Engaging democracy?

These are perilous times for democracy. In Greece, despite two national elections and one referendum in less than nine months in 2015, nearly half the electorate shunned the ballot box. Elsewhere in Europe, the 50 percent threshold was barely passed in parliamentary elections last year in Portugal and in Spain, where the outcomes were far from decisive.

Last year was a year of anti-establishment candidates, fringe parties, and cynical tactical voting, from Trump to Tsipras, from the Danish People's Party to Podemos, and from 49 percent to 58 percent in the two rounds of voting in the French regional elections. Elsewhere, there were frequent accusations of backsliding, in transitional regimes as in certain newer European Union member-states. On Europe's doorstep, the hope of the Arab Spring has given way to the rise of the Islamic State and the horrors of the Syrian refugee...