Varzari P. Challenges and implications of democracy in the context of contemporary society This paper approaches some problems of democracy and its challenges, considering that the academic perceptions regarding the analyzed phenomenon are quite differentiated in form and content, while the practice of contemporary democratic societies vary from country to country. It is shown that democracy as phenomenon and democratization as a process have become the most debated topics in political science. In this context, the dedicated literature is mainly analyzing two forms of democracy (direct and representative) and a set of types and models of it. The analysis concludes that even if the democratic paradigm has proven to be the product of an important historical, institutional and cultural effort, yet contemporary democracy, through its genesis and its current manifestations, often remains confused in front of a number of problems, challenges and uncertainties that not all the time can be solved rationally by decision makers.