The article contains the author’s suggestions how to use terms “good politics” and “bad politics” as theoretical tools of political study. The author provides rationale for assigning a meaning to these terms allowing political scientists to tackle applied and theoretical tasks – to explore and interpret conflict situations between two bases of liberal and democratic process, in particular, i.e., on the one hand, its formal structure invigorating the process’ participants to address political challenges with the help of democratic institutions and technologies, and, on the other hand, political actors’ understanding that their chances to use these institutions and technologies in order to gain personal and public profit are rather low. Methodological potential of “good politics” and “bad politics” terms is explained on the example of solving two issues. The first one is revealing the source of liberal politics’ ability to embody the progress of modern civilization without significant institutional and functional changes. The second one implies defining the level of legitimacy of liberal and democratic politics without using economic term “efficacy” within its political study.