Questioning democracy through the state of "civil society", Romanian civil society as study case.

This paper presents an approach of the state of democracy through "civil society". From the fall of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, the liberal paradigm of civil society is the main tendency. Twenty years later, this paper proposes to ask the question: Is the liberal model of democracy still relevant today? And, if this model is not relevant anymore, which is the current model of democracy? According to the liberal paradigm, we propose to use the "state of civil society" to understand the democratic model beyond. In order to answer the question, this paper is based on an original method which link political theory and an empirical research. The paper is based on a study case in a post-communist country in democratization process: Romania. And more especially, on NGOs working on democratic issues through qualitative interviews of their representatives. With those interviews, the aim is to analyze the model of civil society the actors define, and then, to link the civil society model with its democratic implications. Finally, I’ll try to outline the state of democracy in Romania.