The article presents investigation of the model of a political governance cycle, of the model’s heuristic potential for studying the process of political decision making. Discussing the stronger and the weaker sides of the model, the authors finally come to the conclusion that for all its relatively low explaining potential and its inaptitude to disclose the inner relations, tendencies and dependencies proper to the systems of decision making, it is an effective instrument of putting empirical information in order and can and must be used, as such, by specialists in state governance. In the concluding part of the article, the author dwells on criteria of dividing a political governance cycle into single phases, and analyzes in detail the content of the first phase, in so far as it involves determining societal priority problems and the agenda formation.