As this year draws to a close, so does Britain’s membership of the EU. A “hard” Brexit looks likely, unless politicians belatedly recognize that the deal Theresa May has negotiated is the best on offer.

In continental Europe, Emmanuel Macron is weakened at home and struggling to win support for ambitious EU reforms in Brussels. The migration crisis has gone, but the political center still needs to come up with better policies.

On both sides of the Atlantic, center-left parties must decide whether to woo working-class voters or side with the socially progressive middle class. The lesson from Europe is that either strategy can work — but social democrats need to pick a side.

Brazil has elected its own version of Donald Trump. The fear is that Jair Bolsonaro will face even less resistance from institutions than the American caudillo. Read more

2017 was marked by the aftermath of the political upsets of 2016: Brexit got started, Donald Trump was sworn in as president and “globalists” were left wondering where it had all gone wrong.

The intellectual and political debate that ensued clarified things. My own conclusion: we are living through the latest battle in the war between Enlightenment universalism and Romantic nationalism. The politics and the policies have changed, but the underlying tension — between liberty and community, between opportunity and equality, between city and country — is the same it has been for centuries.

Most of our top stories from 2017, from Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party to the political realignment in France, have to do with this tension in one way or another.

Here is an overview. Read more