The article identifies the main approaches to understanding civil society as a philosophical and legal category, which allowed to show pluralism of this definition. The author analyzes the conceptual foundations of civil society in the history of philosophical and legal discourse. It is substantiated that the invariant content of the concept of civil society remained the ideas of freedom, equality, justice, social values and virtues. It is emphasized that modern civil society is a guarantee of democratization and needs proper legal support in the context of globalization challenges.
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