Democracy everywhere is facing serious challenges.The United States is gripped by the most bizarre presidential primary campaign in living memory, with populist outsiders threatening to topple established party machines.Brazil is paralysed by constitutional crisis.Europeans trace

The British government’s recent announcement that a referendum on Britain’s European Union membership will be held on June 23 was quickly followed by a sharp drop in the pound’s value.Exchange rate volatility for the pound is bound to continue until the referendum, and to intensi

The price of oil is often regarded as a sort of thermometer to measure the health of the world economy.

The upcoming referendum on the United Kingdom’s continued membership in the European Union, almost certain to be held this year, could turn out to be yet another major catastrophe to hit Europe.If, as seems increasingly plausible, British voters chose to leave, the result would b

If there is a bright side to the turmoil that has roiled the global economy since 2008, it is that not every part of the world has erupted simultaneously. The first blow was the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, to which Europeans responded with self-satisfied r

So far, the Volkswagen scandal has played out according to a well-worn script.

The largest unresolved issue in the European Union is mobility.The integration process was intended to make it easier and more attractive for Europeans to move from one country to another.

Europe’s ongoing malaise has reignited the old debate over which form of government produces better economic performance.Are authoritarian regimes, with their ability to ram through unpopular choices, more effective at generating growth?Or does liberal democracy, with its built i

Niccolò Machiavelli is trending. More than 500 years after writing his famous treatise “The Prince”, Machiavelli has reemerged as one of Europe’s most popular political thinkers. And, indeed, his book — one of the earliest political “how to&