Abstract
In the 90's, development studies, mostly sponsored by international donors, had started to put to much emphasis on NGOs and their crucial role to promote democracy and development both in the post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe and in developing countries. This emphasis has brought the term "Civil Society" to current use in different knowledge fields, and more recently, to organization studies. Often, the concept of "Civil Society" is connected to the concept of "Third Sector", which has acquired a succedaneum status. The confusion of these two concepts corresponds to a kind of "depoliticized" representation of "the part as a whole". The present essay has the purpose of bringing back in the concept of Civil Society from its origins and main conceptual lines, in order to build a multidimensional referential frame to ascribe a more politicized sense to the term.