The two major political institutions acting in modern democracies–civil society and the state–assume new ways of relating among themselves, thereby producing new democratic governance. Discusses two aspects of this global change: the republican democracy that is emerging in the twenty-first century and public management reform. The objective of this reform is to increase state capacity, to create a ‘strong state’: able to produce representative and accountable democratic governments; able to protect civil rights and assure markets, and so liberal; able to promote social justice, and so social; able to resist corruption and rent seeking, and thus republican. Starts from the assumption that, just as only a strong civil society may guarantee democracy, only a strong state may assure competitive markets. Defines the words ‘nation-state’ (or ‘country’), state, and civil society.