In this chapter, we study voter preferences for different social democratic programmatic strategies. In line with the theoretical framework of the volume, we suggest that there are four different strategies social democratic parties could currently pursue: Old Left, New Left, Centrist, or Left National.

In original surveys conducted in six European countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden), we present these four strategies to respondents in the form of tabular vignettes. Evaluations of these vignettes are used to examine which programmatic strategies resonate with, on the one hand, the general electorate, and, on the other hand, the potential social democratic electorate. We also study support for the different programmatic strategies across subgroups of voters, and we analyze the determinants of voters’ choice between particular social democratic strategies and matched competitor party programs.

Our findings show that while in the overall electorate, Centrist Left and Left National programmatic profiles enjoy high levels of support, potential social democratic voters on average more strongly support Old Left and New Left programs. We find that from the perspective of voters, there might be less of a trade-off between “redistribution and recognition” policies than public debates would have us think. In line with these findings, we show that choices between social democratic parties and their direct competitors are responsive to programmatic supply within the left bloc. However, the choice between social democratic parties and parties of the Right is much less strongly affected by social democratic positioning.

The pion, the mediator of the nuclear force proposed in 1935 by Yukawa. The first particle discovered in the cosmic rays looked like the pion, but was later found to be a lepton, the muon. Experiments at high altitudes on cosmic rays led finally to the discovery of the pion. More experiments soon showed other surprises, the strange particles.

How the properties of the charged pion have been measured.

The discoveries of the charged leptons and of the neutrinos.

How, in 1928, A. M. Dirac found the fundamental relativistic wave equation and the Dirac Lagrangian. Dirac’s fundamental predictions of the existence for each fermion of an antiparticle with the same mass but opposite ‘charges’. How the positron and the antiproton were discovered. The important concepts of helicity and chirality.

The Majorana equation for completely neutral fermions.

This chapter provides an analytical framework for the empirical studies comprised in the volume. It starts by defining the relevant temporalities to study party strategies and sociostructural processes of electoral realignment. The chapter then develops the concept of the “social democratic idea” that underlies the entire left field of political parties. The third section defines four key structural challenges to the social democratic idea and the potential responses and trade-offs resulting from them for the left field. The fourth section discusses party strategic alternatives to respond to structural challenges and transformations of the social democratic electorate and then differentiates this discussion by different contexts characterized by political-economic legacies and institutions. The chapter concludes with an outline of the book.

The toolbox for subnuclear physics.

How the Lorentz transformations can be found from basic properties of space-time, independently of electromagnetism, as in the usual presentations. Lorentz-invariance is a common property of all the fundamental interactions.

Clear discussion of the fundamental concepts of energy, momentum and mass; of their relations; and of their transformations between reference systems, in particular the laboratory and centre of mass frames.

The sources of high-energy particles, cosmic rays and the different types of accelerators. The progress of our knowledge is fully linked to the experimental ‘art’ of detector design and development. Detectors are made of matter, solid or liquid, or gaseous. The interactions of charged and neutral high-energy particles with matter are described. The principal types of detector and the principles of their operation are introduced.

The fascinating new world inside the nucleon, of quarks, gluons and colour, the nuclear strong force. How quantum chromodynamics (QCD) was discovered: probing the nucleons with scattering experiments and with increasing energy e+e− colliders, where quarks and gluons appear as hadronic jets.

The colour charges are three. Being the gauge of QCD non-Abelian, the gluons, not only the quarks, are ‘coloured’. How colour charges bind three quarks or a quark–antiquark pair forming hadrons that have zero overall colour charges.

The QCD coupling constant runs as the fine-structure constant, but with increasing momentum transfer, it decreases, instead of growing. Quarks become ‘free’, when they are very close to each other. Only a very small fraction of the proton mass is due to the quark masses, 99% being the energy of the colour field. The QCD vacuum, the status of minimum energy, a very active medium indeed, beautiful to study.

When matter first appeared in the universe, in the first microsecond after the Big Bang, quarks and gluons moved freely in a hot ‘soup’, the quark–gluon plasma. It is created in the laboratory in the ultra-relativistic heavy ion colliders and theoretically analysed with lattice QCD

This short chapter touches on the limitations of the SM. The SM does not include gravity, and it does not explain the major components of the mass–energy budget of the universe, dark matter and dark energy, the latter being probably the cosmological constant. CP violation in the quark sector is too small to explain the matter–antimatter asymmetry of the Universe, but, if confirmed, the non-SM CP violation in the neutrino sector might be large enough. The ‘strong CP violation’ problem might be solved with the existence of a very light particle, the axion; experiments are reaching the requested sensitivity. Supersymmetric particles present in some extensions of the SM have been searched for, but not found so far.

The SM contains too many free parameters: the masses of the fermions and of the bosons, and the mixing angles. The masses of the fermions, from neutrinos to the top quark, span 13 orders of magnitude. Why such big difference? Why is mixing small in the quark sector, and large in the neutrino sector? Why do the proton and the electron have exactly equal (and opposite) charges? Why are there just three families? Are there any spatial dimensions beyond the three we know? And so on.

This chapter is based on fieldwork with scientists studying the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) in Bhutan and Guatemala, who are advancing relational, interdependent models of development. Departing from growth models that focus on nutrient inputs and the mother’s body, these scientists employ ‘fishbone’ modelling (Bhutan) and the ‘dirty chicken hypothesis’ (Guatemala) to chart growth in relation to ecological surroundings. Turning the conversation of child development towards the effects of lead toxicity and chronic inflammation caused by microbial and other contaminants, their work offers an alternative to individualising, mother-focused origin stories of malnutrition. The chapter considers how visions of interdependent ontogeny (biological development) help reimagine the sites of health, disease, and global development.