Young Voters in the Saarland

Political attitudes and judgement on parties as well as politicians in
the Saarland.

Topics: 1. Political knowledge and attitudes: expected influence of
politics on personal life; personal areas of life, influenced by
politics; satisfaction with democracy and the political system in the
FRG.

2. Attitude to the political parties and judgement on parties or
politicians: good and bad sides of the parties; satisfaction scale for
the CDU, SPD, and the FDP, party preference (ballot procedure);
certainty of one´s voting decision for the coming state parliament
election in the spring of 1980; assumed vote gains or loss of votes by
the individual parties until the next election; preferred Saarland
politician; knowledge about the political offices of selected Saarland
politicians; rank order of the most important personal characteristics
of politicians; sympathy scale as well as achievement scale for the
parties and top politicians in the Saarland as well as also for Helmut
Schmidt and Franz-Josef Strauss; profile of characteristics of the top
candidates for the state parliament elections (semantic differential);
issue ability of the top candidates and parties; judgement on the state
government (scale); attitude to a continuation of the coalition;
preferred state government; expected influence of the candidacy for
chancellor of Strauss on the behavior at the polls in the state
parliament election; sources of information about political questions;
judgement on the advertising effectiveness of selected election
campaign means; judgement on the achievements of the CDU-led state
government in the last 20 years.

Demography: age; sex; religious denomination; school education;
occupation; occupational position; employment; household size;
household composition.

3. Miscellaneous: local residency in the Saarland; attitude to life in
the Saarland; expected economic development.

4. Interviewer rating: city type.

5. Also encoded were: city code and identification of interviewer.