Civil society, while being an elastic concept, is widely understood as space outside the state, the market and private sphere that among others, contributes greatly to the quality of democracy providing non-electoral participation forms in day-to day politics. This civil society ethos was very much in focus in the 1989/90 in East Central Europe in newly established democracies and contributed significantly to system change. The democracy decline process in the region after 2010 and the birth of illiberal democracies brought about changes in the attitudes towards and the understanding of civil society. Based on the Hungarian case I argue that the Orbán regime has redefined the concepts, the forms and the context of civil society and in this process we can trace to regime’s understanding of politics in general that can shed light on other fields of governance, too.