Civil Society: In Search of Essence

Recently, the issue of the nature of civil society in Russia has been actively discussed in domestic discourse. Moreover, positions in this debate have become a marker for certain segments of social thought. An attempt is made towards understanding the essence of this concept by analyzing the trends of macro-social changes in the West and their impact on the conceptualization of the concept of civil society. A significant trend in this conceptualization is the exaggeration of the political functions of civil society, on the one hand, and the elimination of its moral and ethical influence on the nature of social development, on the other.