This article is dedicated to the analysis of the normative interrelation and interaction between a civil society and a state in the conception of democracy of Australian political philosopher John Keane. This issue is relevant to Russia to the extent that the task of forming the effective civil society, which is actually able to control the activity of the state power, remains relevant. The author of this article shows how John Kean is looking for the relevant to the time answers on questions about the necessary role of the civil society; he characterizes the conception of John Keane as the minimalistic one, which connects the democracy to the number of necessary procedures, which, however, is very sensitive to the contemporary problem of flexibility of the decision making, real and broad pluralism, democratic control and real accountability of a state power, as well as to the problems of the formation of the sufficiently consolidated civil society on a global scale.
