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.