Mercosur was set up to be a group of liberal democracies advancing free trade in South America.

ECONOMIST: South American integration

The EU, a club of Western liberal democracies, has struggled recently to keep some of the bloc's newer members on what it considers the proper legal path.

WSJ: Hungary Amends Laws, in Snub to EU, U.S.

It's not a bright picture, and it poses uncomfortable questions about the ability of Western liberal democracies to engage with crisis head on and deal with it.

BBC: Nationalism looks set to remain on trend in France

Liberal democracies and well-run companies ought to be able to find ways to deal with any justified grievances about inequality, and to win the argument against unjustified ones.

ECONOMIST: Inequality

That might well have a better chance of working eventually, although even the most advanced and liberal democracies, including the United States, have made quite a hash of assimilating people of different races.

ECONOMIST: How free is free?

Though the case for liberalisation seems to be making headway in most liberal democracies, there are still many who oppose, on moral grounds, anything that smacks of official sanctioning of sex for money.

ECONOMIST: Sex for sale, legally | The

How will liberal democracies accommodate such variety?

ECONOMIST: Islam and demography