DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04605.v1
title: Transatlantic Trends Survey, 2005
title: Version 1

description: For this survey, opinions were sought from respondents across Europe and the United States on several topics of national and international interest. These topics included: (1) the European Union (EU) and the United States as superpowers, threats facing the global community, (2) the United Nations (UN), (3) the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), (4) general opinions of various countries, institutions, and people, (5) actions taken by the George W. Bush Administration, (6) intervention policy, (7) Turkey's (potential) membership in the EU, (8) Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, (9) China's human rights record, and (10) political preferences and voter intentions. Regarding the EU and the United States as superpowers, respondents were asked whether it was desirable for the EU or the United States to exert strong leadership in the world, whether the EU or the United States or neither should be superpowers, if the motive for opposing the EU becoming a superpower was increased military expenditure, whether increased military expenditure was necessary for the EU to become a superpower, whether the EU should concentrate on becoming an economic power, and if a more powerful EU should cooperate with the United States. Respondents were asked about threats facing the world such as Islamic fundamentalism, immigration, international terrorism, global warming, the spread of diseases such as AIDS, a major economic downturn, and the spread of nuclear weapons, and whether they expected to be affected by any of them in the next ten years. With respect to the United Nations, respondents were asked their overall opinion of the UN, whether they believed UN involvement legitimized the use of military force, whether the UN could help manage the world's problems better than a single country could, and whether the UN helps to distribute the costs of international actions. Regarding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), respondents were asked whether NATO could help share the United States military burden, whether NATO was an essential part of national security, if NATO involvement legitimized the use of military force, if NATO was dominated by the United States, and whether Europe should maintain a defensive alliance independent of the United States. Respondents were asked to give their opinions on the following countries, institutions, and population groups: the United States, Russia, Israel, the European Union, Palestinians, Italy, Turkey, China, Iran, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Spain. In regard to the Bush Administration, respondents were asked whether relations between the United States and Europe were better or worse, whether Bush's efforts to improve relations between the United States and Europe were successful, what the future of relations between the United States and Europe would be because of Bush's efforts, and whether or not Europe should be more independent from the United States with respect to issues of security and diplomacy. Respondents were also asked whether they approved of Bush's handling of international policies. With respect to intervention policy, the following questions were asked: should the EU help establish democracies, should the EU be involved in monitoring elections, would the respondent be in favor of the EU supporting trade unions, human rights associations, and religious groups in an effort to promote freedom, and should the EU support political dissidents and impose political and economic sanctions in opposition to an authoritarian regime. Respondents were asked several questions regarding Turkey's membership in the EU, including whether Turkey's membership in the EU could help promote peace and stability in the Middle East, if Turkey's membership in the EU would be good for the EU in economic terms, whether a predominately Muslim country belonged in the EU, if Turkey was too populous to become a member of the EU, and whether Turkey was too poor to be admitted into the EU. Respondents were also asked what they felt was the best way to put pressure on Iran in light of its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and whether or not the EU should limit its relations with China due to China's human rights violations. Respondents were also asked about their voting intentions for the next elections and what factors they took into consideration when deciding for which party to vote. The dataset also includes several demographic variables such as gender, age, level of education, occupation, household size, region, and ethnicity (United States only).
description: The weighting system used is the raking ratio technique, a common technique used in sample surveys for improving the precision and reducing the bias of estimators, which uses iterative proportional fitting. In practice, for each of the variables of interest a new variable is computed, which accounts for the different proportions in sample and in population. This process is iterated until the difference between the population value and the sample value is sufficiently small, usually two or three times. In this case, raking ratio adjustment is made using the variables: age, education, gender, and population. The variable Var158 contains the weight calculated using the variables: age, education, and gender in this order, and in the United States data, race is not considered. Var159 contains the weight calculated as in Var158, but with race included in the United States data. Var155 is the weight calculated for each country size with the exception of Slovakia, Turkey, and Spain. Var156 contains the weight calculated, as in Var155, for all European countries, including Turkey. Var157 contains a weight calculated for each European country, with the exception of Turkey. The variables Var155, Var156, and Var157 contain a weight calculated for each country according to the size of its population.
description: Response Rates: The average response rate for the 11 countries surveyed was 24.6 percent.
description: In all countries a random sample of approximately 1,000 men and women, aged 18 and older, were interviewed.
description: Datasets: DS1: Transatlantic Trends Survey, 2005
description: Populations aged 18 and older in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
description: face-to-face interview; computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI); paper and pencil interview (PAPI); computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)Related information can be found at Transatlantic Trends.Due to problems displaying certain foreign language characters, value labels for VAR127 through VAR137 have been left out of the dataset. Complete value labels for variables VAR127 through VAR137 can be found in the codebook accompanying this study.Additional information on the method of cataloging regions of EU member states, used to create VAR153, can be found at: Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS).