Designing the Research: From Concept to Measures and Methods

Abstract

This chapter designs the research. To test theories, empirical measures and data are required. The chapter sets out hypotheses which will be tested and provides the technical details upon which the empirical testing is based. The first section introduces four measures of support and uses data reduction techniques to analyse if they constitute separate or related items. This provides crucial insights into how Germans think about democracy, by evaluating how far the theoretical distinctions correspond to the empirical reality. The second section summarises the theoretical approaches, highlights their principal variables and draws hypotheses with which they are tested. In addition, the chapter introduces the data source used: Allgemeine Bevölkerungs Umfrage der Sozialwissenschaften, German General Social Survey (ALLBUS).