Emmanuel Macron won the French presidency over the right-wing nationalist Marine Le Pen in a sweeping victory that resounded across the country. The result bolstered the European Union and showed the limits of Ms. Le Pen’s far-right message.

The enlarged EU remains focused on making its governing institutions more transparent and democratic. More powers have been given to the directly elected European Parliament, while national parliaments play a greater role, working alongside the European institutions. In turn, European citizens have an ever-increasing number of channels for taking part in the political process.

This was the year when democracy punched massive holes in the smug and consensual regimes of the global liberal elite. And there is more to come from the so-called populists who are derided by the elites in direct correlation to the threat they pose to them.

The president has energized his own supporters, and his attacks on established institutions have triggered a systemic immune response in the body politic.

The European Union and the United States suffer from democracy deficits. Modern democracy is realised in regularly elected legislative bodies that, though small enough to house in a parliamentary building, are large enough to reflect the interests of an entire people. By ratio of representatives to population, the US and the EU have among the least democratic of the world’s representative assemblies.

Leave campaigners claim that Britain is losing control of its affairs to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels – are they right?

With ever-rising inequality and the supremacy of a privileged elite class, American-style democracy is under threat.

The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter, and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

Tony Kwok says each time the US president’s actions call into question the very basics of US ethical standards, they show that Western-style democracy is clearly not a good example for China to follow.