In the modern world the functioning of political and social systems is accompanied by a large number of political and ethno-political conflicts, but their scientific explication and theoretical understanding are incomplete. There is no abstract understanding of the boundaries of the considered knowledge units - this is one of the problems. A comparative analysis of the political and ethnopolitical conflicts definitions, as it was found, cannot lead to a solution to this problem, therefore, the article discusses the similarities and differences of categories in various theoretical subjects, for example, in the plot of the difference between political and ethnopolitical conflicts in terms of multi-scale. Conclusions are drawn that the categories studied cannot be reduced to each other; on various aspects, they have some similarities (instruments for implementing the conflict, institutionalization of the conflict, interpretation of the conflict, the system of parties identities to the conflict) and differences (