The article examines the issue of the democratic paradigm with the aim to provide a meaningful understanding of the concept and to highlight the main theoretical approaches and problems faced by democracy in contemporary society. In this sense, the notion of democracy is conceptually delimited. Also, the diversity of the concepts of the notion of democracy, which is given not only by the etymological significance, but also by many other aspects such as historical, political, philosophical, cultural, economic, social circumstances – all contribute to the multitude of interpretations and models that this has concept. Although democracy is currently seen as the best form of government, it still faces many difficult issues to solve, with various socio-political challenges and cleavages. Since democracy functionally offers a legitimacy to political life as a whole, the author has tried to respond to some issues related to the advantages and disadvantages of democracy, the challenges of democratic transition in the post-Soviet space.