The study was funded by the Volkswagen Stiftung (Germany), the Commission of the European Communities, the European Parliament, and the US National Science Foundation. Two separate studies were conducted among political elites in connection with the 1979 European Elections: a survey among the Candidates for the European Parliament and the European Political Parties’ Middle-Level Elites Study.
The respondents were selected from the candidates running for the European Parliament 1979. The number of candidates varied from country to country and included 62 percent of those who were elected to the European Parliament. The study focused on the reasons respondents had for choosing to become candidates, and their views on the goals, priorities, and powers of the European Parliament. The study was designed to permit comparison of opinions between the general public and candidates, and it includes a large number of questions that were also administered to the general public in Eurobarometer 11.
How to cite this data: Rabier, Jacques-Rene, Carsten Sorensen, Ronald Inglehart, and Ian Gordon. Candidates for the European Parliament, April-May 1979. ICPSR09033-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2002. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR09033.v1
The study is part of the European Election Study (EES) effort to collect various sorts of data from a different level of political actors involved in the holding of European Parliament elections. The respondents were selected from among the party conference delegates of all consenting parties in the, at that time, European Community (i.e. the original “Nine” plus Portugal, Spain and Greece). The study was designed using a Common Questionnaire that was appended by each national project group with its own nationally relevant questions. The final outcome is a data-set that ensures cross-country comparability. The study focuses on the political careers of party delegates, the way they see themselves, their political orientation and their attitudes to the European Community.
How to cite this data: Niedermayer, Oskar; Schmitt, Hermann (1987): European Political Parties’ Middle-Level Elites. GESIS Data Archive, Cologne. ZA1598 Data file Version 1.0.0, doi:10.4232/1.1598
