This article offers a review of influential theoretical positions endeavouring to conceptualise the conditions and mechanisms through which civil society can become productively involved in the articulation of public opinion and contribute its voice to political decision-making. It focuses specifically on the contested relationship between civil and political society and the specifics of the discourses they produce in the political public sphere. Employing the so constructed theoretical framework, the article proceeds to take stock of the processes currently unfolding in the Bulgarian public sphere paying special attention to the modes of their mediatisation. In the focus of the analysis is the case of the civil society group Protest Network. It concludes that a social formation labelled the protest sphere emerges out of the experiences of civil society activists who struggle for publicity of their causes and demands. The protest sphere takes the place of the missing mechanisms supposed to transmit the concerns of civil society actors to formal political and legal institutions in an operational liberal democracy. Despite the fact that it is set in motion by members of civil society, the protest sphere is profoundly political and its role in a democratic society needs to be carefully examined.

本文对有影响力的理论立场进行了综述，这些理论立场旨在使公民社会可以有效地参与公众意见的表达并为政治决策做出贡献的条件和机制进行概念化。它特别关注公民和政治社会之间存在争议的关系，以及它们在政治公共领域中产生的话语的细节。本文采用这样构建的理论框架，着手对保加利亚公共领域当前正在发展的过程进行评估，并特别注意其中介模式。分析重点是民间社会团体“抗议网络”的情况。结论是，一个社会形态标记了抗议领域从为争取其原因和要求而奋斗的民间社会活动家的经验中脱颖而出。抗议领域取代了缺失的机制，这些机制原本旨在将公民社会行为者的关切传达给运作自由民主中的正式政治和法律机构。尽管事实上它是由民间社会的成员发起的，但抗议领域具有深远的政治意义，它在民主社会中的作用需要仔细研究。