Civil society currently plays a central role in debates on democratic transitions and democratic consolidation. However, the success of civil society is proportionate to the imprecision of its definition, and its applicability in Southern countries seems to be called into question due to its intellectual genealogy being so deeply rooted in Western political philosophy. By examining the case of Africa, where the emergence of civil society is being discussed, enables the concept and the many instrumentalizations where it can be applied to once again be seen from a critical perspective. In particular, this analysis suggests that the concept of civil society is accepted and used differently by the various actors of democratization, and that their views on it differ significantly from those with which it is traditionally associated. Above all, the issue of establishing a strong civil society in Southern countries has to be addressed in historic terms, i.e., having removed all ethnocentric presuppositions.