The article contains analysis of problems rising in the way of the development of public policy in Russia. On considering the argumentation of supporters of both approaches to the study of public policy, i.e. of the institutional and of the agency approaches, the author comes to the idea of the need for a synthesis of both. It is demonstrated in the article that both sides involved in the process and accentuated by the respective approaches, i.e. both the “traditional” institutions and the political actors making use of them, in reality produce the effect of strengthening each other: the “traditional actors”, in spite of all new requirements, reproduce in their everyday practices the “traditional institutions”, and these latter, being deeply rooted in social consciousness on the level of habits, ensure informal defence of the “traditional actors”. According to the author’s conclusion, it is not a concrete actor and not even an individual socio-political institution, but all the social medium, that resists formation of public policy in our country.