Civil Society: Theoretical approaches to the definition

The article is devoted to the analysis and generalization of the basic approaches to the disclosure of the nature and essential features of the civil society in the modern world. The author substantiates the view that the most complete picture of the civil society today provides an approach that reveals it as a sphere of free communication participants in public relations, based on no family ties, and the aim to implement some common interests (political, social, economic, cultural and other nature) outside the institutions of public authority.