The article presents approaches, hypotheses and some results of research of political space formation problem in Russia, substantially related to the question of modern-type politics as a competition of projects and decisions oriented towards the common good. The constitution of political space implies the processes of institutionalization and politicization, public discussion of alternative solutions to socially signifi cant problems, political nature of government decisions, expanding people's ability to deliberate and infl uence the key aspects of social being. The institutional analysis, identifying a set of rules (institutional environment) of politics formation processes, and sociological analysis, revealing citizens' attitudes towards them and the impact rules have on actors' behavior, are used. Neo-classical republican point of view allows to assess the potential of neo-classical model of political order, deliberative approach provides means to verify the hypothesis concerning the conditions of deliberative politics model's fulfi llment. The analysis used data from a nationwide representative survey, conducted by the Department of Comparative Political Studies of the Institute of Sociology, FCTAS RAS, in June 2018. It is demonstrated, that for majority of Russians, politics is a sphere where personal goals are pursued and group (clique) interests are reconciled. Non-political and deformalized "zone of power" reinforces the dominant perception of politics as depoliticized administration and serves, therefore, as the most powerful constraint for the modern politics' formation.