The article concerns importance of the category of policy and politics in modern political science, significant conceptual and theoretical lines of agreement and disagreement about scope of “politics” and cognate terms. The authors analyze the changes that occur in the way of thinking about the conception of theory politics and of politics as a practice. They also draw attention to the various implications of the evolution of these categories within the discipline. They analyze the way of constructing scientific models of politics, the status of normative approaches (policies and politics) within political science, and mutual influence politicians and political experts.