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This is a troubled age for democracy, but the nature of that trouble and why it is a problem for democracy is an open question, not easy to answer. Widespread wishing for responsible leaders who respect democratic norms and pursue policies to benefit people and protect the vulnerable don’t help much. The issue goes well beyond library contexts, but it is important that those in libraries think through our role in democracy as well. Micro-targeting library-centric problems won’t be effective and don’t address the key issue of this volume. The author can only address the future if we recover an understanding of the present by building up an understanding of actually-existing democracy: (1) the scope must be narrowed to accomplish the task; (2) the characteristics of the retreat from democracy should be established; (3) core working assumptions and values – what libraries are about in this context – must be established; (4) actually-existing democracy should then be characterized; (5) the role of libraries in actually-existing democracy is then explored; (6) the source and character of the threat that is driving the retreat from democracy and cutting away at the core of library assumptions and values is analyzed; (7) the chapter concludes by forming a basis of supporting libraries by unpacking their contribution to building and rebuilding democratic culture: libraries are simultaneously less and more important than is understood.

To develop and test a rapid method for evaluation of the corrosion protection (CP) of carbon steel (CS) by vapour corrosion inhibitors (VCI) films.

The determination of the CP by VCI on CSs is commonly carried out in a chamber applying neutral salt spray (NSS) and usually it takes many days. The common disadvantage of the various rapid methods created until now is the need of special laboratory equipment making their application complicated and inconvenient for field tests. The method for CP measurement of VCI films on CS described in this study is based on measurement of the height of the anodic peak under galvanostatic condition applied earlier on other types of films and coatings. By means of a calibration plot: peak height (V) vs NSS protection time (s), CP of VCI films on CS specimens expressed in hours NSS is determined in a few seconds without using an NSS chamber. Measurements of CP by VCI films under field conditions are performed applying a hand held tester.

Two groups of CS UNS G10180 steel specimens with increasing thickness of VCI films were studied – one in an NSS chamber and the second by the application of a corrosion tester. The correlation between the results obtained for the two groups of specimens was found and a calibration plot was made.

Based on this method, a special corrosion tester was developed, able to measure under field conditions as well.

The method subject of the paper is a further development of a galvanostatic method developed by the authors for CP evaluation of chromate films of Zn and Cd coatings. The method was modified according to the properties of VCI films

Opening the special issue on global protest and democracy since 2011, this article surveys the key dimensions of the debate. It provides a critical overview of significant protest events in the post-2011 period and explores a range of the analytical tools that may be used to understand them, before proceeding to identify, disaggregate, and draw into question some of the major claims that have emerged in literature on the post-2011 mobilizations. The articles contained within this volume are then outlined, revealing the novel and nuanced insights provided by the contributors with respect to the post-2011 protests’ composition, mobilization forms, frames, democratic practices, and interrelationships with other actors in pursuit of democratic reform. The article concludes with a discussion of the opportunities for further research into protest and democracy.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the rise of internationalized civil society elites in Poland engaged in the fields of development cooperation, democratization assistance, humanitarian relief and global education in the framework of private international governance theory.

Qualitative sociological approach and the methodology of cross-case analysis are employed in this study of Polish internationalized civil society elites.

Evidence would be provided that whereas in some donor countries the gap between civil society elites engaged abroad and their locally active colleagues obstructs the travel of ideas, in Poland aid professionals freely move between sectors, which has allowed for better exchange of know-how and also enhanced their influence on policy-making. At the same time, the existing divides within internationalized civil society elites in Poland – between “democratizing” or “developmental”, between secular and religious and between progressive and conservative as of late – are indicative of the ongoing formation of these elites and of the heterogeneity of the community of aid professionals.

In view of the worldwide fueling of populism by anti-elitist strategists, it is important to highlight the contribution of civil society elites to mainstreaming progressive humanitarian principles.

Whereas existing studies on elite formation in postsocialist countries like Poland examine political elites or the role of the intelligentsia for the fledgling middle class and local civil society, this paper focuses on the emergence of a stratum of Polish elites, which are both internationalized and engaged in the nonprofit sector.

The chapter attempts to evaluate the utility of applying multi-level governance outside of the EU, and also outside of the group of democratic states, to states that have defied the third wave of democratization and that are characterized by a so-called new authoritarianism. The case is the People’s Republic of China, and the focus falls on policy-making and implementation in the field of hydropower with special attention to the issue area of environmental protection.

The chapter draws on the notion of scales and indigenous Chinese governance concepts and brings these into a conversation with the concept of multi-level governance. Case studies on hydropower decision-making in China contribute empirical data in order to investigate the utility of multi-level governance in the Chinese governance context.

The chapter argues that if multi-level governance is to have utility in other cultural contexts it needs to move away from a consideration of pre-given scales as locus of authority and consider indigenous governance concepts and notions of scale, and it crucially needs to map power relationships in the making and implementation of policies in order to reach analytical depth.

The case of China shows that authoritarian regimes can be analysed in terms of multiple levels as authoritarianism no longer automatically implies strict top-down entities. Instead, autocracies can be highly fragmented and subject to complex decision-making processes that can arise during processes of administrative reform. This can lead to vibrant and reflexive systems of governance that exhibit adaptive skills necessary to ensure regime survival amidst a continuously diversifying society and changing external circumstances. As a consequence, a research programme looking at the new authoritarianism from a multi-level governance perspective has the capacity to uncover and describe new forms of governance, by bringing the concept into a conversation with indigenous governance concepts.

In China, informal networks between the energy bureaucracy and hydropower developers determine the hydropower decision-making process. This is particularly detrimental at a time when the Chinese government emphasizes the importance of the rule of law and social stability. Informal networks in which key government agencies are involved actively thwart the attempt of creating reliable institutions and more transparent and accountable processes of decision-making within the authoritarian governance framework.

The findings show the dominance of informal networks versus the formal decision-making process. This sidelines the environmental bureaucracy and fails to fully realize the importance of public input into the decision-making process as one potential element of institutionalized conflict resolution.

The chapter builds on existing multi-level governance approaches and fuses them with notions of scales and indigenous Chinese governance concepts in order to enable the applicability of the concept of multi-level governance outside of its area of origin. This advances the explanatory depth and theoretical reach of multi-level governance.

On 23 June 2016, 51.9% of those who voted in the UK referendum on membership of the European Union (EU) opted to leave. The impact of this result upon both British and European politics has been profoundly disruptive and divisive. It not only marks a ‘seismic moment in post-war British politics’ (McGowan, 2018, p. 4) but has also disrupted expectations for the European project; no Member State had previously left the Union. Political institutions have been thrown into disarray, many citizens remain in a situation of existential uncertainty, and the political realm is cleaving. What has come to be known as ‘Brexit’ seemingly marks a crisis; a tear or a wrench in the very fabric of European politics, or perhaps a knot in which different socio-political tendencies have become entangled. In this chapter, the authors are interested not so much in diagnosing the factors that led to Brexit as they are the different interpretations that the ‘Brexit crisis’ is now being given. The authors map out five readings of ‘the Brexit crisis’ and contend that any attempt to grasp the meaning of Brexit demands drawing on all of them.

The above quotations highlight the adverse consequences of corruption in many countries around the world today. Indeed, the research taboo on corruption, which Gunnar Myrdal identified in 1968, no longer exists, and the silence on the “C” word (corruption) in the World Bank was broken by James Wolfensohn in his famous October 1996 speech, which focused on the negative consequences of the “cancer of corruption” on the World Bank's aid programs.

This chapter shows, from a comprehensive and dynamic approach, a unitary idea of Europe that shatters the fragmentation and reification of the old continent that is being politically projected. The research, based on a brief overview of the geopolitical and territorial diversity of the Western European countries, recovers the cartographic representation of Europe made by Sebastian Münster in 1544. It aims to represent a renewed area that has strengthened its international presence, based on the legitimization of divergent trajectories explained through interactive logics.

The political agenda for socio-educational issues portrays the contextual diversity that rules the governance of the Western European education systems. At the same time, it shows unification regarding inclusive institutional paradigms where the most significant achievements are accomplished within the European strategic framework. The research allows us to move on from the nationalist–post-nationalist option. Part of the European scene from which present and future lines of joint action are extracted in relation to sustainability, economic digitization and/or reformulation of the social system model.

Comprehensive nuclear disarmament which has been traditionally regarded as an idealistic and unachievable objective in the foreseeable future is now receiving greater attention from all quarters including major countries, statesmen and international NGOs. In fact, recent initiative for a nuclear-free world came from four well-known US political figures namely George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn and William Perry. Though the process towards nuclear disarmament seems long, arduous and extremely complicated, it is, no doubt, emerging as the primary mission of the international community. In today’s world many think that a nuclear weapon free world is achievable; an optimism, probably, generated by the end of Cold War politics. However, the objective of this chapter is not to map the contours of global nuclear disarmament but to limit to a discussion on European remedies, if any, for Russian nuclear disarmament.