type of voting as absentee ballot or polling place (post); same voting decision after knowledge about results of the election (post); party preference (Sunday question, first vote and second vote, post); voting decision for candidate (pre) and recall (post), voting decision for party (pre) and recall (post); respondent has answered the question regarding voting intent and voting decision; time of voting decision (post); most important reasons for one´s own voting decision (post); certainty of one´s own voting decision (pre); reasons for voting intent and not voting; eligible to vote 1998; estimated certainty of selected smaller parties taking seats in Federal Parliament (FDP, Bündnis90/Die Grünen, PDS, Republikaner, and DVU (pre); expected election winner in the Federal Parliament election (CDU/CSU or SPD, pre); evaluation of democracy as a conception of a state; personal financial situation; personal financial situation has improved and expectations for the next year; most important reasons for dissatisfaction with parties; coalition preference; satisfaction with result of Federal Parliament election (post); intensity of following the election campaign (post); responsivity: judgement on party politicians and their job as well as their relation to citizens (scale); most important problems of the country; issue ability of parties; external efficacy: possibilities of citizens to influence parties; internal efficacy: ability of citizens to influence parties and governments (scale); electoral duty; attitude towards democracy; assessment of the position of the most important parties on the topics nuclear energy, immigration, and European unification; personal opinion on these topics and importance of problem solution; importance of providing jobs, support of new technologies the promotion of equal opportunities for women (issue importance); state responsibility for these issues; satisfaction with task fulfillment of the government on these issues; place of residence in July 1989; retrospective judgement on personal standard of living, fairness of income distribution, social security, company of people, and crime protection in the FRG 1989 and in the GDR compared to today; knowledge of the number of federal states; sympathy scale for the parties CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, Bündnis90/Die Grünen, Republikaner, PDS, and DVU; postmaterialism (Inglehart Index); trust in institutions: trust in Federal Parliament, the Federal Constitutional Court, Federal Government, the judiciary, the police, administration, churches, parties, the Federal German Armed Forces, trade unions, ecological groups and in trade associations as well as employer´s associations; preference for chancellor; sympathy scale for candidates for chancellor Kohl and Schroeder; assessment of characteristics of the two candidates for chancellor regarding sympathy, trustworthiness, energy and their concepts to improve the economy (economic skills); preference of political participation (scale); left-right self-placement; feeling of representation in selected associations, institutions and parties; assessment of closeness of trade unions, trade and employer´s associations, ecological groups and churches to selected parties; social moral orientations (scale); satisfaction with the Federal Government; geographic connection: connected to the community, the city, the region, the federal state, old FRG / GDR, and Germany; left-right placement of parties; media usage: frequency of reading ‘BILD-Zeitung’, local, regional and national daily newspapers; frequency of reception of political news on television (ARD, ZDF and private TV); assessment of the fairness of the social system in the Federal Republic; belonging to the underprivileged or to the privileged section of population; behavior at the polls in the Federal Parliament election 1994; extremism scale: national pride, nationalization of important companies, courage to sense of nationality, group interests subordinated to public welfare, dictatorship as the better type of state, good aspects of National Socialism, without extermination of Jews, Hitler as a great statesman, foreign infiltration of the Federal Republic, GDR with more good than bad aspects, foreigners should marry countrymen, influence of Jews still too big, socialism as good concept but badly executed, Jews don’t fit in society and sympathy with attacks on homes for people seeking political asylum.

Demography: sex; age (month of birth, year of birth); religious denomination; frequency of church attendance; memberships in citizen’s initiative, party, trade association or trade union; party preference; party identification; reasons for party preference (scale); strength and length of this party preference; education and school degree; aimed form of graduation; completed apprenticeship; present or previous employment; previous employment: until when; involuntary change of job or unemployment since 1994; withdraw from working life since 1994; employment in the civil service; employment status; marital status; living together with a partner; information on partner: education and school degree, aimed form of graduation, completed apprenticeship, present or previous employment, previous employment: until when, involuntary change of job or unemployment since 1994, withdraw from working life since 1994, employment in the civil service, and employment status; household size; number of persons 16 years old or older in household; number of persons contributing to the income of the household; household’s net income; self-assessment of social class (respondent’s subjective strata); which part of strata; strata compared to the parents; telephone in the household; willingness to participate in a further interview 2002.

Additionally encoded was: respondent number; West-East split; date of Interview (pre/post); year of interview; date of interview; length of interview; interviewer-ID; size of town (politically and BIK (Boustedt)); district of the interview; federal state; weighting factors.