The Unfinished History of the Social Democratic Family
Résumé
In this introductory chapter we first present the rationale for systematically culling the latest data available on contemporary social democratic parties. We then review at length the historical trajectory of social democracy and its constituent principles. Thereby, our readers will be able to contextualize the pan-European panorama of social democratic parties offered in this Handbook, which is focused on the period of 2000-12. We finally describe the four dilemmas faced by European social democracy at the beginning of the 21st century. These represent different ways of understanding the crisis running through this political family.