ANES 1980 Merged File

Résumé 0

This study is part of a time-series collection of national surveys fielded continuously since 1948, and designed to present information on Americans' social backgrounds, enduring political predispositions, social and political values, perceptions and evaluations of political groups and candidates, opinions on questions of public policy, and participation in political life. In 1980 the American National Election Studies Center conducted several integrated survey data collections occurring at strategically chosen periods in the course of the election year. Content areas targeted for special attention were respondents' party identification, their attitudes regarding public policy issues, public perceptions of, and responses to political leadership, as well as the exploration of social networks in the crystallization of the vote choice. The Pre- and Post-Election Surveys file [ICPSR 7763] includes the traditional election survey data, as well as contextual measures that include election returns, interest group ratings of incumbents, and Federal Election Commission campaign contribution data. The Major Panel File [ICPSR 35120] presents a year-long four-wave panel. The ANES 1980 Merged File is a complex dataset prepared to facilitate the analytic use of the large body of data gathered in 1980. Virtually all of the 1980 data are included in this file, and merged as appropriate for panel samples. In addition to the traditional pre- and post-survey data and the Major Panel data, this dataset contains an independent cross-section sample (C-1) of 965 cases that were interviewed in the midst of the primary season during the three-week "window" following the early April primaries. These respondents were re-interviewed following the general election (C-4) with a telephone interview which was essentially the same as that administered to Wave Four Panel respondents. The individual files for each of the 1980 surveys have been reformatted to a standardized data record structure in such a manner that the data for identical questions across studies are always stored under the same variable number and in a fixed and specified record location in the integrated file. Filters are included to allow users to retrieve specific samples from the file. Vote validation data are included in the file.