Three traditions of the understanding politics, which have been traced in this article are: 1. politics as participation, 2. politics as conflict and the exercise of force, and 3. politics as a governing process. The first tradition was founded by the ancient Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle. Its main thesis was the unity of politics, society and ethics. Politics in this tradition was understood as a civic activity motivated by the ideas of justice and public good. This classic tradition constitutes a marginal current of the contemporary empirical theory. The second (modern) tradition in political theory understands politics as a sphere of conflict to be resolved by the exercise of force. It takes the origins in the Machiavellian and Hobbesian political writing. The third tradition – politics as a governing process- is a dominant paradigm of the contemporary theory of politics. Its key concepts are: group pluralism, public policy, performance politics and governance.