DOI: 10.3886/icpsr07777.v1
title: Political Action: An Eight Nation Study, 1973-1976
title: Version 1

description: The wave of unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s in advanced industrial societies provided the impetus for this cross-national study of conventional and unconventional forms of political participation. This is an integrated dataset of national sample surveys that were conducted via personal interview during 1973-1976 in eight nations: Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Finland. Part 1 contains data gathered in a cross-section sample from 12,588 respondents 16 years of age and over. Part 2 contains data gathered from 1,635 parent-child pairs (with the child being 16-20 years of age) who were part of the first sample and who were further interviewed. The surveys focused on various forms and combinations of political activity ranging from voting to protest actions, and on individual propensities to perform these activities. Among the factors explored in the surveys as contributors to those political activities are personal satisfaction and deprivation, interest in politics, perception of over- and underprivileged groups, left-wing/right-wing self-placement, political attitudes and values, materialist/post-materialist standards, voting behavior, conventional political participation, subjective social class, system responsiveness, political efficacy, attitudes toward young people, ideological sophistication, and satisfaction with government's political, social, and economic policies. Demographic data collected from respondents include age, sex, ethnic origin, number of siblings, father's occupation, family's wealth when young, parents' political preference and education, respondent's religious activity, marital status, number of children, educational level, employment status, organizational membership, current occupation, union membership, and personal, family, and desired income.
description: National multistage probability samples were used to select a valid cross-section of the population 16 years of age and over in each of the eight countries making up the study's universe. In addition to the cross-section sample, interviews were carried out to provide information on parent-child pairs. In sample households that contained at least one 16- to 20-year-old member, in addition to the respondent selected by the usual household listing selection procedure, a supplementary interview was conducted with the respective other member of the pair.
description: Datasets: DS0: Study-Level Files DS1: Cross-Section DS2: Parent-Child Pairs
description: Persons aged 16 and over in Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Finland.
description: (1) These data were processed by the Zentralarchiv fuer empirische Sozialforschung at the University of Cologne in cooperation with ICPSR on the basis of eight surveys carried out independently. Although a common set of questions had been agreed upon by the principal investigators, the eight questionnaires showed a considerable amount of diversity with respect to sequence of questions and coding. Therefore, prior to any data processing, a "common core" of the eight surveys was defined by including any question asked in at least three of the eight surveys, making an "integrated" dataset. (2) More detailed technical descriptions (than provided by this dataset's codebook) of sampling procedures, interviewer characteristics, and comparisons of the sample estimate with known population characteristics have been deposited with the Zentralarchiv.