Voter Behavior (Panel 1990-1992)

Multi-wave follow-up survey on judgement on parties and politicians.
Attitude to current political and social questions. Topics: In all
three waves (in the east as in the west) the following questions were
posed: interest in politics; judgement on the general as well as
personal economic situation and expected future economic development;
party preference (Sunday question, second vote); interest in a
nation-wide eligiblity for the CSU; parties one cannot vote for;
frequency of reading the political part of daily newspapers and of
weekly political magazines; frequency of watching news and political
broadcasts; sympathy scale for selected top politicians and the
parties; issue relevance and issue ability of the parties; perceived
changes in selected political areas such as unemployment, drugs, equal
rights, security of pensions, social justice, environmental protection
and housing supply of the population; personal position and assumed
position of the parties regarding selected political questions such as
reduction in working hours or increase in income and making abortion
easier; sympathy scale for the parties, for the trade unions and
employers; anomy scale; self-classification as well as classification
of the parties on a left-right continuum; complexity of politics;
perceived personal powerlessness and assumed disinterest of politicians
in ordinary people; general judgement on the economic system, the
system of social security and the political system; trust in
institutions such as the Federal Government, the Federal Parliament,
the Federal German Armed Forces, the judiciary, the political parties,
the police and the Federal Constitutional Court; forms of political
participation; ASKO scale; classification of the parties on the ASKO
scale; party identification; intensity and length of party inclination;
parties as representatives of the interests of selected groups;
knowledge about the significance of first and second votes;
postmaterialism; religiousness; union membership; characterization of
social surroundings as persons with similar political views; party
currently most favored by mood. Interviewer rating: length of
interview; presence of other persons during interview. Also encoded
was: length of interview; identification of interviewer. The following
questions were posed in at least one survey wave and one part of the
state: changes in general as well as personal economic situation; most
important reasons for one´s own voting decision; attitude to selected
peoples and religious groups such as Americans, applicants for
political asylum, Buddhists, citizens of the GDR, French, Jews,
Moslems, East Germans, Russians, Swiss and Turks; election
participation and behavior at the polls in the last Federal Parliament
election; personality profiles of the two candidates for chancellor
Kohl and Lafontaine in comparison; personal position and assumed
position of the parties regarding reduction in government social
expenditures, West German participation in military actions of the
United Nations, restriction of automobile traffic, possible unification
of the two German nations, necessity of military intervention in Irak,
reasonableness of financial sacrifice for unification and immigration
restrictions for foreigners; positive and negative feelings regarding
selected terms such as harshness, obedience, uncompromising stand,
strictness, leadership personality, self-discipline and discipline;
classification of the candidates for chancellor Lafontaine and Kohl on
a left-right continuum; most important communication partner of
respondent for political conversations; assumed party preference of
this conversation partner; political knowledge such as e.g. knowledge
of the name of the CDU secretary-general as well as the Federal
Parliament President; knowledge of the year of construction of the wall
and the proportion of Russians among the citizens of the Soviet Union;
employment in the civil service; company size; most important
characteristics of work; place of work at place of residence;
characterization of circle of friends regarding religiousness and
proportion of trade union members; status of father, mother as well as
respondent as refugee, exiled from home, emigrant from East Germany or
ethnic German from Eastern Europe; residential status; city size.
Interviewer rating: description of place of residence; number of
residential units in building; reliability of respondent. The following
additional questions were posed in the east in at least one wave:
change of general as well as personal economic situation since
introduction of the DM as currency; attitude to Russians, Vietnamese
and West Germans; filing claim to possession of the residential
building of respondent by earlier owners; concern for future claims to
possession; personal attitude and assumed position of the parties
regarding criminal prosecution of former SED functionaries and STASI
employees.