Arms control in the European political environment

This study contains data from 147 French respondents and 173 German respondents collected by personal interviews with selected elite figures during 1964 (June and July in France, and late May to early October in Germany). The sample rested both on reputational and positional characteristics of potential respondents. Self-selection affected the sample - only 203 of the 441 French elites contacted agreed to participate and only 481 of the 650 German contacted agreed to participate. After this elimination, the samples were further reduced by scholarly as well as practical criteria. The researchers' intentions were to gather data bearing on four significant aspects of French and West German politics relevant to the issue of arms control and disarmament in Western Europe. These four areas were domestic policy, foreign policy, European integration, and arms control and disarmament. The data from this questionnaire touched specifically on the respondents' perceptions of the political system and its future, opinions on specific foreign policy issues and their relationship to domestic politics, the two Germanys question, national sovereignty versus international associations, European integration, and various nuclear strategies and arms control arrangements.

Biographical data including standard demographic and personal information as well as data on party, military, and governmental backgrounds, were compiled from records and interviews. Measures of latent attitude structures were assessed by interviewers. The ''Latent Attitude Questionnaire'' tapped such variables as respondents' interest in and emotional reaction to issues, perception of emotional reactions to professional roles and responsibilities, general ability to structure problems, open-mindedness, alienation, and feelings of competence.