For the last decade, organizations have slowly incorporated a new vocabulary in their daily activities. They are becoming "sustainable" and "responsible"; they support "ethical" and "fair" values; they even sometimes defend "social justice". Some define themselves as "citizen", or "democratic". This evolution has occurred both under stronger and stronger pressures made on corporations by social movements, and by the will of emerging actors trying to develop businesses based on new models. The aim of this article is not to judge, to validate, nor to reject these initiatives but to take them at their word. Since this vocabulary is drawn from political sciences, we will use references and concepts from this field to clarify the notion of democracy, and examine the requirements, drifts and consequences that it could have when applied within organizations. It is not the prescription of a model that is sought in this essay, neither is the critic of this democratic will (and pretention), but rather the imperative of a scientific analysis of what it implies.
