Autumn Study 1990

Judgement on parties and politicians. Political attitudes. Attitudes to
unification of the two German nations.

Topics: Confidence in the future; judgement on the economic situation
in the Federal Republic and the GDR; assessment of further economic
development in the eastern or western part of Germany; personal
financial situation and expected development; assessment of the
development of unemployment in the country; interest in politics; most
important political problems and ability of the parties to solve them;
party inclination and party allegiance; personal change in party voted
for and behavior at the polls in the last Federal Parliament election
or election for the East German Parliament; satisfaction with parties
voted for; party preference (ballot procedure, first and second votes);
significance of selected moral concepts and importance of social goals
(scale); issue relevance; issue ability of the parties; attitude to
taking seats in Federal Parliament by the Republicans, the PDS or the
Greens; judgement on the chances of these parties in an all-German
election as well as readiness to vote for these parties;
characterization of the CDU/CSU as well as the SPD and judgement on
their public image (scale); most important and most trustworthy sources
of information regarding political matters; attitude to NATO; personal
opinion leadership or opinion allegiance; sympathy scale for the
parties and candidates for chancellor; self-assessment on a left-right
continuum; judgement on the speed of unification; attitude to
unification of the two German nations; preference for a market economy
system or socialist system in the Federal Republic; priority for
solving environmental questions before all other problems; effect of
unification on the significance of European unification, the stability
of monetary value and the standard of living in the eastern and western
part of Germany; national pride; assumed popularity of Germans abroad;
religiousness; ties to church; employment in the civil service;
membership in a club, a citizen initiative, a party or an occupational
organization as well as offices taken on; self-assessment of social
class and classification of social class of parents; union membership;
union office; solidarity with trade unions; possession of a telephone;
fear of unemployment or short time work; judgement on the capability of
the Federal Republic to build up the GDR economy; ability of the
Federal Government or the SPD in questions of unification; judgement on
the point in time of economic and currency union as well as expected
effects for the citizens of the GDR; expected duration until economic
improvement in the GDR; orientation of the future Federal Republic on
the principles of the GDR or the FRG; expected short-term and long-term
consequences of unification.

The following questions were also posed in the Federal Republic:
preference for a limitation of public money for economic construction
of the GDR; ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe or emigrants from East
Germany or refugees from the GDR; year of moving from East Germany.

Interviewer rating: presence of other persons during interview and
their relationship to respondent; intervention of others in interview;
willingness of respondent to cooperate and reliability of answers
given.

Also encoded were: length of interview; date of interview; sex of
interviewer.