Slovenian Public Opinion, 1989

A specific theme of the survey was the awareness and attitude of the people towards the proposal for a new Republic Constitution. The first set of questions relates to the social crisis and reform. There is confidence in the government’s ability to resolve the crisis, the views on the need to reduce income differentials, the dilemma of halting inflation or unemployment. Respondents assess people’s mood in times of crisis, what would be the most appropriate way to solve problems, and judge individual views that would help to get out of the crisis. The chapter on positions related to the amendment of the Slovenian Constitution begins with questions about knowledge of the Constitution, knowledge of changes and necessity of amendments themselves. The level of agreement with individual constitutional amendments concerning solutions relating to the function of municipalities and the powers of the Republic, knowledge of the internal political system in Slovenia, electoral procedures and opinion on their adequacy, assessment of the necessity of calling a referendum is recorded below. Continue with the Slovenian translation of the international questionnaire ISSP85 The role of the state, which is partly repeated in ISSP96 and ISSP90 (see also ADP — IDNo: ISSPSJ89) or relevant ADP research — IDNo: SJM954 contains views on the functions of the government in specific areas. The respondents assess the importance of individual types of human rights for themselves personally and whether they are sufficiently protected in Yugoslavia, assess the most important constitutional amendments concerning the inviolability of housing, confession of religion, the death penalty, the right to operate political associations and organisations, Slovenian sovereignty. They are given an assessment of the individual economic measures that could be taken by the government, what influence the state should have in individual economic areas and for the functioning of which social areas the state is responsible for. A special chapter is dedicated to human rights. Respondents define the degree of suitability of each method of punishment, the right of the state to prevent the publication of confidential documents, the extent to which individual protest actions and actions should be allowed, and assess the justification of individual police measures in case of suspicion of a criminal offence. The questions on socio-political organisations include opinions on the influence of citizens, the public on government and politics, the role of SZDL, new political alliances, assessments of which political organisation will have the greatest importance in the future, opinions on the consistency of UK policy with the interests of the majority and comparison of UK leadership policy with leadership policy years ago, the importance of the UK and its role in the past and the future of society, the reputation of the UK among people. Questions about international relations begin with the standard scale of ethnic distance, how closely we would be willing to connect with members of individual Yugoslav nations, opinions on relations between peoples and ethnicities in the Slovenian and Yugoslav areas, and what future relations will be, the classification of countries or groups of countries with which Slovenia should connect in the future, and issues related to Slovenian sovereignty: Slovenian politics is sufficiently independent, the right to secession, the possibilities of Slovenia outside the framework of Yugoslavia, the assessment of its own response to a possible violent change of Slovenian political leadership. The remaining questions on transnational relations are inquired about crisis events outside Slovenia: assessment of the crisis in Kosovo, hunger strike by miners, cooperation of Slovenian militias and soldiers in the maintenance of the state of emergency in Kosovo. Respondents choose Slovenian politicians, which have the highest reputation among the people and Yugoslav politics, whose ideas are unacceptable, assess what foreign policy would be most appropriate for Yugoslavia, stalls regarding the introduction of civilian military service, consideration of conscientious objection to prolonging military service, usefulness of military service in the Republic of origin, anti-armadic mood, possibility for the military to take over power. The following are opinions on current events: various ways of undermining Slovenia’s sovereignty, the functioning of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights, the JBTZ process. Demographic issues include gender, age, marital status, nationality, household size, basic income source of the household, employment status, qualification and position at work, education, membership in socio-political organisations, religion, father’s profession, strata (self-ranking), material status (acquisition of movable and general purpose objects), municipality, size of settlement and type of local community.