THE CONCEPT OF CIVIL SOCIETY INSTITUTIONS: HISTORICAL AND CONTEMPORARY DIMENSIONS

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the formation of the modern national concept of civil society. It was established that it is still at the stage of transformational development. It was determined that the features of the historical development of the state mark this pro-cess. The existence of multifacetedness in the definitions of the concepts "civil society" and "civil society institution" formulated by scientists was established. Based on the results of the study and analysis of the work of domestic and foreign scientists, the main stages of the development of civil society were characterized. The author's own vision of the periodiza-tion of the formation of civil society in independent Ukraine is presented. The approaches followed by scientists when defining the definitions of such concepts as "civil society institution" and "civil society institution" are analyzed. The criteria by which it is expedient to delimit these concepts have been defined. It is emphasized that the correct definition of such a category as "civil society institution" and its adequate interpretation re-quires the definition of the immanent features of this phenomenon. The author's definition of the concept of "civil society institution" has been formulated, by which the author understands independent, independent from the state, voluntary as-sociations of socially active citizens, created to realize the public interest, whose activities take place within the legal field and are regulated by the dispositive method of legal regu-lation. Among the immanent features of civil society institutions, the following are high-lighted: 1) voluntary creation; 2) direction of activity – realization of public interest thanks to initiative of members; 3) the activity is regulated by law, but has a dispositive character; 4) inherent organic type of management structure, horizontal connections prevail.